{"id":490557,"date":"2026-02-19T17:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490557\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T17:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:07:08","slug":"espn-will-replace-mlb-sunday-night-baseball-with-full-slate-of-womens-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490557\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Will Replace MLB \u2018Sunday Night Baseball\u2019 With Full Slate of Women\u2019s Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">MLB\u2019s broadcasting <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/baseball-reported-new-tv-deals-nbc-netflix-espn-look-like\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will look different in 2026<\/a> as the league\u2019s full media deal with ESPN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/mlb-espn-drop-national-tv-contract-following-2025-season\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ended after last season<\/a>. One of the biggest changes will be the elimination of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN after 35 years, as the network will now showcase 30 weeknight games in the season instead of exclusively every Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">ESPN has officially decided how it will replace Sunday Night Baseball\u2019s slot on the weekend. The network <a href=\"https:\/\/espnpressroom.com\/us\/press-releases\/2026\/02\/espn-to-launch-womens-sports-sundays-a-first-of-its-kind-summer-weekly-primetime-franchise-showcasing-the-best-of-womens-sports-in-premium-windows\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">will dedicate the whole day to women\u2019s sports<\/a>, cleverly calling it Women\u2019s Sports Sundays, <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2026\/tv\/news\/espn-womens-sports-sundays-replaces-sunday-night-baseball-1236666776\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">per Variety<\/a>. ESPN plans to showcase the WNBA, NWSL, women\u2019s college basketball, softball and any other primetime women\u2019s sports happening on Sundays.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">\u201cSunday is a day of the week when we see a ton of our best women\u2019s sports programming, and we will have events outside of our primetime window,\u201d\u00a0Susie Piotrkowsk<a href=\"https:\/\/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fespnpressroom.com%2Fus%2Fbios%2Fsusie-piotrkowski%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cbrian.steinberg%40variety.com%7Cac23303c25d04d17b9b108de6e34a7a5%7Ce950f25546e44144a778a6ff4f557492%7C0%7C0%7C639069370377003470%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=G3z5WYdRzpndT4re9qNXykQdNlXZys76hPw1rm47rSg%3D&amp;reserved=0\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">i<\/a>, vice president of women\u2019s sports programming and espnW, told Variety. \u201cWe saw an opportunity to have access in what I would call women\u2019s sports season, the summer months. This was an opportunity to be intentional and make sure our most premium women\u2019s sports properties [were shown regularly].\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">The network will announce the schedule, commentators and information about Women\u2019s Sports Sundays in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p>More WNBA on Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MLB\u2019s broadcasting will look different in 2026 as the league\u2019s full media deal with ESPN ended after last&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-490557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}