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Deal worked out to put women’s hoops, baseball tournament games on ACC Network

Chris Graham

ACC NetworkThe ACC Network will broadcast early-round games in the 2023 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament and the 2023 ACC Baseball Tournament, closing an obvious silly gap in the network’s offerings.

Raycom, which still exists, actually owns the rights to the games at the two events, and had broadcast them through Bally Sports South. Sinclair, which owns Bally Sports South, Raycom and ESPN came to an agreement that will move the broadcast rights over to ACCN.

The early-round games will air there, and then the championships will go to ESPN or ESPN2.

This will be good news for fans, and better news for ACCN, which desperately needs programming, and even though women’s hoops and baseball don’t necessarily move the needle, it’s programming.

It would make similar sense to put, you know, more good programming, in the form of football and men’s basketball games that people actually want to watch, as opposed to just throwing up what otherwise would have ended up on MASN or ESPN3, but still.

I actually watched a few minutes of ACC Network the other night, when the football people were on Grounds to highlight Virginia.

I hadn’t been there since the last “Packer and Durham” a while ago.

Mark Packer’s new ACCN show, “ACC P.M.,” is set to debut next week, on Monday at 4 p.m.

That will be worth tuning into. I hope. (I’ll miss Wes Durham.)

Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham, the king of "fringe media," is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019, and Team of Destiny: Inside Virginia Basketball’s Run to the 2019 National Championship, and The Worst Wrestling Pay-Per-View Ever, published in 2018. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].