ESPN will launch a new channel in Britain to exploit its Premier League rights from next season, the Disney-owned sports network announced yesterday.
The channel – to be called ‘ESPN’ - will be launched on 3 August in standard and high definition. ESPN will show 46 Premier League football matches next season in addition to a range of American sports previously provided on the ESPN America channel.
UK pay-operator BSkyB will sell the ESPN channel to both its residential and commercial customers, available to the former on a premium subscription basis, for £9 a month to existing Sky Sports subscribers and £12 pounds a month to other Sky customers.
“We look forward to working with Sky to deliver great sports content to their subscribers and will continue our discussions with all other pay-TV providers so that we can bring ESPN to as many sports fans in the UK as possible,” said Lynne Frank, ESPN managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The Sky Sports in-house production team will produce ESPN's Premier League matches next season, while ESPN will produce the graphics, analysis and additional programming.
ESPN won the live UK rights to 46 Premier League matches for the 2009-10 season and 23 matches for the three years after following UK broadcaster Setanta went into administration last month.
