
Courtesy: ESPN
Winter has just started. But don’t tell baseball fans. Officials with ESPN announced today that its weekly Sunday night baseball broadcast will return for its 27th season in 2016.
ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball returns for its 27th season next year. The Worldwide Leader In Sports will premiere its 27th season of Sunday Night Baseball on Sunday, April 3rd at 8:30pm with a World Series rematch between the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals. The game will be preceded earlier in the day with a doubleheader beginning at 1pm ET on ESPN. The first game on tap is an NL Central faceoff between the Pirates and Cardinals. The second of the day’s games, on ESPN2, will be between The Blue Jays and Rays. That game is scheduled for a 4pm ET start time. Both games will be simulcast online via WatchESPN. They are part of a two-day, seven-game season-opening schedule of games that will feature every team that appeared in the 2015 post season. ESPN’s full season-opening schedule is noted below.
ESPN MLB season-opening schedule:
Date
|
Time (ET)
|
Telecast
|
Network(s)
|
Sun, Apr. 3
|
1 p.m.
|
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates
|
ESPN, WatchESPN
|
Sun, Apr. 3
|
4 p.m.
|
Toronto Blue Jays at Tampa Bay Rays
|
ESPN2, WatchESPN
|
Sun, Apr. 3
|
8:30 p.m.
|
New York Mets at Kansas City Royals
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Mon, Apr. 4
|
1 p.m.
|
Houston Astros at New York Yankees
|
ESPN, WatchESPN
|
Mon, Apr. 4
|
4 p.m.
|
Seattle Mariners at Texas Rangers
|
ESPN, WatchESPN
|
Mon, Apr. 4
|
7 p.m.
|
Los Angeles Dodgers at San Diego Padres
|
ESPN, WatchESPN
|
Mon, Apr. 4
|
10 p.m.
|
Chicago Cubs at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
|
ESPN2, WatchESPN
|
After the special season premiere of the network’s flagship MLB broadcast, each week’s broadcast will come to audiences every Sunday night at 8pm ET on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPN Radio, and WatchESPN. No concrete schedule has been released at this time. However, it is known that ESPN’s coverage in 2016 will include multiple appearances from a number of teams expected to contend for the MLB championship. Those teams include: Boston, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, New York Yankees, and San Francisco Giants. Also expected in the 2016 is an ongoing career retrospective of Red Sox great David Ortiz as he embarks on his final season. There will also be a focus on the continued rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees as the teams will meet three times in 2016, including back-to-back weeks. Those weeks are the weeks of May 1st, 8th, and 17th. The Dodgers and Giants will also be the center of focus at points in the 2016 season as their equally legendary rivalry rolls on. As if all of this isn’t enough, fans will get to see now former Dodgers ace Zach Greinke make his Sunday night debut with the D’Backs in 2016 and the return of the Houston Astros to SNB. The Pittsburgh Pirates will also go under the lights in 2016. It will mark the third consecutive year that Pittsburgh has been featured on SNB. The current schedule of games for ESPN’s 2016 SNB is listed below.
Early-season Sunday Night Baseball schedule:
Date
|
Time (ET)
|
Telecast
|
Network(s)
|
Sun, Apr. 3
|
8:30 p.m.
|
New York Mets at Kansas City Royals on Opening Night
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, Apr. 10
|
8 p.m.
|
New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, Apr. 17
|
8 p.m.
|
San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, Apr. 24
|
8 p.m.
|
Boston Red Sox at Houston Astros
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, May 1
|
8 p.m.
|
New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, May 8
|
8 p.m.
|
Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, May 29
|
8 p.m.
|
Los Angeles Dodgers at New York Mets
|
ESPN2, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, June 12
|
5 p.m.
|
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
|
8:30 p.m.
|
Los Angeles Dodgers at San Francisco Giants
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, July 10
|
8 p.m.
|
Arizona Diamondbacks at San Francisco Giants
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
Sun, July 17
|
8 p.m.
|
Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees
|
ESPN, WatchESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio
|
*remaining Sunday Night Baseball game selections will be made two to three weeks out.
Along with the weekly SNB broadcast, ESPN’s weekly MLB pre-game broadcast of Baseball Tonight: Sunday Night Coundown presented by Chevrolet will return in 2016, too. Each broadcast will begin at 7pm ET.
More information on the ESPN networks’ MLB coverage is available online now along with all of the latest MLB headlines at:
Website: http://espn.go.com/mlb
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ESPNBaseballTonight
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