Editing SportsCenter (section)

=== Conditions to showing highlights ===
Some sports leagues and organizations, including the [[National Basketball Association]] (NBA), [[National Hockey League]] (NHL), and college athletic conferences that are members of the [[National Collegiate Athletics Association]] (NCAA) and the [[National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics]] (NAIA), allow for brief highlights to be shown while a game is in progress. From 2006 to 2013, [[Major League Baseball]] only allowed ongoing game highlights to air during ''SportsCenter'' within the ''[[Baseball Tonight (MLB)|Baseball Tonight]] Extra'' segments in the broadcast. The [[National Football League]] (NFL) does not permit the use of highlights for games that are ongoing at all, outside of those featured within its own live game broadcasts on the league's broadcast partners.

ESPN is traditionally unable to air highlights of [[Olympic Games|Olympic]] events until after they have aired on [[Broadcast delay|tape-delay]] on [[Olympics on NBC|NBC]] (which currently holds the American rights to the Olympic Games through 2032) or its co-owned sister cable networks. ESPN began showing more Olympics highlights on-air and online beginning with the [[2006 Winter Olympics]], with the network obtaining these extended rights from NBC as part of the 2006 deal that saw ABC release [[Al Michaels]] from his contract, in order to join [[John Madden]] and key production personnel for the new ''[[NBC Sunday Night Football]]'' (this same deal also reverted rights to the Walt Disney-produced ''[[Oswald The Lucky Rabbit]]'' cartoons from [[Universal Pictures]], which originally distributed the shorts).<ref>[[Associated Press]] report, Jan. 18, 2006</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Stay 'tooned: Disney gets 'Oswald' for Al Michaels |work=ESPN.com |date=February 9, 2006 |url=https://www.espn.com/nfl/news/story?id=2324417}}</ref>

In addition, there are many anecdotal reports of various television networks (such as [[CBS Sports]], [[NBC Sports]], and [[beIN Sport]]) that will not release highlights of certain sporting events to ESPN, unless the originating U.S. broadcaster's name is displayed on-screen for the entire length of the highlight (for example, "Courtesy NBC Sports").

Starting in 2007 and until its final season of broadcasting in 2014, ESPN stopped displaying the actual name of the [[NASCAR]] [[Nationwide Series]] or [[Sprint Cup Series]] race during highlights of such events (for example, the "[[2009 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard|Allstate 400 at the Brickyard]]" was referred to as the "Brickyard 400 pres. by [[Golden Corral]]"), unless the title sponsor of the race is paid for to the network; a similar stipulation also applied to the network's [[IndyCar Series]] coverage until 2018.