BOSTON — The America East Conference unveiled its 2015-16 television package for ESPN on Thursday, featuring the league’s best regular-season basketball matchups, its entire men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and several Olympic sport championship games.
ESPN platforms will be the conference’s exclusive home for basketball action for the fifth-straight year in 2015-16 and will carry 19 regular-season games and 14 postseason contests. Additionally, four Olympic sport title are planned for ESPN networks, the most in conference history, including field hockey and men’s soccer for the first time and men’s and women’s lacrosse for the fifth-consecutive year.
“We are excited to continue to offer our fans a multitude of opportunities to watch America East games again this season,” said America East Commissioner Amy Huchthausen. “This television package will feature the best games America East has to offer in 2015-16, featuring our top student-athletes in a variety of sports. The opportunity to showcase nationally-competitive sports along with the best of America East basketball is a big step forward to increase the exposure of our broad-based league. ”
Some of the highlights of the 2015-16 schedule include:
- Coming off Final Four appearances in both sports, the field hockey and men’s soccer championship games will be shown on ESPN3 for the first time.
- The field hockey championship game will be shown on ESPN3 on Sunday, Oct. 8 at 12 p.m. from the University at Albany.
- The men’s soccer championship game will be shown on ESPN3 on Sunday, Oct. 15 at a time to be determined.
- Thirty-three basketball games between America East teams (66 total appearances) will be shown on ESPN platforms this season.
- Nineteen America East regular-season basketball games (11 men, 8 women) will be carried on ESPN platforms this season.
- ESPNU will televise the Stony Brook-Albany men’s contest, a rematch of the last two conference championship games, on Friday, Jan. 22 at 9 p.m. from Island FCU Arena. It will be the ninth straight year ESPNU has televised an America East regular-season contest.
- America East will produce a pair of wild card games (one men, one women) featuring the league’s most intriguing matchups on the final day of the regular season. The men’s game will be Saturday, Feb. 27 and the women’s on Sunday, Feb. 28.
- The entire America East Women’s Basketball Championship will be carried on ESPN platforms for the fourth year in a row.
- Quarterfinal and semifinal action on March 5-6 will be shown on ESPN3.
- For the third straight year, the women’s championship game will air on ESPNU from the site of the highest remaining seed on Friday, March 11 at 4:30 p.m.
- For the third time in the last four years, the entire men’s basketball tournament, the America East Men’s Basketball Playoffs, will air on ESPN networks.
- Four quarterfinal contests take place on Wednesday, March 2 while the semifinals will be played on Monday, March 7.
- The 2016 America East men’s basketball champion will be crowned on Saturday, March 12 at 11 a.m. That game will air on ESPN2, the 29th straight year the league’s title game has appeared on either ESPN or ESPN2.
- Both the men’s and women’s lacrosse championship games will be shown on ESPN networks for the fifth-straight year.
- The men’s lacrosse championship game will be carried on a to be determined ESPN channel on Saturday, May 7.
- The women’s lacrosse championship game will be shown on ESPN3 on Sunday, May 8.
For the second-straight year, Ross Video’s mobile production unit, Ross Mobile Productions (Ross MP), will serve as the packager and producer for all of America East’s games that will be delivered on ESPN3. ESPN3 is ESPN’s live multi-screen sports network, a destination that delivers thousands of global sports events annually. It is available at no additional cost to fans with subscriptions to participating high speed internet service providers.
“In an ever-evolving landscape, our relationship with ESPN gives viewers several platform options on which to watch our games,” said Huchthausen. “ESPN’s wide reach also provides us with an expansive audience to expose America East’s brand and values that extend beyond athletics.”
ESPN3 is currently available in more than 99 million homes across WatchESPN platforms on computers, smartphones, tablets and connected devices to fans with an affiliated video or internet subscription. It is also available at no cost to U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel on computers connected to on-campus educational networks and on-base military broadband and Wi-Fi networks.
In recent years, America East has been at the forefront of the changing digital landscape within college athletics. One of the first conferences to fully embrace ESPN3 and its reach and capability, the conference has delivered games exclusively for ESPN networks, with the majority of those contests on ESPN3, since 2011. In August 2013, the conference launched AmericaEast.TV, the league’s digital network, which features free live and on-demand video content from each of the member institutions’ campuses.
About America East: The America East Conference provides its member schools and their athletic programs a platform upon which student-athletes can achieve both collegiate and life success through the promotion and nurturing of athletic excellence, academic achievement and leadership, on and off the field.