ESPN Classic Sport kicks off nostalgia in UK
ESPN launched their first channel into the UK market today with their archived sports offering ESPN Classic Sport. The channel offers some interesting content but whether it will gain enough viewers in the UK to make it viable will remain to be seen. I was glad to see that the opening night included England’s victory over Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup and also one of the greatest tennis matches of all-time, Borg vs. McEnroe at Wimbledon.
In 2001 the BBC and NTL were rumoured to be launching a classic sports channel based on the BBC archives, but the channel never materialised.
Will there be enough hunger from the British public who have nearly 30 channels to choose from on digital tv? I would like to think so, the programming lined up for the first week is truly ‘classic’ sports, the question arises as to where the channel goes once its marquee events (for a British audience) have been shown?
Filed under: media | 2 Comments
Classic remains a niche network at best here in the states. I must say it brings back a lot of memories watching Kobe Bryant with an Afro or old-school highlights for american football, the channel just doesn’t and can’t offer as much as its big brother, espn. People like to go back in time once in a while, not all the time. That’s why even classic has started to televise live events.
I would also like to know who manufactures these?