ESPN America
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| TV station ( private law ) | |
| Program type | Division program |
| reception | Digital: cable , satellite , IPTV |
| Image resolution |
576i ( SDTV ) 1080i ( HDTV ) |
| business | December 5, 2002 to August 1, 2013 |
| owner | ESPN Inc. |
| List of TV channels | |
| Website | |
ESPN America , until February 1, 2009 NASN for North American Sports Network , was a pay-TV television station devoted to the sports common in North America . The station was founded in December 2002, the headquarters were in London . The transmitter existed in several versions for Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. It was broadcast live or with a time delay in English .
program
The program of ESPN America consisted of: American Football (NFL and NCAA football), ice hockey (NHL and Frozen Four), Basketball (NCAA), Baseball (MLB and College World Series), lacrosse (NCAA and MLL) and Arena Football (AFL ), as well as sports news, highlights, analyzes and classics. ESPN America thus covered almost all major North American sports. In terms of motorsport, only the NASCAR and IndyCar rights were not held by ESPN America , but those for the NHRA .
ESPN America , at that time still under the name NASN Europe , attracted attention when it was surprisingly announced in September 2005 that the broadcaster had acquired the broadcasting rights to the NFL for four years in Germany (the continental European version of NASN could only be received in Germany at that time ). By then, some of the NFL games had been broadcast on Premiere . In the 2005/2006 season, NASN showed six NFL games each week, four of them live (two regular Sunday games, the Sunday Night Game and Monday Night Football ). In 2006 and 2007 the station also broadcast games from the now discontinued NFL Europe . There was also a cooperation with the American Football Association Germany . The German Bowls 2005 and 2006 were broadcast as recordings across Europe by NASN .
For the 2007 season, NASN also renewed the rights to Major League Baseball , the broadcaster paid around 20 million euros for a 5-year contract. Professional baseball from the USA is now one of the main focuses of the station.
reception
ESPN America could be received on cable television until August 1, 2013 as part of the digital TV program bouquets of Kabel Deutschland , Unitymedia Kabel BW , Kabelkiosk , Cablecom and Liwest . Since the summer of 2006 was ESPN America also via satellite as part of the bouquet of arenaSAT and on IPTV service Entertain of Deutsche Telekom receivable. From September 2007 to August 2013 ESPN America could also be viewed through other reception options.
Due to different legal situations, the programs of ESPN America in continental Europe and ESPN America in Great Britain partially differed . In Italy and Great Britain, for example, B. ITV and BSkyB have NFL rights so that ESPN America GB could not broadcast NFL games. On the other hand, the continental European version did not have the rights to the NBA .
Sale to ESPN
In December 2006, NASN announced that the previous owners Setanta Sport Holdings Ltd and Benchmark Capital Europe had agreed to sell the company shares with the US sports broadcaster ESPN, which belongs to the Disney group . The global broadcaster ESPN , which was previously only represented in Europe with the ESPN Classic broadcaster , paid an estimated 90 million euros for NASN .
Sold by ESPN UK
In February 2013 it was announced that the BT Group will take over the European branch of ESPN in July 2013. BT had previously u. a. acquired the broadcasting rights for the English Premier League from the 2013/14 season and saw the purchase as an expansion of the sports portfolio. With the purchase of the broadcasting group, attractive contracts for the transmission of American sports leagues such as the NHL or the NBA were also taken over. In the summer of 2013, ESPN America ceased broadcasting. The broadcaster Sport1 US then started in German-speaking countries and took over many of the rights for North American sports that were previously held by ESPN America.