Recent History
ESPN has rapidly increased its coverage throughout the years as the network as expanded from a single cable channel to a multiple outlets including the internet.
In 2003, ESPN and its sister networks aired all the games of the Women's NCAA Tournament for the first time ever, a practice that still exists today.
On March 4, 2005, ESPNU premiered on the outset of a Texas–Oklahoma State game from Stillwater, Oklahoma with a special two-hour edition of College GameDay. ESPNU has aired the first set of games of each season, beginning in its initial season of 2005.
In 2005–06, the ESPN family of networks aired 884 games (they aired 140 women's games that year). However the following season, they aired over 1000 games.
In 2007, ESPNU as well as ESPN2 aired the first-ever NIT Selection Show. Also, ESPN Radio aired its first-ever coverage of the Selection Sunday. Also that year, a then-record of more than 3.3 million brackets entered on ESPN.com suprassing the record set the previous year.
During the 2007–2008 season, the ESPN networks aired a total of more than 1,050 men's games and 150 women's games. ESPNU aired over 250 games. In addition, ESPN aired Pac-10 games for the first time since 1995, through a new agreement with FSN. They showed a total of 2 games. The year was marked by Dick Vitale missing his first assignment ever due to surgery. He was replaced by Jay Bilas on Saturday Primetime. He returned on February 6 for the UNC-Duke matchup. Due to the 2008 Atlanta tornado outbreak, ESPN2, instead of CBS, aired the 2008 SEC Tournament finals from Alexander Memorial Coliseum on the campus of Georgia Tech. However, CBS production was utilized including talent and graphics. ESPN had a record 3.65 million entries for the Tournament Challenge.
Legendary basketball coach Bob Knight retired from coaching in February 2008, he joined ESPN, the following month as a studio analyst for Championship Week and later appeared during March Madness including on location from San Antonio at the Final Four. His role was greatly expanded during the 2008–09 season, when he appeared on many platforms including a weekly Thursday game as well as College GameDay.
On November 18, 2008, ESPN aired the first College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon. The first game tipped off at 11:59 on November 17 and a total of nine games culminated with a UK-UNC matchup. This matchup was proceeded by a special edition of College GameDay. A total of 23 straight hours of college basketball were aired.
The ESPN family of networks is scheduled to air a total of about 1,100 games during 2008–09 season, which includes ESPN360. ESPNU will air 235 of those.
There will be a total of 148 women's basketball games during 2008–09 season including the entire NCAA Tournament.
Beginning with the November 11, 2011 broadcast, all men's and women's college basketball games that air on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU are now broadcast in HD, with a 16:9 letterbox presentation used for all games, including the said networks' standard-definition feeds, which all games are now letterboxed.
Read more about this topic: College Basketball On ESPN, History
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“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)