★★★★★ 0/5

ESPN2 launches March 1st

ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD are set to bring more NBA, NFL, European Football and Rugby and more.

25
Leave a comment

Following word that ESPN2 would join Austar from March 1st, now it is confirmed for Foxtel, along with ESPN2 HD on both pay networks.

ESPN2 will bring ‘more live coverage of the ATP World Tour, more NBA, more NFL, more MLB, more European Football and Rugby, more College Sports, more action sports and thousands of hours of news and information programming, all delivered in ESPN’s market-leading High Definition.’

“The launch of ESPN2 and ESPN 2HD and the enhancements to our broadband service represent a significant expansion of ESPN’s business in Australia,” said Mike Morrison, ESPN’s VP & General Manager, Asia Pacific.

“In conjunction with our partners at Foxtel and Austar we are able to deliver Australian sports fans more the best sporting content from around the globe. ESPN remains at the forefront of sports broadcasting from our coverage of the best games from some of the world’s biggest leagues to our innovative and entertaining news and information programming. The addition of ESPN2 and ESPN2 HD will allow us to bring more content and more choice to an ever-increasing fan base.”

ESPN 360 will also be rebranded to ESPN3.com and re-launch with a new, improved video player.

25 Responses

  1. ESPN2 is nothing difrent then the ESPN we already have,they promised us more NBA its still the same only 2 games a week.All there is more of is high school Basketball which one one watches and womens basketball.What happend to more NBA they promised.

  2. More NBA is all i want also.Im so sick of having only 2 NBA games a week on ESPN and missing out on the double ehader every sayturday afternoon.It will also be good waking up on a sunday and seeing a saturday night NBA game to,if they show it.

  3. Matt J I also hope the WRC gets a showing on ESPN because oneHD has been terrible, here in tassie they didn’t show day one of sweden because of the NAB afl thingy, and their times and epg are all over the place. The WRC is the best racing and the coverage is fantastic if only we could get it on Tv in oz better.

  5. This is great news, more Real SportsCenter would be great, US ESPN keeps running SportsCenters but ESPN AU feels it needs to give us a dose of Worlds Strongest Man from 1998. Don’t get me wrong ESPN Classic is part of the content pool but I hardly feel this qualifies as “classic”. ESPN also has some great original programming like Mike & Mike in the Morning, SportsNation, ESPN First Take, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live all of which would be great to see on ESPN AU/ESPN2 AU.
    One final note – ESPN AU it’s time to remove that watermark!! I have emailed ESPN a number of times regarding the watermark, it’s not transparent and still sits inside the 4:3. Many times the watermark covers stats/scores during SportsCenter. Let’s get a movement going to bring the BottomLine to Australia – see the following for examples:
    rocketsilence.com/wastebasket/espn_bottomline_overscan.JPG

  6. Local programming on ESPN? Other than sportscenter and pti, i don’t think there is any is there? To the best of my knowledge, they don’t broadcast any local sports.

    And I don’t think there will be any segregating of content between the channels, as that is inflexible and pointless (Speed? What’s the point, no new content, it should have been Fox Sports 4), they will use 2 channels to show more content at the one time. Press Pass is awesome, anyone who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to watch it, a second channel has no bearing on this whatsoever.

    Also, the Picture quality of ESPN HD is overwhelmingly superior to that of OneHD (MPEG-2 rubbish). The only reason certain programs would look poor on it is because of the original capturing of the event or because of conversions.

    Yay for more sports channels.

  8. Anything on WRC (World Rally Championships)? ESPN in the UK will be showing WRC but only ONE HD in Aus will show the daily highlights and nothing live. Do ONE HD hold the broadcasting rights to the WRC in Aus?

  9. Good stuff Paul

    “I think that these shows along with European Soccer, Rugby etc will properly remain on ESPN, while ESPN2 will focus more on just American Sports” Paul

    I think you are basing this on absolutely nothing. I think its a good thing the channel is launching. Hopefully it will provide a balance in local vs overseas programming and satisify the broad majority

    BM

  10. @Paul. i know that. i am glad there is a econd channel so i can avoid shows like those 2. sportscenter local edition isn’t needed. we have foxsports news and that covers every sport really and pti australia is just ordinary

  11. @Bill Murray, Mr. chandler & Jamie – just because ESPN2 is launching does not mean that shows like Sportscenter Local Edition, PTI Australia & Soccernet press pass (with Tommy Smyth with a Y!) won’t be on anymore. I think that these shows along with European Soccer, Rugby etc will properly remain on ESPN, while ESPN2 will focus more on just American Sports.

  12. Excellent news! The Austrailan version of PTI is awful. Please is there anyway to stop this? The American version is so much better (in all aspects) plus the people on the show (Kornheiser and Wilbon) are prepared and know their sports. Instead we get Sam Kekovich and Russell Barwick….please I could prepare a better sports program than these two!

  14. that photo is a screen shot from a video game.

    besides the point, good news for sport fans

    more nba and less soccernet press pass with Tommy Smyth with a Y please

  15. The photo looks like it is Vince Carter playing for the Nets from a video game. Carter left the nets almost 2 years ago. How about a current picture from an ESPN screen?

    ESPN needs to cut down on the ads on their encore screening. If the ads were actually for products that would make them money, but they are usually just cross promoting other ESPN shows. It is quite annoying to watch an encore screening, watch 10 ads and then be told they have to move ahead in the broadcast due to time constraints.

  19. I think it’s got something to do wth the bitrate, basically Fox Sports output a better signal or something along those lines…. but other factors include the kind of camera being used. Still more ESPN is good so long as we don’t pay extra.

  20. Paul, it’s something to do with going from Europe to America then to Australia (or maybe even another country before Aus), getting converted differently each time. The stuff from America looks much better, they do HD better than anyone since SD is so horrible there. The European stuff may not even be in HD, just upconverted SD.

Leave a Reply