 | |
| Product type | Television networks |
|---|---|
| Owner | ESPN Inc. (The Walt Disney Company 80%,Hearst Communications 20%) |
| Produced by | Bill Rasmussen |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1983; 42 years ago (1983) |
| Markets | Actual: Brazil Canada (TSN) Caribbean Latin America Netherlands Japan (J Sports) Oceania Sub-Saharan Africa Previous: Asia Europe (ESPN America) Indian subcontinent Israel MENA United Kingdom |
| Previous owners | Bill Rasmussen Capital Cities/ABC |
ESPN International is a family ofsportscasting and production networks around the world. It was begun in 1983, is operated byESPN Inc. and owned byThe Walt Disney Company.
ESPN International does not directly operate its own channels inCanada, but owns a 20 percentvoting interest (and slightly larger equity interest) inCTV Specialty Television, a subsidiary of the Canadian media companyBell Media. Canadian regulations on the foreign ownership of broadcasters prohibit ESPN from acquiring majority interest.
Although these channels have retained their local brands (ESPN having acquired part-ownership several years after TSN and RDS launched), they adopted ESPN-style logos in 2001, and use other ESPN branding elements such as theSportsCentre title for TSN's sports highlights programs. CTV Specialty also operated aCanadian version of ESPN Classic from 2001 to 2023.
Through CTV Specialty, ESPN also has an indirect interest in theCanadian version of USA Network and several CTV-branded factual channels. These holdings, all operated in association withWarner Bros. Discovery until December 2024, date to CTV Specialty's previous incarnations asLabatt Communications and later asNetStar Communications, in which ESPN also held a minority interest. Disney/ESPN is not believed to have any direct involvement with these channels, two of which (CTV Nature Channel andCTV Wild Channel) compete directly with Disney'sNational Geographic brand which is separately licensed toCorus Entertainment in Canada. However, after rebranding in 2025, USA Network began airing some overflow sports programming sublicensed from TSN.
ESPN is also indirectly associated withTSN Radio, a brand used by several sports radio stations (each wholly owned by Bell Media), each of which also carries a limited amount ofESPN Radio programming.
In June 2012,News Corporation announced it would acquire ESPN's 50% stake in its joint ventureESPN Star Sports.[1] Following the takeover, ESPN in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia was relaunched as Fox Sports in January 2013,[2] while a version for Mainland China became Star Sports 2 in January 2014.
In January 2013,Star India acquired ESPN India from ESPN Star Sports,[3] but kept ESPN brand for a while.[4] ESPN International later established a partnership with what is nowSony Pictures Networks India in October 2015, and relaunched Sony Kix asSony ESPN in January 2016. Sony ESPN was shut down in March 2020.
ESPN launchedESPN Classic in 2006. The company bought the North American Sports Network (NASN) in 2007, and renamed itESPN America in 2009. Also in 2009, it launched the domestic networkESPN UK after securing rights to thePremier League.[5]
In February 2013,BT Group acquired ESPN's UK and Ireland television channel and remaining broadcasting contracts. Its domestic channel was re-branded asBT Sport ESPN, integrating it with the company'sBT Sport channel group. In January 2015, BT Sport and ESPN reached a seven-year agreement to continue licensing ESPN's brand for the channel, as well as British rights to ESPN original programming and events whose international rights were owned by ESPN International. The agreement also allowed for joint digital media initiatives between the two companies.[6][7] On 1 August 2022, afterWarner Bros. Discovery acquired a 50% stake in BT Sport from BT Group, BT Sport ESPN was renamedBT Sport 4,[8][9] and began to phase out its focus on U.S. sports, with ESPN programming ending altogether when TNT Sports replaced BT Sport in July 2023. In November 2023, ESPN announced an agreement withSky Sports to sub-license college football and basketball coverage.[10] with those rights then moving to streaming serviceDAZN in 2025.[11] Games shown by other broadcasters, such as Fox and CBS, are not shown in the UK due to the deal with DAZN (and previously Sky Sports) only covering games shown by ESPN, although Sky Sports continues to showNotre Dame home games live on Sky Sports NFL due to Notre Dame's home games being shown onNBC.
| Executives |  | ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. networks |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| International |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Ventures | |||||||||||||||||||
| Defunct ventures |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Sports broadcasting rights | |||||||||||||||||||
| Other properties |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Notable personalities | |||||||||||||||||||
| Miscellaneous | |||||||||||||||||||
Owners:Walt Disney Company (80%);Hearst Communications (20%) | |||||||||||||||||||
