Column: Dear ESPN, please stop pretending to help college gymnastics

By Ethan Stenger, Sports Editor

February 17, 2025

LSU gymnastics all-around freshman Kailin Chio celebrates after her beam performance during LSU’s 198.050-197.675 win against Oklahoma on Friday, Feb. 14, 2025, at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, La.

Okay, ESPN, we need to talk.

It all started on a Friday last spring, the first day of March. No. 2 LSU is set to host No. 9 Alabama in a top-10 SEC showdown at the PMAC.

But something felt strange; the meet was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. locally rather than the usual 6-7 p.m. start time.

“The meet felt weird in the beginning,” Tigers head coach Jay Clark said. “It felt a little flat when we got started.”

During the first routines of the entire afternoon, Crimson Tide gymnast Mati Waligora took a hard fall on uneven bars and was forced to perform her routine over again, resulting in an 8.4 that killed any early momentum and put Alabama in an early hole that they never could dig themselves out of.

The Crimson Tide lost on the road that day, 198.325-197.325.

The meet was moved by the network broadcasting the event on TV, ESPN, who demanded that it start at 5 p.m. local time so it could also fit in No. 6 Michigan at No. 1 Oklahoma on ESPN2 later that night.

The company has opted to broadcast NCAA gymnastics across their networks to help the sport grow, with the national championship telecast being telecast on ABC since 2021.

ESPN announced its 2025 broadcast schedule with over 100 hours of college gymnastics— the most in the network’s near half-century existence.

But there’s a catch: the company doesn’t care about college gymnastics, or at least as much as they may make you think they do.

As part of its deal with the NCAA, ESPN gets to select the start time and network for regular-season broadcasts.

On Friday, ESPN forced the meet into the 9 p.m. Eastern Time slot, with an 8 p.m. start locally.

“I wish it wasn’t the 9 p.m. East Coast meet,” Clark said. “I prefer to have it a little more in primetime than that.”

While the company can’t get a start time right, that’s not even the worst of it.

ESPN doesn’t have anywhere to view scores, watch videos and highlights, or find any college gymnastics news or content on their website or app, neglecting a sport it claims is helping so graciously.

Last season, weekly recap articles were posted to its website, but there are none to be found this year. After the biggest college gymnastics season in 2024, ESPN’s coverage took steps backward.

The company also put the Tigers’ 198.050-197.675 victory over the Sooners on ESPN2, the network’s secondary channel.

So a matchup hailed as the ‘Super Bowl’ of college gymnastics was tossed to the side by the NCAA’s broadcast partner and could only warrant a late Friday night appearance on the network’s secondary channel?

That doesn’t seem very helpful to the sport at all, ESPN. But it’s not too late, you can fix it.

If you genuinely cared about college gymnastics, you would let the NCAA provide their starting times and adjust accordingly, even putting specific meets on ESPN and ABC that aren’t the national championship, when warranted.

But until that’s done, it will be hard to convince me that ESPN cares about college gymnastics.

About the Contributor

Ethan Stenger, Sports Editor

Why did you join the Reveille? I worked at my student newspaper during my junior and senior years of high school, so it felt like a no-brainer. It was a smooth transition. What positions have you held at the Reveille? I was a sports reporter during my freshman year, covering soccer in the fall and the national champion gymnastics team in the spring. What's your favorite thing about working at the Reveille? The experiences that the Reveille has offered me have honestly changed my life. When I got to cover the SEC and national championships for gymnastics and Alabama-LSU on a Saturday night in Death Valley, there were moments when I just took a step back and thought, “Wow, Ethan, you can do this. This dream isn’t so far-fetched.” What's your favorite story that you've worked on so far? Last March, my mom walked into the living room while I watched a men’s college basketball game and said, “Wait, why do they play two halves instead of four quarters?” My dad had asked the same question days earlier, so I finally answered it. If you ask Google, my article is one of the first things that comes up. It’s pretty remarkable to think that people will be coming back to read my words for years to come. What do you hope to do after graduation? Inspire curiosity, spread compassion and change the world with art.