ESPN is the country’s biggest sports media company, with a dizzying array of sports telecasts around-the-clock on its TV channels and Web sites. Part of what makes ESPN so influential is that it is not content to stand still. It’s always pushing the boundaries to come up with new ways to show games.
That push for quality is noticed and appreciated by ESPN’s league partners.
NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, for example, says that he is used to meeting with ESPN executives before every season and listening to ideas about using new cameras, new microphones or online plans. “They see it as part of their mission,” Silver said. “They see a broader responsibility to continue to grow the industry.”
That type of innovation also has won ESPN some friends among the cable and satellite industries, where ESPN’s push to innovate helps mitigate the high license fee it charges.
“ESPN has been a terrific partner in innovating with us as we launched NASCAR HotPass, delivered interactive coverage of U.S. Open golf and succeeded in our goal of being the HD leader with the launch of ESPNews, the Disney Channel and Toon Disney in HD,” said Derek Chang, DirecTV’s executive vice president of content strategy and development.
All of ESPN’s efforts are paying off. ESPN says that in the fourth quarter of last year, 209 million people interacted with some form of its media, encompassing 73 percent of Americans and 91 percent of American cable TV homes.
“It’s astonishing the amount of content they create,” Silver said.
Still, TV makes up the bulk of ESPN’s business, and the biggest part of that is “Monday Night Football,” which posted nine of cable’s top 10 household audiences for the year, and 16 of the top 20. December’s Patriots-Ravens game scored cable’s biggest audience ever, 12.5 million homes and 17.5 million viewers.
“SportsCenter” is the one show that everybody in the sports industry admits to watching.
