ESPN360
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ESPN360 is a video content player that can be found at ESPN360.com. The program only fully works through Internet service providers who have signed up and paid ESPN for the programming. Viewers from non-subscribing ISP's only can see a preview (roughly 3-5 minutes of taped content), although there are occasions where ESPN360 is "all access" and permits all individuals to access the site. These periods are advertised on the ESPN family of networks.
ESPN 360 features live sporting events, such as the 2006 FIFA World Cup and college football and college basketball games, and content from the past night in sports. The entire program is free to the individual (the ISP pays for the cost) with few advertisements.
Until June 25, 2006, ESPN360 was a standalone application requiring Windows 2000 or greater and Windows Media Player. Currently, ESPN 360 is a web-based application using Macromedia Flash and Windows Media Player, the FAQ section of ESPN 360 indicates that Mac OS X is now supported.
There are currently seven channels for ESPN360, four of them ("The latest", "The Greatest", "ESPN Shows, and "Dot Comedy") non-changing. The other three channels are alternating, as they currently are "The NBA Draft", "The ESPY's", and "The World Cup" channels. There are also "360 only" channels, including one ESPN Online Games channel. The video games are set into two categories, one is called "Arena Games" and consists of Boxing, Baseball, and Basketball games, 1 game per sport. The other category, labeled "Bar Sports" consists of "Air Hockey", "Beer Curling", and "Coin Toss". All three of the bar games have the ESPN Zone as the background. The other one is called ESPN Exclusive, which features clips of shows that have run on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, and ESPN Deportes.
ESPN 360 also offers coverage of the 2006/2007 UEFA Champions League Football games. Champions league games can be found by using the search box.
[edit] Controversy
Because ESPN360 is only available to ISPs that have paid for the service (usually cable companies and services such as Verizon's FiOS and DSL services), it has been alleged that ESPN is streaming college sports games only on the service in order to force cable companies and other ISPs to carry it.
For instance, an October 2006 Big Ten matchup between the Wisconsin Badgers and Northwestern Wildcats was only aired live on ESPN360, and most viewers in the state of Wisconsin could not view it, due to ESPN360 not having agreements to be carried by the dominant cable companies in the area, Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable [1]. Wildcat fans in the Comcast-dominated Chicago area also faced the same difficulties, as Comcast also had no ESPN360 deal. The University of Wisconsin had to retrieve special permission from ESPN to allow the game to be streamed over their university's computer network for students and faculty [2]. The only way to view the game on television was a late-night tape delay over the state's public television network.
The same scenario has also happened for football games between the Maryland Terrapins/Virginia Cavaliers [3], and the Boston College Eagles/Buffalo Bulls [4].
[edit] Current List of Service Providers
The following is a list of the Internet Service Providers subscribing to ESPN360 as of November 15, 2006.
- BELD
- Cavalier
- Charter (currently Los Angeles and St. Louis area systems only)
- Conway
- Frontier
- Grande
- Iowa Network Services
- Liberty PR
- Mediacom
- MidHudson
- MTC
- Phonoscope
- Shen-Heights
- SMU
- StarStream
- US Cable
- Verizon
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