Williamsport Bound: ESPN’s Little League Coverage Heats Up at the 73rd Little League Baseball World Series

New Events this Year Include T-Mobile Little League Home Run Derby, Kidscast featuring Mo’ne Davis

Onsite SportsCenter, Baseball Tonight Telecasts During the Eleven-Day Tournament

ESPN’s record-breaking coverage of Little League moves ahead as Williamsport, Pa. prepares to welcome the 16 qualifying teams for the Little League Baseball World Series starting August 15 on ESPN, ESPN2, ABC. Regional games continue this week with 12 straight hours of regional semifinal and championship games Thursday, Friday and Saturday on ESPN.

Tuesday and Wednesday night, there will be MLB and Little League World Series doubleheaders as the New York Yankees face the Oakland Athletics at 10 p.m. ET both nights following the 7:30 p.m. Little League World Series games on ESPN.

Little League Baseball World Series Regional Locations:

Great Lakes (Westfield, Ind.); Mid-Atlantic (Bristol, Conn.); Midwest (Westfield, Ind.); New England (Bristol, Conn.); Northwest (San Bernardino, Calif.); Southeast (Warner Robins, Ga.); Southwest (Waco, Texas); West (San Bernardino, Calif.).

ESPN’s Little League Baseball Commentators:

Jim Barbar, David Belisle, Trey Bender, Kevin Brown, Chris Burke, Troy Clardy, David Dellucci, Drew Fellios, Josh Gregory, Mike LaValliere, Clay Matvick, Keith Moreland, Mark Neely, Greg Olsen, Karl Ravech, Mike Rooney, Matt Schick, Doug Sherman, Anish Shroff, Chris Singleton, Matt Stewart

Little League Softball World Series Underway

ESPN’s coverage of the Little League Softball World Series from Alpenrose Stadium in Portland, Ore. began Wednesday on ESPN+. The first 20 games of the Little League Softball World Series will air on ESPN+ with the final seven games across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNEWS. The Championship Game will air on ESPN on August 14 at 10 p.m. ET.

ESPN’s Little League Softball Commentators:

Jim Barbar, Trey Bender, Cara Capuano, Tyler Denning, Sam Dostaler, Joel Godett, Sam Farber, Drew Fellios, Matt Janus, Cheri Kempf, Courtney Lyle, Mike Monaco, Sam Ravech, Amanda Scarborough, Doug Sherman, Michele Smith, Matt Stewart, Chris Vosters, Pam Ward.

T-Mobile Little League Home Run Derby Championship

The top youth sluggers from across the country will compete in the first-ever T-Mobile Little League Home Run Derby Championship, which airs August 18 at 4:30 p.m. on ESPN as part of nearly a full day of Little League and Major League Baseball on the network. Since May, boys and girls from leagues across the country have been competing to qualify for the baseball and softball T-Mobile Little League Home Run Derby in local and regional competitions. While their teams might not be in the Little League World Series, the players that qualify will travel to Williamsport to compete in the baseball and softball editions of the T-Mobile Little League Home Run Derby Championship.

Innovation Around the Game

ESPN is bringing more exciting coverage to the Little League World Series by adding new and innovative production surrounding the events. For the first time, ESPN’s Little League World Series coverage from Williamsport will be produced in 1080p. Every game at Lamade Stadium will also have 4D replay surrounding the games, giving viewers 360-degree replays of the players as they swing for the fences. The last four days of the tournament will feature Umpire Cam, which highlights the unique perspective of plays from the vantage point of the umpire.

Kidscast

Wednesday, August 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2 will have a special Kidscast alternative experience. Aspiring broadcasters recruited from the Bruce Beck Sports Broadcasting Camp at Iona College will call Game 24 in the U.S. Winner’s Bracket. Sixteen-year-olds Eddie Kalegi and Aiden Blanc will be providing play-by-play in the booth as 15-year-old reporters Zoe Alter and Rahill Jaiswal are on the sidelines. Little League trailblazer Mo’ne Davis, the 2014 Little League Baseball World Series pitching sensation, will make her return to Williamsport and have a hand in the telecast as an analyst. A traditional broadcast of the game will simultaneously broadcast on ESPN.

SportsCenter & Baseball Tonight

ESPN is adding additional onsite coverage in Williamsport for the Little League World Series with SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. SportsCenter will be onsite at Williamsport August 18-22 with the hill-sliding, suit ruining Kevin Negandhi hosting. Baseball Tonight shows per day originating from Williamsport through much of the tournament, with Kevin Connors hosting alongside Tim Kurkjian throughout the week with support from a variety of Little League analysts.

SportsCenter on Snapchat will be at the Little League World Series, with host Gary Striewski onsite hosting the August 24-26 shows.

Baseball Tonight will be onsite from Historic Bowman Field August 18 with Baseball Tonight: Sunday Night Countdown presented by Chevrolet preceding the MLB Little League Classic presented by GEICO on ESPN. Karl Ravech will host alongside Mark Teixeira and Kurkjian.

The programming schedule for SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight is below:

Schedules

The full schedule can be found via the Little League website.

The searchable, daily ESPN+ schedule can be found here. Note that all games are available on ESPN+.

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