They don’t call it “March Madness” for no reason. ESPN mistakenly released the bracket for the 2019 NCAA Women’s basketball tournament hours before it was supposed to be revealed.
- The bracket was scheduled to be revealed at 7 PM ET, but due to the mistake, it was officially released at 5 PM.
- ESPN released a statement apologizing for the mistake:
- “In working with the NCAA to prepare for tonight’s Women’s Selection Special we received the bracket, similar to years past. In the midst of our preparation, the bracket was mistakenly posted on ESPNU. We deeply regret the error and extend our apology to the NCAA and the women’s basketball community. We will conduct a thorough review of our process to ensure it doesn’t happen in the future. We will now broadcast the full bracket at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN2, and the regularly-scheduled show on ESPN at 7 p.m.”
- According to the Daily Beast, it took ESPN more than 15 minutes to realize their mistake as they continued to cycle through the bracket on ESPNU.
- The 2019 NCAA Women’s basketball tournament begins Friday and Saturday with the round of 64.
ICYMI – More ESPN news:
- ESPN has announced a new multi-year agreement with Relevent Sports Group for media rights to the International Champions Cup.
- Just in time for March Madness, ESPN has announced a slate of programming for the coming Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Network.
- Detail, written and hosted by NBA star Kobe Bryant has returned to ESPN+. The first episode is available to stream now and analyzes the performance of Houston Rockets’ James Harden during Friday’s game.