ESPN to Launch New 24-Hour Spanish-Language Network

ESPN to Launch New 24-Hour Spanish-Language Network

ESPN Deportes to be Expanded in Third Quarter '03

ESPN President George Bodenheimer announced today plans to launch ESPN Deportes as a 24-hour, Spanish-language sports network in the third quarter of 2003.

"Providing ESPN-branded content in Spanish is a major step forward in ESPN's commitment to serving a diverse, growing fan base," said Bodenheimer. "In true ESPN fashion, it's exciting to combine the talent and expertise of our domestic and international teams to deliver live events from the U.S. and around the world, sports news and the world's largest library of sports programming."

Today, ESPN Deportes is a separately produced 52-week block of programming on Sunday nights, with Spanish-language commentary and graphics. The ESPN Deportes block is distributed to 13 million subscribers and has presented full seasons of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball and Sunday Night NFL telecasts.

The new network will report to Russell Wolff, senior vice president and managing director, ESPN International. ESPN Deportes will offer a wide variety of domestic and international sports programming including Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the best of European soccer. In addition, the network will offer other sports from around the world with a focus on Latin America including Pacific League Baseball, ONEFA college football from Mexico, and coverage of Copa America Volleyball, the premier volleyball tournament in the Americas. Both the U.S. and Latin American Summer and Winter X Games will be televised in Spanish.

ESPN Deportes will also offer viewers a selection of Spanish-language sports news and information shows, including SportsCenter, the world's leading sports news show, which is supported by newsrooms in the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Singapore and bureaus around the globe. Other programs to be featured include Gol ESPN: Fuera de Juego, a round table discussion of the world of soccer, and ESPN's Perfiles, a half-hour interview show which takes a revealing look at prominent Latin American sports stars.

"We have a unique set of resources to deliver the best of U.S., Latin American, and international sports to the U.S. Hispanic audience," said Wolff. "ESPN Deportes will utilize the assets of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, and ESPN Classic in combination with our Latin American networks and web site to serve the interests of this audience better than ever."

Sean Bratches, ESPN executive vice president, affiliate sales and marketing added, "We are very excited about ESPN Deportes, a network that our affiliates have long asked ESPN to launch. It is a priority for our affiliates to better serve the Hispanic market in the U.S., where the penetration of multichannel homes is less than the rest of the country. We believe ESPN Deportes will support subscriber acquisition and digital growth."

ESPN Deportes, which translates into English as "ESPN Sports," had its beginnings in 2000 when ESPN and Major League Baseball agreed to provide ESPN's affiliates the right to carry a limited number of Spanish-language Sunday Night Baseball telecasts. ESPN Deportes launched as a weekly block in April 2001.