Network ESPN Founded 1996 | Country Australia | |
Launched 19 September 1995 (Optus TV)
April 1999 (Austar)
September 2002 (Foxtel) Picture format 576i (SDTV)
720p (HDTV) Audience share (In Australia)
0.1% (April 2008, ) Slogan The Worldwide Leader in Sports Motto The Worldwide Leader in Sports Profiles | ||
ESPN Australia is a 24-hour sports channel offered in Australia and New Zealand.
Contents
- History
- Content
- Athletics
- American Football
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Boxing
- Cricket
- eSports
- Horse racing
- Ice Hockey
- Motor Racing
- Rugby Union
- Soccer
- Tennis
- Poker
- X Games
- Other programming
- News and talk shows
- ESPN HD
- ESPN 3D
- References
Initially, ESPN was known as Sports ESPN on the Optus Vision cable television system, and focused on sports aired by its home network in the United States, including American football, baseball, and basketball. In order to expand its local reach, it has shown an increasing amount of football games including La Liga (now on beIN Sports), UEFA Champions League (shared with SBS), World Cup qualifying games, and Major League Soccer. Also on the network schedule are rugby matches and Cricket matches.
ESPN Australia has also commenced showing locally produced content including Australian versions of PTI and SportsCenter. They also air a soccer discussion show Monday to Friday called ESPNsoccernet PressPass which is hosted by Andrew Orsatti.
On 1 March 2011 ESPN2 launched in Australia both in standard and high definition formats.
History
It became available on Austar in April 1999, and Foxtel in September 2002.
The broadcast of Jarryd Hayne's debut for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League on 15 September 2015 drew the network's highest ever audience with 116,000 viewers watching the game live, beating the previous audience record of 107,100 viewers for Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014.
Content
The following is the list of sports programming shown on the ESPN network (with some being shown only on ESPN and not ESPN2, and vice versa).
Athletics
American Football
Baseball
Basketball
Boxing
Cricket
eSports
Horse-racing
Ice Hockey
Motor Racing
Rugby Union
Soccer
Tennis
Poker
X Games
Other programming
News and talk shows
ESPN HD
ESPN HD was one of the first five channels to be available in HD when Foxtel HD+ launched. ESPN HD commenced in June 2008. The SD version of ESPN began broadcasting in widescreen on 25 January 2010. On 2 June 2011 ESPN HD (the HD simulcast) and ESPN3.com launched in New Zealand on Sky.
ESPN 3D
ESPN 3D launched in Australia on the 30th, July 2010. The channel launched to show 8 hours of the X Games 16 live in 3D. ESPN 3D is currently only available in the U.S. and Australia via Foxtel IQ2 and Austar MyStar HD. Foxtel 3D launched on 1 November 2010 which shows all of ESPN 3D's content - with ESPN 3D no longer having its own channel. Since the launch of Foxtel 3D, Austar has not had access to 3D content from ESPN, with it unknown if Austar will offer Foxtel 3D any time in the near future.