Under the deal, AOL will be the first portal to carry ESPN content, which will include highlights from games and major sporting events as well as ESPN original programming clips.
"Working with AOL allows us to offer new benefits to fans and advertisers,” said Matt Murphy, senior VP, Digital Video Distribution at ESPN. “Viewers can now access the programming they want, whether they are on ESPN.com or AOL’s portal, while our advertisers benefit from a larger online video audience than ever before. The potential is tremendous and we hope fans will be seeing more syndicated video from ESPN.com in the future.”
Kevin Conroy, executive VP, AOL, added: “ESPN is joining an impressive roster of partners on AOL Video that includes all four major networks and a myriad of cable channels. This agreement further demonstrates our on-going commitment to providing consumers with easy access to the best and most relevant video content on the Web.”
Content available through ESPN’s embedded video player on AOL includes SportsCenter Right Now, a twice-daily capsule of top sports stories, highlights and breaking news, plus game clips from major professional and college teams and sporting events. The multi-sport video player will also offer links to ESPN.com content related to the video topics.
In 2007, ESPN.com videos were viewed more than 1.2 billion times, a 54 per cent increase on the previous year.
