''Sports Tonight'' is an American sports news television program that aired on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

from 1980 to 2001, and on

CNN/SI CNN/Sports Illustrated (CNN/SI) was a 24-hour sports news network. It was created by Time Warner, merging together its CNN and ''Sports Illustrated'' brands and related resources. It was launched on December 12, 1996. Other news networks like ...

from December 12, 1996 to the station's demise on May 15, 2002. It normally aired at 11 p.m. ET/10 p.m. CT..

History

The early years

When CNN went on the air on June 1, 1980 one of the first newscasts was a sports bulletin where

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and North American Soccer League highlights were shown. Later, a nightly program called ''Sports Tonight'' went on the air in late night. During this time, Nick Charles and Fred Hickman became established as the program's co-hosts. In addition, CNN aired a weekend program called ''Sports Saturday'' and ''Sports Sunday''. One of the program's most popular features was called "Play of the Day" (later known as the "Replay of the Day"), which showed a highlight (i.e., a spectacular play) from that day's action.

The 1990s and the end

In 1996, CNN launched a new station called

. ''Sports Tonight'' was renamed ''CNN/Sports Illustrated'', and was replayed many times throughout the night on CNN/SI, like

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

was doing (and continues to do) with '' SportsCenter''. The program reclaimed its ''Sports Tonight'' name shortly afterwards, and when CNN pre-empted the show in late 2000 due to the coverage of the disputed 2000 presidential election, producers decided to differentiate the format from ''SportsCenter''s highlights. ''Sports Tonight'' was relaunched in 2001 with a

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...

format, where viewers interacted with the hosts via the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

and

toll-free A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing pref ...

phone lines about their favorite teams and players. By then, Charles was no longer hosting; Hickman and Vince Cellini were the program's hosts. ''Sports Tonight'' continued on both CNN and CNN/SI until September 2001. When the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001, CNN went to all-news programming. Three days later, CNN announced that the program would no longer air on CNN, but remain on CNN/SI. In May 2002, CNN/SI shut down operations,CNN/SI signed off with anchors thanking viewers and repeated the same edition of Sports Tonight until midnight, when the channel showed a blue screen with the message, "The owners of CNN/SI have stopped production of the network, and we regret that we can no longer provide it to you."
/ref> and ''Sports Tonight'' ended after a 21-year run.

Aftermath

Since the cancellation of ''Sports Tonight'', CNN has aired various programming at 11 p.m. ET, including ''

Connie Chung Tonight ''Connie Chung Tonight'' is an American television newsmagazine hosted by Connie Chung. The hour-long series premiered on CNN on June 24, 2002. At first the show was live, then previously taped in a move the network hoped would improve the program ...

'', ''

Lou Dobbs Tonight ''Lou Dobbs Tonight'' was an American political and financial talk program that was hosted by Lou Dobbs. The program initially aired on CNN from its launch under the title ''Moneyline'', as its main financial news program. The program later shif ...

'', '' Anderson Cooper 360'', ''

Erin Burnett OutFront ''Erin Burnett OutFront'' is an hour-long television news program hosted by Erin Burnett on CNN. The show premiered on October 3, 2011 in the 7:00pm time slot to replace '' John King, USA''. Until the launch of '' CNN Tonight'' in 2014, ''OutF ...

'', ''

CNN Tonight ''CNN Tonight'' is a title that has been used by multiple news programs broadcast by the U.S. cable news channel CNN. The title has primarily been used for transitional programs aired by CNN in the evening and prime time hours as part of chang ...

'' and currently '' Don Lemon Tonight''.

List of ''Sports Tonight'' hosts

Steve Berthiaume Steve Berthiaume () is an American television sportscaster who serves as the play-by-play broadcast announcer for the Arizona Diamondbacks and is a former anchor on ESPN and a former sportscaster for SportsNet New York (SNY). He is married to ...

* Vince Cellini * Nick Charles *

Paul Crane Paul Crane (January 29, 1944 – November 1, 2020) was an American football center for seven seasons for the New York Jets. Paul Crane graduated in 1962 from Vigor High School in Prichard, Alabama, near Mobile. He played college football for ...

John Fricke John Fricke (born November 30, 1950) is a historian and author focusing on '' The Wizard of Oz'' and Judy Garland. Fricke was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he attended John Marshall High School and worked in advertising at the M ...

Mike Galanos Mike Galanos (born November 7, 1964) is an former American news anchor for HLN, currently appearing as part of the team on ''Morning Express with Robin Meade''. Based in CNN's world headquarters in Atlanta, Galanos joined the network in May 200 ...

* Inga Hammond * Fred Hickman * Dan Hicks *

Jim Huber Jim Huber (August 28, 1944 – January 2, 2012) was an American sports commentator, writer, and essayist. He worked as a sports anchor for the former CNN Sports Illustrated, before joining Turner Sports in 2000. Huber was raised in Ocala, Flor ...

* Bob Lorenz * Gary Miller * Nancy Newman *

Keith Olbermann Keith Theodore Olbermann (; born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and r ...

* Dan Patrick *

Chris Rose Christopher Rose (born January 27, 1971) is an American sportscaster for the NFL Network. He is also a commentator for the Discovery Channel series ''BattleBots'' and podcast host for Jomboy Media. Early life and career Rose, who was born and r ...

Craig Sager Craig Graham Sager (June 29, 1951 – December 15, 2016) was an American sports reporter who covered an array of sports for CNN and its sister stations TBS and TNT, from 1981 until the year he died. Sager worked as a sideline reporter pacing ...

* Hannah Storm * Van Earl Wright *

Daryn Kagan Daryn A. Kagan (born January 26, 1963) is an American broadcast journalist, formerly a news anchor for CNN. From 1994 to 2006, Kagan served as an anchor and correspondent for CNN, in CNN's corporate headquarters of Atlanta, Georgia. She anc ...

References

External links

CNNSI.com - Television - Sports Tonight
{{CNN CNN original programming 1980 American television series debuts 2002 American television series endings 1980s American television news shows 1990s American television news shows 2000s American television news shows American sports television series CNN/SI original programming