ESPN Classic Sports taps NASN for carriage boost

摘要

ESPN Classic, the Disney-owned sports channel dedicated to archived sports, is ramping up its partnership with sister channel NASN to drive distribution into new markets. NASN, the North American live sports channel, was acquired by ESPN last October for around €80 million from Setanta Sports and private-equity firm Benchmark Capital (NMM October 27, 2006). It is expected to be rebranded under the ESPN banner later this year or early next. ESPN Classic is now looking to exploit the benefits of being able to provide platform operators a "more complete and compelling" offer, according to the channel's director of sales and distribution Marco Frazier. He cited Scandinavia as an "untapped" region, where ESPN Classic had hoped to have "progressed a bit quicker", although the support from NASN could be used across the continent, especially in central and eastern Europe. "We can now hit different audiences with two channels, but there is still significant overlap and a lot of cross over," he said. "This gives us the opportunity to build out and grow." Mike McKibbin, ESPN Classic's European marketing director, added that the channel was now "a more significant entity for platforms." "We're looking to work closely with NASN as it's available in some territories that we're not, and vice versa," he said. "We're increasingly talking to platforms by pushing live sports and classic sports and there are benefits for marketing spend and cross promotion."