Last night’s news that ESPN America will continue to be available on British screens came as a considerable relief. The espn.co.uk website has been updated slowly over the past week with new sports being added to their roster, while an actual schedule has still not been published. All of which raised fears that MLB and other North American sports would be shoehorned onto the new football-dominated channel, battling for spare time slots alongside French League Rugby and German Touring Car races.
Combined with the continuing lack of free-to-air coverage of MLB, the result would have been little short of disastrous.  Â
As it is, ESPN America subscribers can simply continue to watch the channel as per normal. Sky subscribers who have enjoyed watching it for free since the demise of Setanta Sports will now need to pay up, but that was always going to be the case.Â
As mentioned yesterday, ESPN America will be packaged with the new ESPN and ESPN-HD channels. Details on how to subscribe with Sky (£9 per month for Sky Sports subscribers, £12 per month otherwise) and Virgin Media (various different M, L and XL subscription options) have been published on the ESPN America website, although there’s no news yet for BT vision and Top-Up TV customers. It was reported yesterday in the Guardian that agreements with these services are close to being agreed, although we don’t yet know whether that will include ESPN America or just the new ESPN channel.
Another very interesting report on the Daily Telegraph website claims that the new channel will be available for free to existing Sky and Virgin Media customers throughout August. Again, we don’t yet know whether ESPN America will be part of this. It would certainly make sense for ESPN to allow potential customers a chance to see what their new channel has to offer and hopefully that ‘taster’ will extend to the whole ESPN package.
While the inclusion of North American sports on the new ESPN channel had previously been the cause of some concern, it now looks like being a great added extra. It’s unlikely that this will lead to more MLB games being shown (i.e. it doesn’t make much sense for them to show competing MLB games on two channels at the same time), but it does mean that some baseball will be available in HD to those who have the capability to watch it. For example, depending on whether it clashes with other programmes on any given Sunday, there’s a decent chance that ESPN Sunday Night Baseball will be available in HD, which I’m sure will be excellent news for some people.
So we don’t have to worry about tomorrow being the last day of ESPN America in Britain. Instead, the overall package may actually be slightly better. All we need now is for a free-to-air channel to step in and obtain the rights to show the World Series (and other postseason games?) and we can once again be positive about the sport moving forward in the UK.
11 comments
I’m currently a BT Vision customer so I’m keen to see what agreement occurs between BT and ESPN. As I was subscribed to Setanta via BT I’ve been enjoying the ESPN America coverage that’s taken Setanta’s place on the freeview channel. While I also subscribe to MLB TV, it’s been great to turn on real TV and flick channels to whatever baseball is on, as well as catch the odd re-run it shows of a classic game.
The trouble is, my appetite for ESPN America has now been whetted but I was kind of hoping that ESPN would just consolidate the football and ‘America’ content into one channel as I’m doubtful that ESPN America will continue to be made available on BT Vision (subscribing via a freeview channel) in addition to the new ESPN channel. It sounds like BT are struggling enough to negotiate on getting the Prem football – I would be surprised if they choose to bring ‘America’ into the equation too. But we’ll see.
From what I can work out it looks like ESPN is essentially going to be seven shades of football plus a gesture towards the motor sport fraternity and egg-chasing enthusiasts. Some baseball intermingled with some Premiership football, all on one channel, would be an ideal mix for me but then I guess – to someone else – wanting to watch men in pyjamas playing rounders seems as random as the other combinations. I’ve just never felt enough interest in the rest of Sky and ESPN America’s sports to pay Sky prices.
Hi Tim. Yes, I would imagine ESPN will just offer their main new channel via BT and Top-up TV, which is a real shame. Like you, I’m an MLB.tv subscriber who has enjoyed watching a few games on TV thanks to the ‘free’ ESPN America period. We’ll see what happens.
Yep, you will be far better off with MLB.tv despite its technical shortcomings. ESPN is mainly American football, poker, and NASCAR with constant arse-licking of both the Yankees and Red Sox during the summer months, but not enough succinct baseball coverage to make it worthwhile.
It looks like the reports that ESPN would be available for free during August have not turned out to be true. That’s a shame.
Another update: subscribers to the ESPN package with a HD set-up will be able to watch some live baseball in HD this week. Although the official site still doesn’t have any schedules on it, the ESPNUK Blog has stated that the following games will be shown on both ESPN America and on ESPN-HD this week:
Tuesday 4th August:
MLB – Cincinnati v Chicago – ESPN (HD)(AM) – 00:00 – 03:00
Wednesday 5th August:
MLB – LA Dodgers v Milwaukee – ESPN (HD)(AM) – 03:00 – 06:00
Thursday 6th August:
MLB – Tampa Bay v Boston – ESPN (HD)(AM) – 00:00 – 03:00
Friday 7th August:
MLB – NY Yankees v Boston – ESPN (HD)(AM) – 00:00 – 03:00
Source: http://espnukblog.blogspot.com/
Matt and Joe Gray: Hello guys from the upper Midwest (Illinois and Wisconsin). Saw the Chicago White Sox take 3 of 4 from the Yankees. What I enjoyed most was watching arrogant Yankee fans file out of The Cell and not saying a word. They are annoying to baseball fans all across America because of their general superiority attitude. Not all, but many. The Yankees are simply not liked in most places outside NY. They do have a huge fanbase though. Many are simply bandwagon fans. The Jake Peavey signing gives the Sox (when he comes back in September) many consider the best 4 man rotation in the American League. Mark Buehrle, Jake Peavey, Gavin Floyd and John Danks are hard to top. If the Sox make the post season, that rotation will be one no team will want to face in a short series. Looks like a 3 team AL Central race to the end. Some nice games coming up on ESPNHD for viewers there. Enjoy the games! Chico
Great blog thanks for your thoughts, loved reading them
Having just purchased the additional espn channel through our new BT vision package I see from one of your contributors that I wont in fact be able to watch baseball regularly as promised by the sales person on the phone!! I have just selected the channel via the tv and scrolled forward to 5th april and not one game of baseball…world series poker, football and every other sport but no baseball, shall i request my money back and stick with the internet mlb site as i used to?
disgruntled female baseball fanatic!!!
Hi Karen. It doesn’t seem as though the general ESPN channel is much help for us baseball fans. I’ve just looked at the latest channel info and the list of sports includes pretty much everything apart from MLB! If it did carry MLB then the ESPN Sunday Night games would be the most likely (i.e. the ones we used to have on Five) and, as you note, this week’s is not in the schedule. Very disappointing.
Hope you get to enjoy the baseball season another way.
Do you get ESPN America Karen?
ESPN America is legitimately a good channel for baseball – I found it excellent for the playoffs last year, as for baseball’s biggest games I did find I wanted the reliability of TV (and being able to DVR the games) over MLB.TV.
Espn America isn’t available on BT Vision sadly. Those customers can only get the general Espn channel. Espn America certainly is a good option for MLB if available though