ESPN Goal Line & Bases Loaded

{{Short description|Defunct American sports television channel}}

{{Infobox television channel

| name = ESPN Goal Line & ESPN Bases Loaded

| logo = ESPN Goal Line.png

| owner = ESPN Inc.
(The Walt Disney Company (80%)
Hearst Communications (20%))

| country = United States

| language = American English

| launch_date = {{Start date|2010|09|04}}

| closed_date = {{End date|2020|01|13}} (final program)
{{End date|2020|06|30}} (contractual sunsetting)

| headquarters = Bristol, Connecticut

| picture_format = 720p (HDTV)

| sister_channels = {{Plainlist|

• ABC
• ESPN
• ESPN2
• ESPNEWS
• ESPNU}}

}}

ESPN Goal Line & ESPN Bases Loaded was a gametime-only cable channel operated by ESPN which operated from the start of the 2010 college football season until the end of the 2019 college football season. The channel was active during two college sports seasons; during college football season as ESPN Goal Line and through the NCAA Division I Softball Championship for college softball and NCAA Division I Baseball Championship for college baseball as ESPN Bases Loaded. In both cases, the coverage provided live look-ins and analysis of multiple games in progress. The coverage switched between games to show interesting defensive plays and scoring drives, such as offensive teams entering the red zone (football) or with runners in scoring position (baseball/softball).

Goal Line aired during the regular season on Saturdays from 3:00 p.m. ET to approximately 11:30 p.m. It also ran throughout the playoffs as an alternate feed for Megacast coverage, usually as a "datacast" feed of extended data. The network was occasionally simulcast on ESPNews in the late afternoon or early evening when that channel was not carrying its own games. Bases Loaded operated during the early rounds of the NCAA Softball & Baseball Championship.

At its launch, the channel was made available to customers of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks systems,{{cite web |last1=Humes |first1=Mike |title=ESPN and Time Warner Cable Launch New College Football Live Cut-In and Highlights Channel – ESPN Goal Line |url=https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2010/09/espn-and-time-warner-cable-launch-new-college-football-live-cut-in-and-highlights-channel-espn-goal-line/ |website=ESPN Press Room |access-date=April 24, 2022 |date=September 3, 2010|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140605190725/http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-releases/2010/09/espn-and-time-warner-cable-launch-new-college-football-live-cut-in-and-highlights-channel-%E2%80%93-espn-goal-line/|archive-date=June 5, 2014}} and became available soon after to customers of Verizon FiOS TV.{{cite web |last1=Szalai |first1=Georg |title=FiOS inks carriage deal with Disney, ESPN |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/fios-inks-carriage-deal-disney-28879/ |website=The Hollywood Reporter |access-date=April 24, 2022 |date=October 7, 2010}} In addition, the channel is also carried on Dish Network, Comcast, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Sling TV, Cablevision, Hulu and DirecTV. During the network's downtime, it would promote the next week or event that would air with a still card and a loop of ESPN's college football theme of the time as background audio; cable providers were disallowed from using the channel space for other purposes.

The channel formerly operated a third iteration of the service in the same channel space during the college basketball season known as ESPN Buzzer Beater, which broadcast on Wednesday nights and Saturdays from December to early March. In July 2017, ESPN announced that it had discontinued Buzzer Beater, in order to "shift resources to better position ourselves for the long-term". The Goal Line and Bases Loaded services were not affected by this change.{{cite web|title=ESPN Shutters One of Its Channels to Cut Costs|url=http://www.thewrap.com/espn-just-shuttered-one-of-its-channels-to-cut-costs/|website=The Wrap|date=19 July 2017 |access-date=24 July 2017}}

Officially, the network's last program was the 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship on January 13, 2020, when it again carried the DataCast channel for ESPN's Megacast coverage.