TV Answer Man, the bowl season is starting. Do you know which games will be in 4K? Will ESPN do any bowl games in 4K? What about the championship game? 4K or no 4K? — Nate, East Lansing, Michigan.
Nate, the 2022-23 college football season began Friday night with the Bahamas Bowl (UAB beat Miami of Ohio, 24-20) and will culminate with college football’s championship game on January 9th at 7:30 p.m. ET from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
There will be 43 bowl games this season with ESPN (or its sister networks, ESPN2, ABC) broadcasting all of them except for three: The Holiday Bowl on December 28 between Oregon and North Carolina, which will be on Fox, the Sun Bowl on December 30 between UCLA and Pitt, which will be on CBS, and the Arizona Bowl on December 30 between Wyoming and Ohio, which will be streamed at the Barstool Sports web site and app.
Fox will offer the Holiday Bowl in 4K HDR. CBS has never done a single bowl game (or NFL game) in 4K and it doesn’t look like the Sun Bowl will be the first. Barstool has not said if its game will be streamed in 4K.
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So that leaves ESPN.
An ESPN spokesperson tells the TV Answer Man that the January 9th championship game will be broadcast in 4K. In past years, the sports network has provided the 4K feed on its SkyCam channel, which displays an overhead view of the action from behind the offense. However, an ESPN source says the 4K broadcast this year could be the same production and camera angles as the regular ESPN broadcast. (This is what ESPN has done with its 4K college football games in past years.) The TV Answer Man will update this story if we get confirmation in the coming days.
As for the other bowl games on ESPN or ABC, they will not be available in 4K, the network spokesperson tells us.
You can see the complete college football bowl TV schedule here.
Nate, hope that helps. Happy viewing and stay safe!
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— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman
ESPN and FOX only air HD in 720p! So their 4K looks like crap compared to what 4K “should” look like. Them upconverting is not worth worrying about watching these games in “real” 4K. Sad indeed since its 2023 and not 1990’s.
ESPN does not upconvert 4K.