ESPN Ramps Up '360' Roster
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 11/4/2007 7:00:00 PM
ESPN, continuing to expand its content base, is offering 267 live sporting events this month on broadband portal ESPN360.
The schedule includes live game action from the National Basketball Association, college football and basketball, UEFA Champions League and FIFA World Cup beach soccer, Venezuelan and Mexican baseball, and Argentine Open Polo Championships, among other properties.
The diverse palette emanates from the September relaunch of ESPN360.com as the home to live and simulcast sports fare. As part of that overhaul, ESPN has committed to airing some 2,500 live sporting events over a 12-month period as a means to build traffic and reach for ESPN360.
Since the Sept. 4 relaunch through Oct. 28, ESPN360 has seen users log more than 150,000 hours viewing games, according to network officials.
Currently the service, available at no additional charge to subscribers who receive their high-speed Internet connection from an affiliated service provider, reaches some 17 million households, via deals with AT&T, Verizon Communications, RCN, Frontier, Cavalier Telephone & TV, Charter Communications, Mediacom Communications, Conway, Grande Communications and others.
As part of the digital growth push, ESPN360 and mobile service ESPN Mobile TV will feature simulcasts of all 72 NBA games ESPN is scheduled to air during the 2007-08 season. Those presentations began Halloween night with a doubleheader, marking the first exploitation of NBA digital live game rights under the new eight-season, $7.4 billion deals ESPN and TNT signed with the league in late June. While the new contracts officially begin in 2008-09, the NBA pushed up the carriers' digital rights by a season.
In addition to the game action, ESPN Mobile TV is also simulcasting ESPN NBA studio programming, while ESPN.com features live and on-demand video of ESPN pro hoops studio fare.
Thus far, ESPN has taken a much more aggressive tack with its NBA digital rights than the league's other national cable carrier, TNT.
Officials at Turner Sports, which manages digital properties for NASCAR, the PGA Tour and the Atlantic Coast Conference, have discussed using broadband to provide different camera angles for NBA action or isolation shots of top players, but don't plan to simulcast live games.
Meanwhile, Turner continues its discussions with the league about forming a strategic partnership under which it would operate the 12 million-subscriber NBA TV service and NBA.com.
A Turner Sports spokesman said the programmer has not yet determined exactly what rights to utilize at this juncture — it didn't exploit them with the TNT's season-opener doubleheader on Oct. 30.
He noted, though, that its initial digital shot likely wouldn't be made until the current negotiations conclude. “It will definitely be when, not if,” he said.
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