 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Nationwide International |
| Headquarters | Bristol, Connecticut |
| Programming | |
| Languages | English and Spanish |
| Picture format | 720p (HDTV) Downgraded toletterboxed480i for theSDTV feed |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | The Walt Disney Company (80%) Hearst Communications (20%) |
| Parent | ESPN Inc. |
| Sister channels | |
| History | |
| Launched | October 1, 1993; 32 years ago (1993-10-01) |
| Links | |
| Website | espnpressroom |
| Availability | |
| Streaming media | |
| WatchESPN or ESPN app | WatchESPN.com (U.S. cable subscribers only; requires login from pay television provider to access content) |
| DirecTV Stream | Internet protocol television |
| YouTube TV | Internet protocol television |
| Hulu Live TV | Internet protocol television |
| Sling TV | Internet protocol television |
ESPN2 is an American multinationalpay televisionnetwork owned byESPN Inc., ajoint venture betweenthe Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) andHearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%).
ESPN2 was initially formatted as a younger-skewing counterpart to its parent networkESPN, with a focus on sports popular amongyoung adult audiences (ranging from mainstream events to other unconventional sports), and carrying a more informal and youthful presentation than the main network. By the late 1990s, this mandate was phased out, as the channel increasingly became a second outlet for ESPN's mainstream sports coverage.
As of December 2023[update], ESPN2 is available to approximately 70 million pay television households in the United States—down from its 2011 peak of 100 million households.[1]
ESPN2 launched on October 1, 1993, at 7:30 p.m.ET. Its inaugural program was the premiere ofSportsNight, a sports news program originally hosted byKeith Olbermann andSuzy Kolber; Olbermann opened the show and the channel by jokingly welcoming viewers to "the end of our careers."[2] Launching with an estimated carriage of about 10 million homes, and nicknamed "The Deuce",[3] ESPN2 aimed to be a more informal and youth-oriented channel than parent network ESPN. The youthful image was also reflected in its overall presentation, which featured agraffiti-themed logo and on-air graphics.[4][5]
Its initial lineup featured studio programs such asSportsNight—which host Keith Olbermann characterized as a "lighter" parallel to ESPN'sSportsCenter that would still be "comprehensive, thorough and extremely skeptical",Talk2—a nightly talk show hosted byJim Rome that was billed as an equivalent toCNN'sLarry King Live,Max Out—an extreme sportsanthology series carried over from ESPN, andSportsSmash—a five-minute recap of sports headlines which aired every half-hour. ESPN2 also carried several half-hour, sport-specific studio programs under the2Night banner, such asNFL 2Night,NHL 2Night, andRPM 2Night. Event coverage would focus on coverage of mainstream sports popular within the 18–34 age demographic, such as auto racing,college basketball andNHL hockey (where, beginning in the1993–94 season, it aired up to five games per week under the titleNHL Fire on Ice),[6][7] while also covering atypical sports such asBMX and otherextreme sports.[4]
ESPN2 would also be used to showcase new technology and experimental means of broadcasting events: on September 18, 1994, ESPN2 simulcastCART'sBosch Spark Plug Grand Prix using onlyonboard camera feeds. In 1995, ESPN2 introduced the "BottomLine", a persistentnews ticker which displayed sports news and scores. The BottomLine would later be adopted by ESPN itself and all of its future properties.[8]
In the late 1990s, ESPN2 began to phase out its youth-oriented format, and transitioned to becoming a secondary outlet for ESPN's mainstream sports programming; telecasts began to adopt a more conventional style, and the "graffiti 2" logo was dropped in 2001 in favor of a version of ESPN's main logo. On-screen graphics (such as the BottomLine) used a blue color scheme instead of red to differentiate them from ESPN. Since February 12, 2007, the ESPN2 brand has been used forstation identification only, with all programming using the same on-air presentation and ESPN branding as those on the main network.[9]
Sports events presented on ESPN2 originally tended to be alternative sports such aspoker,billiards,lumberjacking,extreme sports and, more recently,drum and bugle corps. However, in recent years ESPN2 has broadcast increasingly more mainstream sporting events, includingMajor League Baseball games, theEast–West Shrine Game, much of the 2006World Baseball Classic, manyMajor League Soccer games,NCAA football games,NCAA basketball games, theWNBA, theArena Football League, regular-seasonKHL games, and Saturday-afternoonNASCAR Nationwide Series races. In 2011, ESPN2 also acquired broadcast rights to delayed coverage for someAmerican Le Mans Series events, with series' major events airing onABC. ESPN2 College Football Primetime is a live game presentation ofcollege football on ESPN2. The channel airs theCanadian Football League playoffs, including the season-endingGrey Cup, simulcasting from their Canadian partnerTSN.
The channel has also become ESPN's home for tennis coverage. The showpieces are three of the "Grand Slam" tournaments: theAustralian Open,Wimbledon and theUS Open. U.S.-based tournaments, including theATP Masters 1000 events atIndian Wells andMiami, as well as theUS Open Series, were also previously broadcast on the channel.
Most of ESPN's soccer output has been broadcast on ESPN2, includingMajor League Soccer,Premier League andLa Liga matches; the channel also broadcast the United States'FIFA World Cup qualifiers in 2009. ESPN2 formerly broadcast matches of theUEFA Champions League, until rights for that tournament moved toFox Soccer and its sister networks. In 2003, ESPN2 began broadcastingMajor League Lacrosse games. In March 2007, ESPN2 and the league agreed on a new broadcast contract that ran until the 2016 season.[10]
On October 4, 2017, ESPN announced that it had acquired rights to theFormula One World Championship; the majority of the races are carried by ESPN2.[11]
The NHL returned to ESPN in the2021–22 season; ESPN2 primarily serves as a secondary broadcaster during theStanley Cup playoffs.[12]
ESPN2's former flagship show, the morning sports/entertainment programCold Pizza, achieved minimal success and saw several format and host changes. In January 2006, it was supplanted by the television simulcast ofESPN Radio'sMike and Mike in the Morning (which moved fromESPNews) 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 inBristol, Connecticut and was renamedESPN First Take. After ESPN became part of a new broadcast contract with the association, ESPN2 also premiered the new daily showNASCAR Now (similar to the previousRPM 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,[13][14] and had also faced several timeslot changes, until it was finally canceled in January 2007.
On August 20, 2019, the ESPNewssports betting studio showDaily Wager (nowESPN Bet Live) was moved to ESPN2.[15][16]
On August 8, 2018, ESPN2stunted as "ESPN8: The Ocho"—an homage to a fictitious eighth ESPN channel portrayed in the 2004 filmDodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, dedicated to unconventional and obscure sporting events. The event—which also included airings of the original film— was a follow-up to a similar marathon aired byESPNU the previous year.[17]
ESPN2 has also simulcast many game telecasts with ESPN, usually as a part of a"Full Circle" or "Megacast" broadcast, which covers a single event across ESPN platforms with different forms of coverage (such as different camera angles and features). ESPN2 also simulcasts some programming from ESPNews, often during localblackouts of scheduled national game telecasts, and for a while provided a simulcast ofESPN Deportes' edition ofSportsCenter on Sundays. In return, ESPN2 programming is often seen on ESPN during blackouts of games in certain markets.
ESPN2 also often carriesSportsCenter 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 calledThis is SportsCenter, in which ESPN showed a documentary showing the production of an edition ofSportsCenter, 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 atproduction control while covering reaction to the night's developments.
On March 16, 2008, ESPN2 airedCBS-produced coverage of theSEC men's basketball championship game in most of the country. Atornado had damaged the original game site, theGeorgia Dome, causing the remainder of the tournament to be rescheduled and re-located to the smallerAlexander Memorial Coliseum. However, the new, later tip-off time for the SEC championship created a scheduling conflict with CBS's coverage of theBig Ten championship game. As a result, CBS aired the SEC championship on its affiliates in the markets of the teams involved, while ESPN2 aired a simulcast of the game in the rest of the country.[18][19]
ESPN2 has occasionally been used to carry simulcasts of ESPN Deportes' Spanish-language coverage of events, in an effort to promote the channel and improve the availability of the telecasts (as ESPN2 is available in a significantly larger number of homes than ESPN Deportes), while also reducing the need tocounterprogram with lesser-viewed programs. Examples since 2016 have includedNBA Christmas Day games, the2017 World Baseball Classic (whose English rights were exclusively held byMLB Network), and anInternational Champions Cup game between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.[20][21] From the2017 NFL season through2020, ESPN2 simulcast ESPN Deportes' Spanish-language broadcasts ofMonday Night Football during the first nine weeks of the season, including its pre-game showNFL Esta Noche, andESPN Latin America'sSportsCenter from Mexico City after the game. ESPN2 had largely scheduled filler programming againstMNF until November, when it begins its Monday-nightcollege basketball coverage.[22][23]
In the 2021 season, the Spanish simulcast ofMNF was replaced withMonday Night Football with Peyton and Eli (colloquially known as the "Manningcast"), which is hosted byEli andPeyton Manning, and features appearances by other celebrity guests.[24][25][26]
ESPN2 broadcasts inhigh definition in the720p 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 theAFD #10 flag to transmit the channel'sstandard-definition feed inletterboxedwidescreen, mirroring the display of the high-definition feed, with the SD feed eventually phased out to allow downscaling of the HD feed for the standard-definition channel.
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Owners:Walt Disney Company (80%);Hearst Communications (20%) | |||||||||||||||||||