{"id":627108,"date":"2026-05-06T15:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627108\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T15:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:49:11","slug":"peter-schrager-sportscenter-in-the-middle-of-espns-weekday-plan-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/627108\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Schrager, SportsCenter in the middle of ESPN\u2019s weekday plan: Sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly a quarter century, \u201cAround The Horn\u201d said goodbye a year ago<\/a>. In its wake, ESPN set out to replace the 5 p.m. talk\/game show that led into the iconic \u201cPardon The Interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN executives also started thinking about how to create a new hour-long program at 2 p.m. that would follow \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show,\u201d which airs on ESPN from noon to 2 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Now, ESPN has clear leading candidates for what it will do at the beginning of football season in the fall.<\/p>\n

According to sources briefed on ESPN\u2019s plans, a show centered on Peter Schrager is the likely winner for the 2 p.m. hour, while SportsCenter has the inside track to continue in ATH\u2019s former 5 p.m. slot, buoyed by continuous strong ratings in the year since it launched there.<\/p>\n

No decisions are yet final. ESPN declined comment.<\/p>\n

ESPN executives had flirted with moving Scott Van Pelt, the captain of his own late-night \u201cSportsCenter,\u201d to begin a daily show at 5 p.m., but ultimately all involved decided it was better to keep Van Pelt in his same role, along with his \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d pregame hosting.<\/p>\n

At one point, post-ATH, ESPN also considered expanding PTI to an hour, though the idea never came to fruition.<\/p>\n

Schrager, 44, has been on the rise since he joined ESPN a little more than a year ago, appearing on several studio shows, including \u201cGet Up,\u201d \u201cNFL Live\u201d and McAfee\u2019s program. He has also guest-hosted \u201cGet Up\u201d in place of Mike Greenberg, which gave ESPN executives even more confidence that he could handle his own hour. Since nothing is official, Schrager\u2019s cohorts are still to be determined. Currently, at 2 p.m., ESPN has an hour-long SportsCenter.<\/p>\n

The 5 p.m. edition of SportsCenter is putting up bigger numbers than ATH did. SportsCenter averaged 446,000 viewers in April, which was 23 percent better than ATH for the same month last year.<\/p>\n

While ESPN has not made any final decisions, part of the network\u2019s calculation to stay with SportsCenter is the future of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.<\/p>\n

ESPN would like for Kornheiser, 77, and Wilbon, 67, to host PTI as long as they want. When they sign off for the final time, the plan may be to retool the complete hour then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly a quarter century, \u201cAround The Horn\u201d said goodbye a year ago. In its wake, ESPN set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99,1794],"class_list":["post-627108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}