The most frequently seen guest hosts are sportswriters Dan Le Batard of The Miami Herald, Bill Simmons of ESPN. com and Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe and ESPN's similarly-styled Around The Horn.

On June 8, 2011, ESPN's Bill Simmons launched a sports and popular culture website titled Grantland. com, a name intended to honor Rice's legacy.

In a 2012 interview with ESPN's Bill Simmons, basketball great Larry Bird said that it was his favorite arena to play in.

He also serves as a contributing editor for Grantland, a sports journalism website founded by ESPN's Bill Simmons.

As the station had to wait for ESPN's contract with rival KFAN to expire, it did not become an ESPN Radio affiliate until April 12 ( the same day that the Minnesota Twins were scheduled to play their inaugural game at Target Field against the Boston Red Sox ), and as a result Coast to Coast AM and Live on Sunday Night, it's Bill Cunningham were retained during this period ; conversely, one ESPN Radio program, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, was picked up by KSTP immediately following the format change.

It was at this time that he recorded and performed Apache, which has been featured by ' Sports Guy ' Bill Simmons in his column on ESPN's website and has almost 2, 000, 000 views on YouTube.

Deford immediately set out to get what was referred to by ESPN's Bill Simmons as a " murderer's row " of sportswriters to join The National.

Simmons was upset that his explanation of ESPN's refusal to allow him into the league was edited out of a B. S.

Since his retirement, Moorer has frequently done guest commentating on ESPN's fight cards, and has also worked as a boxing trainer.

Johnson wrote an autobiography with ESPN's Shelley Smith titled, Just Give Me the Damn Ball.

However, ESPN's analysts Jay Bilas and Len Elmore were allowed to provide color for CBS's tournament coverage, teaming with play-by-play announcers Dick Enberg and Gus Johnson.

On May 11, 2008, ESPN. com reported that a former " confidant ", Louis Johnson, revealed on ESPN's TV show Outside the Lines that Mayo received numerous gifts in violation of NCAA rules.

Johnson hosted ESPN's Black College Sports Today in 1991.

This would be the final Super Bowl hosted by Musburger, as all subsequent Super Bowls on ABC were hosted by ESPN's Chris Berman following the Disney purchase of ABC ( which included ESPN ), and the subsequent integration of ESPN and ABC Sports ( now ESPN on ABC ).

Also, the stars returned in full force to the booth, though this proved to be the major criticism of the ESPN's first MNF season.

He can be seen alongside Stuart Scott and Trent Dilfer on the pre-and post-game shows for ESPN's Monday Night Football.

He can be seen at Citi Field during Mets home games, has appeared in several commercials as part of ESPN's This is SportsCenter campaign, and has been elected into the Mascot Hall of Fame .. On April 30, 2012, Forbes Magazine listed Mr. Met as the # 1 mascot in all of sports.

On January 8, 2010, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reported that Carroll will be the new head coach of the Seattle Seahawks so long as " minor details " are finalized in the pending contract.

Its initial lineup featured studio programs such as SportsNight ( which host Keith Olbermann characterized as a " lighter " parallel to ESPN's SportsCenter that would still be " comprehensive, thorough and extremely skeptical.

The channel airs Thursday night games ( and simulcasts games on Saturdays and other days from RSN feeds ) and a daily highlight show ( although ESPN's Baseball Tonight will be protected for the duration of ESPN's current TV deal ).

For his efforts, Hall won a one-year contract to be an anchor on ESPN's popular sports news program SportsCenter, and a new Mazda3.

* National BEST Championship ( now billed as World's BEST Championship ) will be held at ESPN's Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World April 14-16th, 2011

In April 2012, ESPN's hockey analyst Barry Melrose considers Slap Shot to be the greatest hockey movie of all time.

Disney has long exercised operating control of the network, while Hearst is believed to be more of a silent partner rather than an active participant in ESPN's management.

ESPN's blackout ( 100-mile radius from the stadium, and all of a team's designated market ) can be lifted in the latter scenario.

In 2005, Harris was promoted to be ABC and ESPN's new lap-by-lap announcer of the IRL, replacing Paul Page.

Kornheiser continued to host PTI, and Wilbon joined him on the road as they broadcast PTI each Monday from the site of the MNF game, and there has also been an extra PTI segment inserted during halftime of ESPN's Monday Night games ( although in 2008, Wilbon stayed in the DC studios, on many Mondays ).

Themes in the United States that have become associated with a sport include Johnny Pearson's " Heavy Action " ( used for many years as an intro to Monday Night Football ), " Roundball Rock " ( composed by John Tesh as the theme for the NBA on NBC during the 1990s and early 2000s ), " Bugler's Dream " ( used in ABC and NBC's coverage of the Olympics ) and the theme to ESPN's nightly sports highlight show, SportsCenter.

" ESPN's Dan Rafael noted that " so many people have a hand in BoxRec that the records aren't always accurate.

The following Monday, May 7, the show was replaced by a very similar program, ESPN First Take, which maintains many features of Cold Pizza, but is produced in high definition at ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut.

( NBC began showing its own series of games on Sunday nights in ESPN's old timeslot.

Until the 2006 season, Primetime aired every Sunday night during the NFL season and it preceded ESPN's coverage of Sunday Night Football ( it even aired when ESPN did not have a Sunday Night game, especially from 1990-97 when TNT had Sunday night games the first half of the season ).

During ESPN's first incarnation covering the NBA, he regularly covered games.

EA also signed an agreement with ESPN to become the only license of ESPN's brand in sports games on all platforms.

As with the games broadcast by ESPN's Monday Night Football, they are also aired on broadcast TV in the primary media markets of the participating teams, although the home team's market broadcasts the game only if it is sold out 72 hours before game time.

Kirk Herbstreit (; born August 19, 1969, Centerville, Ohio ) is an Emmy Award-winning analyst for ESPN's College GameDay, a television program covering college football and a provider of color commentary during college football games on ESPN and ABC.

He would only call select playoff games at this time, but did file reports for ABC Sports and ESPN's Stanley Cup Finals coverage.

In 2002 Sega implemented the American television network, ESPN's brand with their Sega Sports video games.

NBA TV offers basketball news every day, as well as programming showcasing basketball players ' individual lifestyles, life as a basketball team during an NBA season, famous games of the past, and live games typically four days a week during the NBA season, mostly on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays, with occasional Wednesday, Friday and Sunday schedule in lieu of ESPN's coverage.

NBC picked up the rights to ESPN's Sunday night games.

When not airing games in its usual Sunday afternoon slot, it is known as ESPN's Coverage of the NBA on ABC.

With the exception of 2004, 2010, and 2012 ( when they aired no Conference Final games at all ), ABC airs only the weekend telecasts ESPN's Conference Final coverage.

That team, along with the Breen-Brown duo, now often does games on ESPN's Wednesday or Friday coverage, which the previous ABC announce teams rarely did.

Wednesdays also included an afternoon game, called ESPN DayGame which aired typically at 12: 30pm or 1pm ET on ESPN, making Wednesdays ESPN's primary day of baseball, as games aired both in the afternoon and in primetime.

WNDY aired Indianapolis Colts games that were part of ESPN's Sunday Night Football package and currently does the same with that network's Monday Night Football.

Meanwhile, this was the first time that ESPN broadcast all of the Sunday night games throughout the season ( this was also the first season in which ESPN's coverage used the Monday Night Football themes, before reverting to using an original theme in 2001 ).

Broadcasters cannot show games of in-market teams regardless of whether the game is home or away as long as the game of the local team has a start time or likely end time intruding on Fox or ESPN's national window, unless that network waives its exclusivity.