The NFL has announced more Brazil games, this time in Rio. Plus: a new role for ESPN\u2019s Emily Kaplan, another afternoon timeslot for the NCAA women\u2019s basketball title game, and the end of a TV era for the Seattle Mariners.<\/p>\n
NFL announces Rio games<\/p>\n
The NFL announced Friday that it will schedule three games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, over the next five seasons, with the first game taking place next season. The league has held games in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
No date for next season\u2019s game was announced. The Sao Paulo games the past two seasons both took place on the Friday of Week 1, but that was only possible due to a calendar quirk that allowed the league to bypass legal prohibitions on Friday and Saturday night telecasts during the high school and college football seasons. There will be no such calendar quirk next year, and NFL executive Hans Schroeder confirmed earlier this month<\/a> that the league does not plan to schedule a Friday night game in Week 1 next season.<\/p>\n The Rio games are part of an expanding slate of international NFL contests that next season will also include the league\u2019s first game in Australia. The NFL, which per commissioner Roger Goodell is hoping to begin renegotiating its media rights deals as soon as next year<\/a>, is widely expected to sell a package of international games.<\/p>\n ESPN\u2019s Kaplan taking on new \u2018insider\u2019 role<\/p>\n ESPN NHL reporter Emily Kaplan will shift to a new \u2018insider\u2019 role this season, akin to that held by Adam Schefter on the NFL, Shams Charania on the NBA and Jeff Passan on baseball, Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports<\/a> was first to report Friday.<\/p>\n Kaplan, who has been ESPN\u2019s lead \u201cInside the Glass\u201d reporter since the network resumed airing NHL games in 2021, will still appear in that role for big games, including Opening Night. It is too early to know whether that role will include the Stanley Cup Final, which ABC will carry this season. She was part of the Cup Final broadcast team the past two times ABC aired the event, joining Sean McDonough and Ray Ferraro.<\/p>\n But Kaplan will appear more often in-studio this season than on games, including from a home studio set-up a la Schefter, Charania and Passan. Even with her reduction in game assignments, the new role will have her appearing more often on ESPN this season than in past years.<\/p>\n While ESPN has not previously had an NHL version of the modern \u2018insider\u2019 role, the network did regularly feature E.J. Hradek on its studio shows during its previous run with the NHL.<\/p>\n NCAA women\u2019s title game remains in afternoon slot<\/p>\n The NCAA women\u2019s basketball national championship is officially set<\/a> for 3:30 PM ET on ABC Sunday, April 2, marking the fourth-straight year that the game will air in a midday window. The 3:30 PM start time is a half-hour later than the 3 PM start of the past two years.<\/p>\n Prior to moving to ABC in 2023, the women\u2019s national title game aired in the evening or primetime hours in each year from 1996-2022. The game aired on ESPN in each of those years, including a 15-year run on Tuesday nights from 2002-16.<\/p>\n When ESPN initially announced in 2022 that ABC would air the title game, ESPN president of content Burke Magnus explained the afternoon timeslot to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic: \u201cPrime time on Sunday is a big night of entertainment for the broadcast network, and they have made commitments, in this case to \u2018American Idol,\u2019 that go out for many, many years. \u2026 We\u2019re getting the best of both worlds here, honestly, by having a championship in the late afternoon, leading into their news coverage and then their prime-time lineup on Sunday night.\u201d<\/p>\n Sunday viewership figures tend to be highest in the late afternoon hours (a bit later than 3:30 ET, but earlier than primetime). The 4:25 PM ET NFL window is generally the most-watched in a given week. Next year\u2019s title game coincides with the Easter Sunday holiday, which in the Nielsen out-of-home era has become a day of elevated sports viewing. <\/p>\n Mariners RSN set to shutter, with MLB to take over production<\/p>\n The Seattle Mariners-owned RSN ROOT Sports will cease operations after Sunday\u2019s regular season finale and Major League Baseball will take over production and distribution of the team\u2019s games next season, the team told the Seattle Times Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Mariners would be the sixth MLB team whose games are produced and distributed to Major League Baseball. The other five \u2014 the Guardians, Padres, Twins, Diamondbacks and Rockies \u2014 will reportedly have their games distributed through ESPN as part of the network\u2019s new three-year MLB rights deal<\/a>. It is not clear whether the Mariners will also end up being included in the ESPN deal, which has yet to be made official.<\/p>\n The Brewers would have been a seventh club, but after initially agreeing to cede their rights to MLB, the club reached a new deal prior to the start of this season to remain with FanDuel Sports Network.<\/p>\n