ESPN has long been the home of the Little League World Series.
But this year, the Worldwide Leader in Sports is facing some major backlash for its coverage of the 2026 tournament. Specifically, on Friday, ESPN allowed multiple Little League World Series games to be played without being televised. All of the Thursday games were postponed due to weather, pushing a lot to Friday.
However, rather than air the postponed games on TV, ESPN allowed multiple games to be played without cameras. ESPN still had its typical morning programming like “Get Up!” and “First Take,” though.
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Fans have been taking to social media, expressing frustration with how ESPN chose to schedule the postponed games, allowing some of them to air without any cameras.
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Little Leaguers. Some of these teams will only get to play two games at Williamsport. If one of those games isn’t airing on TV, that’s something they can never get back.
Fans express frustration with ESPN’s coverage
“It is inexcusable that the Mexico/ Australia and Nevada/Ohio games will not be broadcast IN ANY FORM by ESPN today. Gross incompetence by multiple parties here,” one fan wrote.
“Disappointing that they did not find a way to even put this on ESPN+,” one fan added.
“You can put a game on ESPNU at 6pm but you can’t put two 9am games on either ESPN2, U or NEWS and they are all readily available. Somebody dropped the ball here,” one fan added.
“Simply inexcusable and gross misconduct from ESPN to not air two games of today’s eight games,” one fan added.
“ESPN showed almost every single regional tournament game via ESPN+, but it will not broadcast 2 actual LLWS games via ESPN+,” one fan shared.
What do you make of ESPN’s coverage thus far?
