Much of the sports world centered on New York and two of its professional sports teams on Monday night.
In Toronto, against the Blue Jays, Aaron Judge was chasing the American League home run record. In New Jersey, the Giants and an inconsistent CeeDee Lamb were trying to get one over on the rival Cowboys on Monday Night Football. Naturally, you would think after ESPN kept cutting into unrelated college football broadcasts over the weekend that they’d do the same for Judge’s record pursuit when an actual New York team was playing on national television.
Alas, they did not. Uh, why?
ESPN will NOT be cutting into "Monday Night Football" to show Aaron Judge's at-bats. MNF will immediately go to highlight if Judge hits No. 61.
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) September 27, 2022
Even though the bleed over of Giants to Yankees is likely extremely high, if you focused exclusively on the Giants and Cowboys on Monday, you would not get an extra glimpse of Judge’s potential history.
And the answer is probably really simple, even though we can’t confirm it: The NFL didn’t want a primetime game being interrupted by another sport’s major event. Still: It’s incredibly strange that ESPN cut into a lot of college football telecasts for Judge but didn’t do it when another big New York squad was playing.