By – Jim Williams
We now know it as ESPN360 the network’s runaway broadband success but come April it will become ESPN3.
Recently Damon Phillips the man in charge of the soon to be rebranded network could not contain his excitement for the success of ESPN360.
Phillips:”We are an extension of the network and in many ways we are a portable, take it anywhere version of the ESPN family of networks. We had over seven million people watch college football this season smashing our records from before. We are up double digits in all of our sports from college basketball, to soccer and the recently concluded Aussie Open was huge for us. We will continue to offer plenty of quality content to our user’s laptops and cell phones.”
“The name ESPN3.com more closely aligns with the existing naming convention for our networks,” said Sean Bratches, executive vice president, sales and marketing. “We have approached this as a network for years, and as users have become more accustomed to engaging with content across various screens, it made sense to make adjustments that reflect both the product’s and the industry’s evolution.”
I can tell you I find myself watching soccer on the weekends as well as a number of college basketball games on ESPN360. It is not as good as my HD TV but watching sports on the road on the back deck of my home sure makes it easy to like the new ESPN3 the portable network.
Here is a quick list of what will be seen on ESPN3
• Basketball: NBA, Men’s and Women’s college basketball, Euroleague, FIBA, WNBA;
• Football: College Football (including the BCS Bowl games beginning next season)
• Soccer: FIFA World Cup events and global qualifiers, Football League (UK), Carling Cup (UK), La Liga (Spain), Italian Serie A, Portuguese Liga Sagres, MLS, US National team, international “friendlies” and more;
• Baseball: MLB, College World Series, Little League World Series;
• Tennis: Hundreds of hours of multi-court coverage of all four “grand slam” events as well as select other events;
• Golf: extensive coverage of the US Open, The Masters, The Open Championship and more;
• Lacrosse: Major League Lacrosse, NCAA College Lacrosse;
• Misc. Sports: X Games and Winter X Games, NCAA Hockey and Softball, Open-wheel Racing, Professional Racquetball, International Polo and more.
