ESPN is set to shake up its UFL broadcasts with an innovative new approach.
The president of the United Football League told Awful Announcing that despite ongoing labor tensions, the UFL is “focused on playing ball” — and they did just that, kicking off their second season in prime time on Fox Friday night.
Fox will air the San Antonio Brahmas vs. Arlington Renegades on Saturday afternoon. ESPN kicks off its UFL coverage on Sunday, March 30, with the Memphis Showboats vs. Michigan Panthers, followed by the Birmingham Stallions vs. DC Defenders.
According to Bill Bonnell, the network’s lead producer for the UFL, ESPN will outfit two players per team with chest cams as part of the fresh broadcasting experiment. Bonnell explained that one of these players will likely be the defensive leader who calls the formations.
Additionally, according to Front Office Sports, ESPN is set to introduce Erin Dolan as a full-time in-game betting analyst for its UFL coverage.
She’ll provide real-time insights throughout the broadcast.
FOS provided more context on Dolan’s expected role:
With the spring football league kicking off its new season despite threats of player strikes this weekend, ESPN is giving sports betting analyst Erin Dolan a new role. Dolan will appear on-air for pre-game, in-game, and half-time betting analysis on ESPN and ABC UFL broadcasts. She’ll give picks, report on betting tickets and handle, popular props like touchdowns and quarterback props, and give live updates during major betting moments like the over hitting, even in blowouts.
Dolan regularly appears on the ESPN BET Live studio show and gives betting analysis during Sunday NFL Countdown, but the in-game nature of her UFL role is a new experiment for the network. ESPN’s Stormy Buonantony has previously provided similar commentary as an on-field reporter for the XFL and UFL but on a much smaller scale.
“Because this hasn’t really been done before throughout an entire broadcast, there’s probably going to be a little bit of growing pains the first couple of weeks, but then we’ll get it down,” Dolan told David Rumsey. “It’s going to be really exciting for an audience to be immersed in it, and maybe that also shows other leagues a really cool new aspect of things that could be integrated into a broadcast.”
ESPN is undoubtedly taking a risk with Dolan’s remote in-game betting analysis, which will give fans a fresh, real-time look at the betting landscape as the game unfolds. It’s a bold experiment that could redefine how networks integrate betting commentary into sports broadcasts.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.