ESPN launches, but no news on boxing coverage

Boxing fans waiting to see whether ESPN will plug the rather enormous hole left in the sport's coverage by the demise of Setanta will have to wait a while longer after the US company announced plans for a new channel in the UK.

ESPN will launch its new channel, called simply ESPN, on August 3 on Sky channel 417, a slot presently occupied by ESPN America, as well as an HD Channel. The cost will be £9 or £12 per month, depending on whether viewers already subscribe to Sky Sports or not.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the new channel said it will be showing many of the US sports presently screened on ESPN America, 46 Premier League football matches next season and a somewhat vague "international sports". This could involve some of the sports ESPN presently distributes to other channels (for instance, the Friday Night Boxing show that is presently broadcast as Boxing USA on Five) or it could involve screening other UK sports action.

"A lot of live rights have recently become available, but whatever we acquire will have to make business sense," a spokesman said. "It is only two weeks since we acquired the Premier League rights, so at the moment we are confirming the name, the tie-up with Sky and the price. If we were to acquire additional live rights for the UK, it is likely that they would be on this channel."

http://timesonline.typepad.com/boxing/2 ... erage.html

Cheers decypher, so basically it sounds like ESPN America with some Premier League football.

No offence ESPN, but that aint gonna sell to British Sky subscribers, they need to get boxing, rugby, cricket, etc for it to even have a chance

Please can we have some boxing Mr Espn??

Setanta showed some good fights from the USA, Cotto-Margarito, etc so if ESPN bought a few of them it would be awesome.

Yeah, I can't see many people wanting to pay around £10 a month for inferior premiership football coverage and US sports. (And they only have 46 games for the next year. That is going to be halved after that.)

They are going for UFC of course, and apparently we may find out about who gets that in the next couple of days.