ESPN Goal Line & ESPN Bases Loaded was a gametime-only

cable channel Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broa ...

operated by

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

which operated from the start of the 2010 college football season until the end of the 2019 college football season. The channel was active during two college sports seasons; during

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

season as ESPN Goal Line and through the NCAA Division I Softball Championship for

college softball College softball is softball as played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education, predominantly in the United States. College softball is normally played by women at the Intercollegiate level, whereas college baseball is nor ...

and

NCAA Division I Baseball Championship The NCAA Division I Baseball Championship is held each year from May through June and features 64 college baseball teams in the United States, culminating in the eight-team College World Series, Men's College World Series (MCWS) at Charles Schwa ...

for

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played by Student athlete, student-athletes at institutions of higher education. In the United States, college baseball is sanctioned mainly by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA); in Japan, ...

as ESPN Bases Loaded. In both cases, the coverage provided live look-ins and analysis of multiple games in progress. The coverage switched between games to show interesting defensive plays and scoring drives, such as offensive teams entering the red zone (football) or with runners in scoring position (baseball/softball). Goal Line aired during the regular season on Saturdays from 3:00 p.m. ET to approximately 11:30 p.m. It also ran throughout the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

as an alternate feed for Megacast coverage, usually as a "datacast" feed of extended data. The network was occasionally simulcast on

ESPNews ESPNews (pronounced "ESPN News," stylized ESPNEWS) is an American multinational digital cable and satellite television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hear ...

in the late afternoon or early evening when that channel was not carrying its own games. Bases Loaded operated during the early rounds of the NCAA Softball & Baseball Championship. At its launch, the channel was made available to customers of

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, o ...

and Bright House Networks systems, and became available soon after to customers of Verizon FiOS TV. In addition, the channel is also carried on

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

Cox Communications Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable), is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services comp ...

, Charter Communications,

Sling TV Sling TV is an American streaming television service operated by Sling TV LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dish Network. Unveiled on January 5, 2015, at the Consumer Electronics Show, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor aim ...

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

Hulu Hulu (, ) is an American Subscription business model, subscription streaming media service owned by Disney Streaming, a subsidiary of the Disney Entertainment segment of the Walt Disney Company. It was launched on October 29, 2007, initially as ...

and

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

. During the network's downtime, it would promote the next week or event that would air with a still card and a loop of ESPN's college football theme of the time as background audio; cable providers were disallowed from using the channel space for other purposes. The channel formerly operated a third iteration of the service in the same channel space during the

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

season known as ESPN Buzzer Beater, which broadcast on Wednesday nights and Saturdays from December to early March. In July 2017, ESPN announced that it had discontinued Buzzer Beater, in order to "shift resources to better position ourselves for the long-term". The Goal Line and Bases Loaded services were not affected by this change. Officially, the network's last program was the

2020 College Football Playoff National Championship The 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship was a college football bowl game played on January 13, 2020 (which was the latest calendar date for the game until 2025), at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The six ...

on January 13, 2020, when it again carried the DataCast channel for ESPN's Megacast coverage.

Network closing

The 2020 version of Bases Loaded would never occur, due to the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

causing the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA baseball and softball seasons, including their associated

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

and softball tourneys; the cancellation was announced on March 12, 2020. One day after on March 13, Disney Media Distribution sent notice to providers that the network would be discontinued on June 30, 2020, with notice of it relayed to customers between late May and mid June. The discontinuation was thought of as a foregone conclusion, as ESPN pushes viewers to its streaming service,

ESPN+ ESPN+ is an American over-the-top subscription video streaming service available in the United States, owned by ESPN Inc., which is a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communicati ...

, which allows the customer the choice of following any ESPN/ABC-aired game at their own pace, along with overall network cutbacks of extraneous wireline networks and connected on-air staff. With no other programming to promote, the channel space merely carried a looping video of the ESPN logo and audio of the network's default NCAA championship theme in the background after March 13, until the network feed was quietly dropped at 11:59 p.m. ET on June 30, 2020.

References

External links

Goalline Television channels and stations established in 2010 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2020 English-language television stations in the United States Sports television networks in the United States Defunct television networks in the United States

Network closing

References

See also

External links