There are always difficult calls to make when a game runs over its planned TV slot. Sometimes, that means a later game or pregame coverage starts on an alternate, lower-down channel. At other times, though, the call’s made to bump the previous game’s finish, which can be more controversial. The latest example of that came with a UFL Arlington Renegades-DC Defenders game on ABC Sunday, where the final 1:55 of game action was bumped to ESPN2 thanks to the network’s call to go to a NBA pregame show 20 minutes ahead of the Nuggets-Thunder tipoff. Here’s how announcer Joe Tessitore informed viewers of the upcoming switch:
With less than two minutes left in the Arlington Renegades-D.C. Defenders UFL clash Sunday, ESPN punted the broadcast from ABC to ESPN2 to make way for their NBA pregame show, 20 minutes ahead of tipoff.
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— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 2:46 PM
That led to ESPN2 having its own programming shift, bumping softball whiparound show 7 Innings Live to ESPN+ to make way for the UFL game. And eight minutes of real time and almost two minutes of game time later, that led to a spectacular UFL finish on ESPN2. With less than ten seconds left on the clock, Arlington seemed to be spiking the ball to set up a game-tying field goal, but quarterback Luis Perez instead faked the spike and threw a pass, which was picked off by DC’s DeAndre Baker. That gave the Defenders the win and clinched their spot in the playoffs. Here’s how Tessitore called it:
That meant the ABC audience missed quite the ending, when a fake Arlington spike ahead of a game-tying FG attempt turned into a game-ending pick. That drew a “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? WHAT A MISTAKE!” from Joe Tessitore on the call. And it sealed a playoff berth for the Defenders.
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— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) May 18, 2025 at 2:47 PM
As Thursday Night Football PrimeVision‘s Sam Schwartzstein (who worked on the creation of the rules and technology for the XFL’s 2020 reboot; that version of the XFL eventually merged with the USFL to become the current UFL) noted on X, games overrunning TV slots was always a worry at the XFL (logical given its focus on broadcast networks, which often have tight windows). That even led to Schwartzstein proposing some unusual late-game rules to ensure games ended on time:
This was always the fear. The modern equivalent of “The Heidi Game” where the 1968 Jets Raiders game was bumped for
Heidi.
My version of the game was 2:50. 2 timeouts, no challenges. 50 total points was the goal so any game over has a chance to go over the 3hr time slot https://t.co/PtW84AVhTP
— Sam Schwartzstein (@schwartzsteins) May 18, 2025
Schwartzstein is correct to note that there have been plenty of infamous bumps like this in the past, especially including NBC’s memorable cutaway from an AFL Raiders-Jets game for TV movie Heidi in 1968 (NBC looked back at that on Sunday Night Football in 2023, with help from Heidi actress Jennifer Edwards) and their 2007 decision to abandon NHL playoff overtime between the Sabres and Senators for the Preakness Stakes pre-race show. Cutaways have happened on ABC before too, including with several stations outright exiting the final moments of Pitt’s upset of No. 15 UCF in 2019 for commercials and local news.
Many of those examples are worse, as at least this case had an alternate channel where fans could go to watch the end of the game. The Heidi game and the Pitt-UCF game had no alternate destinations. But “The finish was available on an alternate channel” is presuming those fans subscribe to ESPN2, though, and that’s not a guarantee; ABC has a much higher reach in this cord-cutting age. That’s similar to the NBC NHL move, with that game finishing on Versus; many could watch it there, but certainly far from the numbers who could see it on broadcast television.
A decision to bump the finish of a game down is still controversial in any case. And it’s perhaps more controversial still when it comes to that bump happening for pregame or prerace coverage rather than actual live sports.
However, there are often demands in TV deals with leagues requiring pregame coverage on the channel where the game will air. It’s not entirely clear how that plays out contractually when other events run long. There also is a significantly higher audience for the NBA than the UFL, and perhaps even for its pregame show. Thus, some of the logic here is understandable, especially with it being uncertain how long the UFL game would go. (That game ran at least eight real-time minutes longer after the switch, before any of the postgame content, and it could have run much longer still if the Renegades had kicked a field goal to send it to overtime, perhaps even running into the actual NBA game.)
Still, from a news perspective, the actual finish of a game is significantly more noteworthy than the latest pre-game opinionating from the likes of Kendrick Perkins and Stephen A. Smith. And this finish certainly was more relevant for those who had been watching the UFL game. There is some logic to ESPN making the programming decision they did, perhaps especially if their NBA contracts are particularly strict that there has to be X amounts of minutes of pregame on the same network (that’s unclear, as those contracts aren’t public information, but it’s certainly possible), but also with an eye to satisfying advertisers who bought particular pregame show slots. But that wasn’t a decision that was best serving sports fans overall, especially not the fans of the UFL.