RIP, Bottom Line score ticker at ESPN.
ESPN is set to remove its BottomLine ticker during college football games this season in a move to free up more on-screen real estate, per a report by Ryan Glasspiegel in Front Office Sports.
The move will bring all of ESPN’s college football broadcasts in line with its major events, like the College Football Playoff or NBA postseason games, which already do not feature the on-screen ticker. This season, all college football games on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNU, and ESPNEWS will go without the BottomLine.
Awful Announcing has been calling for this change for quite some time, as the ticker has become an unneeded distraction in the world of smartphones, when every score for every game can be seen in an instant, whenever the viewer wants.
“We’re always looking for ways to better serve sports fans. By removing the BottomLine during live action, we’re creating a cleaner presentation that keeps the focus where it belongs—on the field,” an ESPN spokesperson told Front Office Sports.
I’m sure that it’s not really for the aesthetics. Certainly, ESPN has some other plan for the space that was in the future months.
Some other ideas for replacements for the ESPN Bottom Line:
- Details on new and ongoing legal filings surrounding college football and the NIL.
- Non-stop, in-game advertising for medication and their growing lists of side effects, including dry mouth, constipation, dizziness, chronic fatigue, sudden muscular inversion and skin layer reversal, psychosis, paranoid schizophrenic delusions, and death. But, hey, at least you don’t have psoriasis anymore. Ask a doctor for more information. TODAY.
- Live Tweeting from Paul Finebaum’s regular guests.
- Unending side bet options from BetMGM, along with movement on lines leading up to the game.
- Updates to live transfer portal news that occurs in game, including players who switch sidelines mid-game.
To say it in my most GenX way possible…whatever.
The great Mickey will not let this prime real estate not grow their income. More betting ads and promotions for their “exciting, award winning” shows.
What I do wish is for someone to figure a way to include the yard line on the score bug overlay.
This new generation will never know the pain of dealing with a bookie, and being glued to CNN Headline News to see the ticker to get score updates on a Mountain West midnight slobberknocker.
I’d be perfectly fine with live in-game advertisements running across the ticker if they would get rid of the damn TV timeouts that have just about completely ruined the flow of the game.
Same here.
Maybe I’m old school, but I like the ticker when it is used to show scores and KO times for upcoming games. Ads, not so much. I bet there is no way they do this during NFL games where half the people watching are playing fantasy or have bets on various parts of other games.
You nailed it. Not going away but reverting to ad space. Heather Dimwit predicted yesterday on radio that it’s a move to drive people to the app which will no longer be free to get scores thus capturing the betting audience in subscriptions. I think she’s right.
This probably shows how The Worldwide Leader has figured making folks check their phones generates more revenue than actually broadcasting games. Cutting cords has hit em hard, hence AppleTV, Amazon and Netflix entering the sport event coverage sphere. The Cable TV advertising spaces are dying like newspapers, figure even broadcasting games comes next.