In an effort to put "more of its national sports-brand
clout" behind its pay-per-view programming, ESPN plans to
market its various PPV franchises through its core
affiliate-sales and marketing departments, according to R.
Thomas Umstead of MULTICHANNEL NEWS. ESPN Senior
VP/Affiliate Sales & Marketing Sean Bratches said that
ESPN's affiliate-marketing staff "will take over the task"
of promoting PPV college football, college basketball and
MLS, as well as the ESPN Now and ESPN Extra PPV nets, a area
that was overseen by ESPN's distribution-development group.
Bratches also said that "bundling" the PPV properties with
ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Classic "would help to build awareness
of the PPV products and identify them more closely" with the
ESPN brand. Bratches: "Historically, ESPN PPV has been
basically a (DBS) business, but with the proliferation of
digital cable, we believe this is a way to drive more value
with the ESPN-branded PPV services. We see a huge potential
for growth, and we will leverage our strengths in the market
to help push PPV." Umstead adds that ESPN "has been unable
to get sufficient operator carriage, mostly due to a lack of
analog-PPV-channel capacity," as digital cable "offers
greater opportunities" for distribution. The Carmel Group
noted that ESPN PPV packages "generated more than" $52M last
year, "mostly from" DBS (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 6/12 issue).
