ESPN2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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| Type | Cable Television Network |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Availability | National, through regional affiliates |
| Owner | ESPN Inc. (The Walt Disney Company) |
| Launch date | October 1, 1993 |
| Past names | None |
| Website | ESPN2 Website |
ESPN2 debuted on October 1, 1993, as a sister station of ESPN. Nicknamed "the deuce," ESPN2 was to be branded as a network for a younger generation of sports fans featuring edgier graphics as well as extreme sports like motocross, snowboarding, and BMX racing.
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[edit] 1993-2001
[edit] Style
The original ESPN2 graphics featured the letters "ESPN" in several fonts, one of which was its traditional script, with the only consistency being the '2' that looked like spray painted graffiti. On-screen graphics used an odd font with random capital letters, as "tHis iS aN ExAMplE". No announcers wore ties and traditional sports had "deuce names", NASCAR was "Hell on Wheels", the NHL was "Fire on Ice", and so on.
[edit] SportsNight
The first program on ESPN2 was SportsNight, a sports news hybrid featuring Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber. The debut was noted by Olbermann's statement at the beginning of transmission: "Good evening, and welcome to the end of our careers." Several notable ESPN personalities debuted on ESPN2's SportsNight, among them Stuart Scott and Kenny Mayne.
[edit] Experimental broadcasts
In its early years, ESPN2 was used for some experimental sports broadcasts. On September 18, 1994, ESPN covered the CART Nazareth 200, and ESPN2 featured a live simulcast with an all on-board camera broadcast. ESPN2 featured several half-hour news programs focused on specific sports, such as NFL 2Night (football), NHL 2Night (hockey), and RPM 2Night (auto racing). As early as 1996, ESPN2 debuted a sports news ticker, dubbed the "BottomLine," which was present throughout almost the entire day, rather than just at the top and bottom of the hour as it has been done on ESPN. ESPN2's sports telecasts were also among the first to regularly use a scoring bug.
[edit] ESPN2 since 2001
This format was not successful. The so-called MTV Generation was not interested in sports pandered to them in this way, and traditional sports fans were turned off by the youthful gimmick, and several cable companies still refused to include ESPN2 in their basic lineups. The channel was then reformatted. ESPN2 now offers much of the same programming as ESPN, often airing spill over programs from "The Mothership." Graphics and announcer dress are nearly the same as ESPN, only using blue where ESPN uses red, plus the addition of the "2" at the end of the logo.
[edit] Programming
Sports events presented on ESPN2 tend to be alternative sports such as poker, billiards, lumberjacking, extreme sports and, more recently, drum and bugle corps. However, in recent years ESPN2 has broadcast increasingly more mainstream sporting events, including much of the 2006 World Baseball Classic, many Major League Soccer, and NCAA Basketball games, and the Grand Slam Tennis tournaments the Australian Open, The French Open and Wimbledon.
ESPN2's flagship show, the morning sports/entertainment program Cold Pizza, has achieved minimal success and seen several format and host changes. In January 2006, it was supplanted by the TV simulcast of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning (which moved from ESPNEWS) and moved to a later time slot (10a-12n EST). Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith, a program that features interviews with popular sports figures, has averaged extremely low ratings[1][2], and has also faced several time slot changes.
[edit] On-screen graphics
The "2" does not feature the signature stripe through the font like the other letters in the logo. ESPN's sports ticker, the "BottomLine", continues to run at the bottom of the screen, featured on all ESPN2 programs, whereas ESPN still only features the ticker during its highlights programs and at :18 and :58 on the hour during live game coverage. ESPN2 now appears in 89 million homes in the United States, only one million less than ESPN.
[edit] Simulcasting
ESPN2 has also simulcast many games with ESPN, in ESPN Full Circle where each ESPN network (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU carries a different camera angle or commentary of big college matchups.
ESPN2 also simulcasts some ESPNEWS programming, often during local blackouts, and for a while provided a Sunday simulcast of ESPN Deportes' SportsCenter.
ESPN2 also often carries SportsCenter on days where the regular ESPN broadcast is overrun by a longer than expected sporting event.
ESPN2 HD, a high-definition simulcast of ESPN2, was available for the first time nationwide September 9, 2005, via DirecTV. ESPN flipped the switch on ESPN2 HD at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2005.
