Fang's Bites

ESPN Is Truly Trying To Take Over The World

I’m currently working on a couple of business-related items here in the office, but you can expect links to come up soon. In the meantime, I received a press release from Bristol, CT where many of you know is where ESPN is located. From this small town that has seen ESPN grow in lengths and bounds from the Little Engine That Could to the big behemoth comes the latest word that the ESPN brand is spreading to Europe.

Last year, ESPN bought the North American Sports Network, otherwise known as NASN, which provides MLB, the NFL, NHL and NBA to the UK and other European countries. Soon after the purchase, NASN became heavy with plenty of ESPN programming.

Now, ESPN is going to rebrand NASN as ESPN America on February 1, 2009, which is the date of Super Bowl XLIII. The new logo kind of looks like the old Justice League of America crest.

Here’s the press release from ESPN:

North American Sports Network to Become ESPN America

New Brand to Kick Off on Super Bowl Sunday

October 2, 2008

ESPN today announced that North American Sports Network (NASN) will be re-branded ESPN America, starting Super Bowl Sunday, 1 February, 2009. The network will continue to bring the best of North American sports to fans across Europe and the Middle East.

ESPN America will continue NASN’s tradition of being the only network in Europe completely dedicated to North American sports. The channel broadcasts over 800 live and as-live sports events each year from Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL), National Football League (NFL) and NCAA American Football and Basketball. ESPN America will also show the Super Bowl in a number of countries across Europe including Germany, France, the Netherlands and Poland. Additionally, the network provides high-quality signature ESPN original studio programmes, such as Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, The Sports Reporters, Baseball Tonight, College GameDay, NASCAR Now and more.

Since ESPN acquired NASN in 2007, the network has expanded to 14 million households across 43 countries, with an additional three million subscribers in the Middle East.

“The announcement of our first ESPN-branded live television channel in Europe is a momentous day for the company,” said Lynne Frank, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of ESPN in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. “ESPN America’s programming lineup is unparalleled in the region, and will serve fans of North American sports throughout Europe and the Middle East. Our business continues to grow. ESPN America will sit alongside ESPN Classic, and our digital properties, ESPN360.com, ESPNSoccernet, Cricinfo, ESPNScrum.com and Racing-live.com.”

ESPN is a well known brand in Asia so this is not surprising that it would change NASN to ESPN. I’m actually surprised it took this long. Now, I wonder when TSN in Canada will rebrand to ESPN Canada.

The NFL’s International TV Partners

The NFL continues to expand its global reach. Here are highlights of which TV networks around the globe carry NFL games, some live, others in taped format.

NFL TV COVERAGE EXTENDS AROUND THE GLOBE

231 COUNTRIES & TERRITORIES TO BROADCAST NFL CONTENT FOR NEARLY 200,000 HOURS

More and more, fans around the world are tuning in to NFL action.

A total of 125 broadcasters from 231 countries and territories around the globe will carry NFL programming – nearly 200,000 hours worth (excluding NFL Network programs) – during the 2008 season, stretching across 24 time zones and broadcast in 32 languages.

In the UK, NFL fans this season will have even more reason to cheer. After playing a highly successful game in London last year, the NFL is returning to the United Kingdom. The New Orleans Saints will host the San Diego Chargers in London’s Wembley Stadium on Sunday, October 26 (1:00 PM EST, 5:00 PM LOCAL). BBC Sport and Sky Sports will broadcast the action live in the UK.

Sky will televise 130 live NFL games, Channel Five will broadcast Sunday night and Monday night games live, and both Sky and BBC will televise Super Bowl XLIII live from Tampa Bay.

Also taking an international route are the Buffalo Bills, who, beginning this season, will play a regular-season game in Toronto, Canada in each of the next five years. The Bills’ initiative also includes a preseason game in 2008, 2010 and 2012. The first regular-season game will take place on December 7 against the Miami Dolphins at the Rogers Centre (4:05 PM EST). Rogers will televise the action live in Canada on City TV and Rogers Sportsnet.

CTV will continue to cover the Sunday early-afternoon NFL games (1:00 PM ET), the playoffs and Super Bowl. Rogers will televise games in the late afternoon time slot (4:00 PM ET) on City TV and Rogers Sportsnet. TSN will carry Sunday night, Monday night and the eight-NFL Network game package, and RDS will cater to French-speaking fans with extensive NFL coverage each week.

Other NFL news around the globe:

ASIA

China Central Television (CCTV), the national broadcaster of China, will televise weekly regular- season and playoff games, including a live broadcast of Super Bowl XLIII, to more than 160 million households in the world’s most populous country.

For the first time ever, Shanghai Media Group (G-Sports) will produce and televise Sunday night football live in Shanghai to an audience of more than 10 million households. SMG also will air a weekly magazine show that will serve as a lead-in to the live game on Monday mornings in China.

SINA.COM.CN, China’s No. 1 sports portal with over 5.5 million unique visitors a day, is a new and exciting online partner for the NFL in China. SINA Sports will feature a dedicated NFL micro-site to compliment NFLChina.com and will stream “Monday Night Football” live every week, complete with customized pregame and halftime segments that will include educational material and highlights of the previous week’s action.

In the Pan-Asian region, Yes TV will launch the “All Sports Channel” of which the NFL will be the anchor tenant with more than four live games per week as well as other library and custom programming.

Coverage will extend to Pan-Asia’s most influential sports markets including Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore. Beginning in early 2009, the “All Sports Channel” will offer complete NFL coverage in full HD.

NFL Japan and Yahoo! have partnered to re-launch the NFL’s official Japanese website – www.NFLJapan.com. The site will stream over 1,000 game highlights and other customized content.

NHK, NTV and GAORA will continue to provide substantial NFL coverage throughout Japan.

NFL NETWORK DISTRIBUTION

A total of 51 NFL Network partners will broadcast to nearly six million subscribers this season throughout Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Jamaica, Trinidad and Central America.

Cable Onda has signed a one-year agreement with the NFL to distribute the 24-hour, seven-day-a-week channel to Panama for the first time.

NFL SUNDAY TICKET DISTRIBUTION

A total of 24 NFL Sunday Ticket partners will televise NFL games to more than 75,000 subscribers this season throughout Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America and Latin America.

RENEWED PARTNERSHIPS

ESPN and FOX continue to provide global distribution across Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific Rim.

In Mexico, Televisa and TV Azteca have renewed their partnerships to televise regular-season games, the playoffs and Super Bowl XLIII on terrestrial television.

NASN carries games throughout Europe except in the UK where Sky Sports and the BBC have the rights.

In Asia, ESPN has the rights in many countries except in Australia, China, Japan, India and Hong Kong.

AFN carries games throughout the world to many of our enlisted men and women.

There you have it.

Thursday Night Linkage – Big Ten Network Signs with Dish Network

As I recorded the Appalachian State-Michigan game off the Big Ten Network, listened to the Red Sox off the internet and kept tabs of the Indy-Saints game from NFL Gamecenter, plus occasionally surfing to US Open.org, this has turned into one of the busier nights in sports of the year. Let’s do some links for you.

The Big Ten Network signs up the Dish Network which means the two major satellite services offer the channel. Pete Bigelow of the Ann Arbor News writes that the channel will be on in time for Saturday and then offer HD capabilities the following week. The Detroit Free Press says BTN will be on channel 439. One more story for good measure from Penn State Live. George M. Thomas of the Akron Beacon Journal reports that there will be an HD feed of the Ohio State-Akron game. John Lafayette of TV Week also has the story. Tom Witosky of the Des Moines Register says the news comes just in time for Iowa’s game against Syracuse.

Two things from the Sports Media Watch blog. Paulsen looks at the ratings for the NFL on NBC last season. And the blog bids farewell to the summer.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell is in Indianapolis to cover the New Orleans-Indy NFL season opener and he got to play a game of Cornhole with a Coors Light girl. What is that? Darren explains.

ESPN tells us the features it will air on Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown. Mike Shields of Mediaweek tells us that ESPN has added two new series produced exclusively for the web and mobile phones. College Gameday’s Tom Rinaldi has taped a segment with Appalachian State kicker Julian Rauch for this Saturday.

Howard Herman of the Berkshire (MA) Eagle says two new changes to the TV lineup for the NFL networks will be Ron Jaworski on Monday Night Football and the Two Grumpy Men segment on Fox NFL Sunday.

Michael McCarthy of USA Today has an extensive article on the NFL increasing its control on media content.

The Big East says all of its 144 league games this upcoming men’s basketball season will be aired on either CBS Sports or on the ESPN family of networks.

Bruce Crumley of Time magazine says millions of Europeans are watching baseball, not just online, but through ESPN’s North American Sports Network (NASN) channel.

DirecTV has announced it will carry all of MLB’s postseason either on TBS or Fox in HD.

That’s it for the links for now. I’ll be back with a megaupdate tomorrow.