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| Outside the Lines | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Starring | Jeremy Schaap |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 32 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | ESPN |
| Release | May 7, 1990 (1990-05-07) – August 13, 2022 (2022-08-13) |
Outside the Lines is an American sports news and analysis program that was broadcast byESPN from 1990 to 2022. The series featured segments with discussions andinvestigative journalism surrounding prominent headlines and topics within sports.
The series had aired on ESPN in some form since 1990, initially as a monthlynewsmagazine hosted byBob Ley, and later expanding into a weekly Sunday-morning program. In 2003,Outside the Lines added a weekday edition as part of ESPN's lineup of studio programs. In 2017, bothThe Sports Reporters and the Sunday edition ofOutside the Lines were cancelled and replaced by a weekly edition ofE:60 hosted by Ley andJeremy Schaap, which would be produced by theOTL staff.
After Ley's retirement in June 2019, ESPN announced in October 2019 that the weekday edition ofOutside the Lines would be cancelled and replaced by a new weekly edition on Saturday mornings outside the football season, hosted by Schaap. In February 2023, the weekly program was cancelled. The show's staff will continue to produce feature segments under theOutside the Lines branding forSportsCenter andESPN.com.
The show premiered in1990 as a monthly one-hour program withBob Ley as host. After a noticeable increase in ratings, ESPN decided to expand the program for thirty minutes to their Sunday morning lineup at 9:30 am ET, where the show covered one or two of the more notable sporting news stories of the week.
After the ratings continued to grow, on May 12, 2003, ESPN premieredOutside the Lines Nightly. The Sunday morning program was still seen at 9:30 am ET, along with the nightly show that was seen duringThe Trifecta at midnight and noon on ESPN. On June 12, 2006, ESPN announced thatOutside the Lines Nightly would be known asOutside the Lines First Report and moved to 3:30 pm ET as part of the afternoon lineup on ESPN, and eventually moved to 3:00 pm ET. Following the addition ofNFL Insiders to ESPN's schedule on August 5, 2013, the weekdayOTL program (which by this point carried the same name as the Sunday series) began to be moved to air in the late afternoons on ESPN2 during the football season; it returns to the 3 p.m. ET slot on ESPN after theSuper Bowl and would air there until the start of training camp in August, with occasional moves toESPNEWS depending on sporting events scheduled for ESPN2. On September 8, 2014, it began to be preceded on ESPN2 byOlbermann, withKeith Olbermann and Ley having a cross-talk segment with each other leading out ofOlbermann and intoOTL;OTL moved back to its regular 3 p.m. ESPN berth at the start of February 2015.
The program, both in the weekday and Sunday form, usually ran commercial-free from the top of the hour to 22 minutes past the hour, with the program's commercial load taking up most of the last eight minutes and ending with a note of video and audio on-demand options and promotions for primetime programming, along withTwitter andFacebook responses to that day's listed discussionhashtag.
The final Sunday morning edition ofOutside the Lines aired on May 7, 2017. It was replaced in the same 9:00 a.m. ET time slot with a new hour-long weekly edition ofE:60 the following Sunday (May 14, 2017), which features contributions from theOTL staff. Bob Ley andJeremy Schaap (son of the lateDick Schaap, the original host ofThe Sports Reporters, which ended its 29-year run that year on May 7) would become the co-hosts of the new Sunday edition ofE:60.[1][2]
On June 26, 2019, Bob Ley announced his retirement from ESPN after a 40-year tenure.[3]
On October 22, 2019, ESPN canceled the weekday edition ofOutside the Lines, its final airing being December 20, 2019. The series reverted to being a weekly, Saturday-morning broadcast beginning in January 2020. In addition, it was stated that the show would contribute content for ESPN.com and segments duringSportsCenter.[4] The weekly show would air during the college and NFL football offseason, running from February (following theSuper Bowl) through August. In February 2023, it was reported that the weekly show had been cancelled, withOutside the Lines continuing to be used as a content brand on ESPN's digital platforms andSportsCenter.[5]
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All of the different versions of the show, whetherOTL Sunday,OTL Nightly orOTL First Report, share the same basic format. Like the program's title, the show looks "outside the lines" at some of the most controversial and even inspirational stories in the sports world today. The program also often interviews story makers, such as members ofPat Tillman's platoon after he was killed inAfghanistan. The program also is joined by former players and sports writers to get all different opinions of the subject at hand.
Listed below are the numerous segments that appear throughoutOutside the Lines; note that for certain stories or sports news topics of heavy interest, the format is dropped and consists only of "At This Hour" followed by a debate segment with guests. They include:
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Over the years,Outside the Lines has covered severalSports Emmy Award winning pieces such asFinding Bobby Fischer,Ben Comen, andRainbow Man. It also covered theNFL's concussion crisis in thePeabody Award winning pieceNFL at a Crossroads: Investigating a Health Crisis.[6]
Some of the other memorable pieces the show has covered include:Two Man Band (about Patrick Hughes, a blind member of theUniversity of Louisville band and his dad),TheJason McElwain Story (about the autistic high school basketball manager who came into a game and scored 20 points),Athletes Carrying Guns (about whether it is appropriate for athletes to carry guns),Katrina'sImpact on New Orleans (prior to the Saints' first game back inNew Orleans) andSteroids impact on the Little Leagues (and how much they affect them). It also heavily covered theUSA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal, including extended coverage of thevictim impact statements againstLarry Nassar inIngham County, Michigan Circuit Court, and the effects it had onMichigan State University and other intervening stories around the school.
The program has also featured exclusive interviews with newsmakers such as: PresidentGeorge W. Bush, SenatorsJohn McCain,Amy Klobuchar,Heidi Heitkamp,Pete Rose,Phil Jackson (after leaving the Lakers the first time) and theArmyRangers ofPat Tillman's platoon about what really happened. More recently, formerNBA playerJohn Amaechi appeared on the February 11, 2007 edition to publiclycome out asgay, and the May 11, 2008 edition reported that formerUSC basketball starO. J. Mayo had allegedly received thousands of dollars in cash and merchandise from a runner for asports agent dating back to his high school career.