While the sports landscape has changed, especially in college football, the media landscape continues to change as well. We've already seen conferences like the SEC leave their long-time network partners (CBS) for new partners (ESPN). The arrival of streaming services has also brought plenty of new changes as well, as many shift away from traditional cable services.
ESPN has been at the forefront of the changing sports media landscape, adding the SEC rights to it's abundance of live rights while continuing to be the place fans go to watch games, highlights, and reporting. This season when fans are watching the games, they may notice a change to ESPN's traditional broadcasts which will certainly take some time to get used to.
ESPN will eliminate the BottomLine Ticker from all college football games
On Wednesday, Ryan Glasspiegel of Front Office Sports broke the news that ESPN would be eliminating the BottomLine Ticker from its college football broadcasts. The change will be made on ABC, ACC Network, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, and the SEC Network.
Exclusive: ESPN is getting rid of its BottomLine ticker during college football games, the network confirmed to FOS.https://t.co/smZmcpn0WB
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) August 26, 2026
In a statement to Glasspiegel, ESPN had the following to say about the decision to get rid of the BottomLine Ticker during all college football regular season games.
"We’re always looking for ways to better serve sports fans. By removing the BottomLine during live action, we’re creating a cleaner presentation that keeps the focus where it belongs—on the field."ESPN Statement
ESPN had already started to make this change during the College Football Playoff as well as the NFL and NBA Playoffs. While the change was made for the big games, and it makes a ton of sense to seek the cleanest presentation, getting rid of the BottomLine Ticker will take a ton of getting used to.
In this era where everyone can find the scores on their phones, the BottomLine Ticker isn't needed, but it certainly is something everyone is used to flashing on the screen. There was a bit of excitement that every fan would have when the BottomLine Ticker would flash with a score update showing a big upset was about to go down or that your rival was losing a game you couldn't watch.
When the season starts, everyone will be so excited for the return of college football that we all may not notice the ticker, but hearing the news that it will be gone will only draw attention to it, and make every fan miss its presence.
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