Comcast recently announced an agreement with Disney and ESPN Media that will allow the nation’s largest cable operator to add ESPNU to its digital classic video tier and ESPN360.com to Comcast.net.
Disney, ESPN Media and DirecTV also said that ESPNU will be more widely available to DirecTV’s subscribes by July 1.
Comcast said it will launch ESPNU in a majority of its cable systems in time for the start of the college football season. The launch includes Comcast’s southern systems, which will feature coverage of ESPNU’s new Saturday game-of-the-week Southeastern Conference (SEC) package.
Comcast will also make ESPN360.com available to its high-speed Internet customers for no additional charge through Comcast.net, which reaches 17 million unique users per month, also in time for this year’s college football season.
With this agreement, ESPNU will have more than 46 million subscribers and ESPN360.com will be available to nearly 41 million homes – a majority of broadband homes in America.
“Comcast continues to be the place for sports fans to turn to for all the college, professional and high school sports action they want – on television, online and on demand,” said Matt Bond, executive vice president of content acquisition for Comcast Cable. “ESPNU and ESPN360.com will add to the thousands of live sports events that fans already watch on Comcast today.”
ESPNU provides college sports fans with more than 550 live events annually and televises some of the top Division I conferences in the nation, including: the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, MAC, SEC, Sun Belt and WAC. The network also has a wide-ranging, long-term agreement with the NCAA that includes coverage of 22 NCAA championships, including sports from each of the three collegiate seasons.
With ESPN360.com, Comcast.net customers will be able to catch sports action online at any time. Comcast.net offers extensive content with more than 130,000 videos from providers such as ABC News, CBS News, Fox Sports, Disney, E!, G4, The Weather Channel, CelebTV and others.
