ESPN2
| ESPN2 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Launched | October 1, 1993 |
| Owned by |
ESPN Inc. (The Walt Disney Company (80%) Hearst Corporation (20%)) |
| Picture format |
720p (HDTV) Downgraded to letterboxed 480i for SDTV feed |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Broadcast area | Nationwide |
| Headquarters | Bristol, Connecticut |
| Sister channel(s) |
ESPN ESPNU ESPNews ESPN3 ESPN Classic ESPN Plus ESPN Deportes Longhorn Network SEC Network |
| Website |
espn |
Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV |
209 209-2 Alternate feed |
| Dish Network |
143 146 Alternate feed |
| Cable | |
| Available on most U.S. cable systems | Consult your local cable provider for channel availability |
| IPTV | |
| AT&T U-verse |
1606 606 (SD) |
| Southern Fibernet | 1602 |
| Verizon FiOS |
574 74 (SD) |
| Streaming media | |
| WatchESPN |
WatchESPN.com (U.S. cable subscribers only; requires login from pay television provider to access content) |
ESPN2 is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and the Hearst Corporation (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially formatted as a network for a younger generation of sports fans; by the late 1990s, this mandate was phased out as the channel increasingly served as a second outlet for ESPN's mainstream sports coverage.
As of February 2015, ESPN2 is available to approximately 94,379,000 pay television households (81.1% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.[1]
History
ESPN2 launched on October 1, 1993 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Its inaugural program was the premiere of SportsNight, a sports news program originally hosted by Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber – where Olbermann opened the show by jokingly welcoming viewers to "the end of our careers."[2] Launching with an estimated carriage of about 10 million homes, ESPN2 aimed to be a more informal and youth-oriented channel than parent network ESPN, featuring a heavier emphasis on programming that would appeal to the demographic. The youthful image was also reflected in its overall presentation, which featured a graffiti-themed logo and on-air graphics.[3][4]
Its initial lineup featured studio programs such as SportsNight (which host Keith Olbermann characterized as a "lighter" parallel to ESPN's SportsCenter that would still be "comprehensive, thorough and extremely skeptical"), Talk2 (a nightly talk show hosted by radio personality Jim Rome, which was billed as a sports parallel to CNN's Larry King Live), Max Out (an extreme sports anthology series carried over from ESPN) and SportsSmash, a five-minute rundown of sports news and scores which aired every half-hour. ESPN2 also featured several half-hour news programs focused on specific sports, such as NFL 2Night (football), NHL 2Night (hockey) and RPM 2Night (auto racing). Event coverage would focus on coverage of mainstream sports popular within the 18-34 age demographic, such as auto racing, college basketball and NHL hockey (which was branded as NHL Fire on Ice),[5] while also covering atypical sports such as BMX and other extreme sports.[3]
ESPN2 would also be used to showcase new technology and experimental means of broadcasting events: on September 18, 1994, ESPN2 aired a simulcast of ESPN's coverage of CART's Bosch Spark Plug Grand Prix, consisting exclusively of onboard camera feeds. In 1995, ESPN2 introduced the "BottomLine," a persistent news ticker which displayed sports news and scores. The BottomLine would later be adopted by ESPN itself and all of its future properties.[6]
In the late 1990s, ESPN2 would phase out its youth-oriented format and begin to serve as a secondary outlet for ESPN's mainstream programming; telecasts began to adopt a more conventional style, and the "graffiti 2" logo was dropped in 2001 in favor of a variation of the standard ESPN logo. On-screen graphics (such as the BottomLine) used a blue color scheme instead of red to differentiate it from ESPN. On February 12, 2007, the ESPN2 branding was stripped from most on-air presentation and replaced with ESPN: the ESPN2 brand is now solely used for station identification.[7]
Programming
Sports events presented on ESPN2 originally tended to be alternative sports such as poker, billiards, lumberjacking, extreme sports and, more recently, drum and bugle corps. However, in recent years ESPN2 has broadcast increasingly more mainstream sporting events, including Major League Baseball games, the East-West Shrine Game, much of the 2006 World Baseball Classic, regular season KHL games, many Major League Soccer games, NCAA basketball games, the WNBA, the Arena Football League and Saturday afternoon NASCAR Nationwide Series races. In 2011, ESPN2 also acquired broadcast rights to delayed coverage for some American Le Mans Series events, with series' major events airing on ABC.
The channel has also become ESPN's home for tennis coverage. The showpieces are all four of the "Grand Slam" tournaments: the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Also featured on ESPN2 are the ATP World Tour Finals and U.S.-based tournaments, including the ATP Masters 1000 events at Indian Wells and Miami, as well as the US Open Series.
Most of ESPN's soccer output has been broadcast on ESPN2 including Major League Soccer, Premier League and La Liga matches; the channel also broadcast the United States' FIFA World Cup qualifiers in 2009. ESPN2 formerly broadcast matches of the UEFA Champions League, until rights for that tournament moved to Fox Soccer and its sister networks. In 2003, ESPN2 began broadcasting Major League Lacrosse games. In March 2007, ESPN2 and the league agreed on a new broadcast contract that will run until the 2016 season.[8]
ESPN2's former flagship show, the morning sports/entertainment program Cold Pizza, achieved minimal success and saw several format and host changes. In January 2006, it was supplanted by the television simulcast of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning (which moved from ESPNews) and moved to a later time slot (10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time). In May 2007, Cold Pizza moved from New York City to the ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut and was renamed ESPN First Take. After ESPN became part of a new broadcast contract with the association, ESPN2 also premiered the new daily show NASCAR Now (similar to the previous RPM 2Night, except only focusing on NASCAR) in February 2007. Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, a program that featured interviews with popular sports figures, had averaged extremely low ratings,[9][10] and had also faced several timeslot changes, until it was finally canceled in January 2007.
Simulcasting
ESPN2 has also simulcast many game telecasts with ESPN, usually as a part of an "Full Circle" or "Mehacast" special, which covers a single telecast across several ESPN networks, with each network providing a different form of coverage (such as different camera angles). ESPN2 also simulcasts some programming from ESPNews, often during local blackouts of scheduled national game telecasts, and for a while provided a simulcast of ESPN Deportes' edition of SportsCenter on Sundays. In return, ESPN2 programming is often seen on ESPN during blackouts of games in certain markets.
ESPN2 also often carries SportsCenter at times when the broadcast on ESPN is delayed by a sporting event that overruns into one of the program's scheduled timeslots. ESPN and ESPN2 also jointly aired two episodes of a documentary special called This is SportsCenter, in which ESPN showed a documentary showing the production of an edition of SportsCenter, while the finished product aired on ESPN2. The documentary would usually air for two hours, where the first hour would cover the preliminary production of the night's show on ESPN, while ESPN2 aired ESPN's regular programming. The second hour usually spent time at production control while covering reaction to the night's developments.
Both ESPN and ESPN2 carried ABC News' coverage of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon (and the related crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania) on September 11, 2001. ESPN2 also aired the 2008 SEC Men's Basketball Tournament championship game in 2008 to most of the nation, since a storm damaged the original game site, the Georgia Dome, causing the schedule to be rearranged and site to be moved to the smaller Alexander Memorial Coliseum. The new schedule was in conflict with CBS's coverage of the Big Ten Championship Game; the game was produced by CBS. In the territory of the Southeastern Conference, the Big Ten game aired on ESPN2.
High definition
ESPN2 broadcasts in high definition in the 720p resolution format, which was launched in January 2005. In January 2011, the separate ESPN2HD branding began to be phased out, as in May of that year, the channel would shift to using the AFD #10 flag to transmit the channel's standard definition feed in letterboxed widescreen, mirroring the display of the high definition feed.
References
- ↑ Seidman, Robert (February 22, 2015). "List of how many homes each cable network is in as of February 2015". TV by the Numbers. Zap2it. Retrieved February 23, 2015.
- ↑ Hiestand, Michael (August 28, 2007). "Olbermann's career veers onto NFL path". USA Today. Retrieved September 25, 2012.
- 1 2 "Whether you get it or not, ESPN2 has no tie to the tried and true". Baltimore Sun. October 1, 1993. Retrieved September 25, 2012.
- ↑ "Remembering stuff ESPN used to put on TV". SB Nation. Vox Media. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
- ↑ "For youth-minded ESPN2, casual is in when they're talking 'puck'". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- ↑ Hiestand, Michael (March 7, 2008). "Dedicated staff keeps close watch on ESPN's Bottom Line". USA Today. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
- ↑ "The Last Days Of ESPN2". February 1, 2012. Deadspin. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
- ↑ "Full News Archive". Major League Lacrosse. Retrieved 2013-11-03.
- ↑ Quite Frankly... There's No One Watching Your Show
- ↑ Quite Frankly Host Smith Unhappy About Show's Development