Arena Football League on ESPN

*Arena Football League on ESPN*
Arena Football League on ESPN
	File:Aflespn.jpg
Starring	Mike Greenberg; Mike Golic; (for more, see below)
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	3 hours
Original release
Network	ESPN (2007-); ESPN2 (2007-); ABC (2007-)
Release	March 4, 2007 –; Present

Russell Athletic ESPN Arena Football League is a presentation of the Arena Football League on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Radio and ESPN on ABC. The telecasts are also expected to be simucast on ESPNHD, ESPN2HD and ABC HD. The agreement will run from the 2007 season opener and last five years till the end of the 2011 season.

ESPN previously televised Arena Football League regular season and playoff games from 1995-1999, and most recently televised AFL playoff games from 2000-02. It also aired the inaugural ArenaBowl live in 1987, while ABC aired the ArenaBowl five consecutive years from 1998–2002.

The official name for the ESPN2 Monday night games is called ESPN2 Arena Football Monday presented by Russell Athletic.

History

Agreement

On December 19, 2006, ESPN and the Arena Football League agreed to a five-year agreement that includes extensive multimedia rights and a minimum of 26 televised games per season, beginning in 2007 and lasting until 2011. As part of the deal, ESPN purchased a minority stake, reportedly ten percent, in the AFL. The network will gain privileged financial information, but insists that it will not give the AFL more favorable coverage on shows like SportsCenter as a result.^[1] ESPN will televise a minimum of 17 regular-season games and nine playoff games -- including a minimum of three Wild Card games, three Divisional Playoff games, both Conference Championships and the ArenaBowl on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC. ESPN will also have an exclusive window for weekly Monday night primetime games on ESPN2. Both the season opener and ArenaBowl will be on ABC, where three wild card games, two divisional games and one conference championship will be on ESPN and the seventeen regular season Monday night games, one wild card game, two divisional games and one conference championship game will all be on ESPN2.

2007 Schedule

(All times Eastern)

Week	Date	Time	Game	Score	Network
Week 1	Sunday, March 4, 2007	12:30pm	Chicago Rush at Kansas City Brigade	KC 54, CHI 41	ABC
Week 1	Sunday, March 4, 2007	12:30pm	Dallas Desperados at New York Dragons	DAL 60, NY 7	ABC
Week 2	Monday, March 12, 2007	7pm	Los Angeles Avengers at Orlando Predators	LA 44, ORL 37	ESPN2
Week 4	Thursday, March 22, 2007	7pm	Colorado Crush at Philadelphia Soul	PHI 71, COL 47	ESPN2
Week 4	Monday, March 26, 2007	7pm	Dallas Desperados at Orlando Predators	DAL 70, ORL 42	ESPN2
Week 5	Sunday, April 1, 2007	1:30pm	Los Angeles Avengers at Chicago Rush	CHI 66, LA 31	ESPN2
Week 6	Monday, April 9, 2007	7:30pm	Georgia Force at Philadelphia Soul	GA 57, PHI 49	ESPN2
Week 7	Monday, April 16, 2007	8pm	Philadelphia Soul at Dallas Desperados	PHI 41, DAL 51	ESPN2
Week 8	Monday, April 23, 2007	7:30pm	Philadelphia Soul at Columbus Destroyers	PHI 21, COL 44	ESPN2
Week 9	Monday, April 30, 2007	8pm	Philadelphia Soul at Chicago Rush		ESPN2
Week 10	Monday, May 7, 2007	8pm	Colorado Crush at Chicago Rush		ESPN2
Week 11	Monday, May 14, 2007	7:30pm	New York Dragons at Philadelphia Soul		ESPN2
Week 12	Monday, May 21, 2007	7:30pm	New Orleans VooDoo at Philadelphia Soul		ESPN2
Week 13	Monday, May 28, 2007	8pm	New York Dragons at New Orleans VooDoo		ESPN2
Week 14	Monday, June 4, 2007	10:30pm	Colorado Crush at Utah Blaze		ESPN2
Week 15	Monday, June 11, 2007	10pm	Los Angeles Avengers at Arizona Rattlers		ESPN2
Week 16	Monday, June 18, 2007	10pm	Dallas Desperados at Colorado Crush		ESPN2
Week 17	Monday, June 25, 2007	10pm	Chicago Rush at Colorado Crush		ESPN2
Wildcard	Friday, June 29, 2007	7pm			ESPN
	Saturday, June 30, 2007	12pm			ESPN
	Saturday, June 30, 2007	3pm			ESPN
	Monday, July 2, 2007	10pm			ESPN2
Divisional	Saturday, July 7, 2007	3pm			ESPN
	Saturday, July 7, 2007	8pm			ESPN
	Sunday, July 8, 2007	9pm			ESPN2
	Monday, July 9, 2007	7:30pm			ESPN2
Conference Championship	Saturday, July 14, 2007	3pm			ESPN
Conference Championship	Sunday, July 15, 2007	12:30pm			ESPN2
ArenaBowl XXI	Sunday, July 29, 2007	3pm			ABC

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Personalities

Early on, ESPN said they would use "some prominent faces in the broadcast booth" and ended up going with the popular duo of Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic from ESPN Radio and ESPN2's Mike and Mike in the Morning for their number one team. The second team will consist of NFL Live's Trey Wingo and Mark Schlereth with the third being Ron Jaworski and Merril Hoge. Jay Rothman, producer of Monday Night Football, and Bryan Ryder will also produce the Monday night Arena Football games on ESPN2. The announcements were made on January 16, 2007.^[2]^[3]

Team	Play-by-Play	Analyst(s)	Producer(s)
1	Mike Greenberg	Mike Golic	Jay Rothman Bryan Ryder
2	Trey Wingo	Mark Schlereth
3	Ron Jaworski	Merril Hoge

Former broadcasters of the AFL on ESPN and ABC included Mike Gleason, Gary Danielson, Brent Musburger, Merril Hoge, and Holly Rowe.

Controversy

Already some AFL fans are complaining that the TV schedule “inequitably favors teams” such as the Philadelphia Soul, Chicago Rush and Colorado Crush, teams whose ownerships include, respectively, Jon Bon Jovi, Mike Ditka and John Elway. The Soul (whose part-owner and team president is AFL on ESPN analyst Ron Jaworski) will appear in seven of the at least 17 games on ESPN platforms, more than any other team in the league.^[4] This criticism was also present when NBC went out of their way to not let some teams appear on their schedule.

References

External links

AFL Official Website

[1] ttp://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6401201.html

[2] ttp://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/local/orl-arena2006dec20,0,6508742.story?coll=orl-sports-headlines

[3] ttp://media.espn.com/ESPNToday/index.jsp?content=content.html

[4] ttp://www.cable360.net/cfax/

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