I'm surprised that there hasn't been much discussion on this. But ESPN seems to be slowly pushing some live niche events onto ESPN Classic. Of note around here was the Mia Hamm farewell USWNT game in December that was packaged with the SportsCentury: Mia Hamm program and the 1999 WWC Final. Now, the World Cup Qualifier between the United States and Mexico on September 3rd in Columbus, Ohio is scheduled for ESPN Classic. The game will also be shown on Telemundo. I'm wondering if this is a sign of things to come.
TWCNYC does. Therefore I do. Yea, coincidence that both live events on ESPN CLassic are soccer games? I do wish the colonies got this channel though http://www.espnclassicsport.com
Those are just two games. There have been a few other non-soccer games on ESPN Classic. ESPN Classic is part of the Total Choice - but unfortunately not the Para Todos - packages on DirecTV.
They also made a deal to do the NCAA Division II CIAA conference tournament. They did a college football game (Minnesota-Michigan) that might have been numped due to baseball playoffs. They also have a deal with the MEAC and SWAC. I think all of this is great. They really need to take advantage of this and ESPN News as outlets for events that might get lost or things that get bumped due to time or logistical concerns. Trivia question - What was the first live event shown on ESPn Classic?
I get ESPN Classic but don't get GolTV. I'd happily trade but that doesn't seem to be an option. On Comcast in northern New Jersey, ESPN Classic is on regular cable.
I don't understand why yesterday Classic showed the Big East tournament final while ESPN was showing it too.
Man, when they say "instant" they really mean instant. Anyway, I think it is just stupid that they did that.
I think I heard that ESPN is using ESPN Classic to air some games live now when they need three national feeds (especially for college basketball and football) because they don't think the MSOs want another national sports network (i.e. ESPN 3 OR Comcast-owned). After all, such channels are the most expensive on the market. The other key is that the games ESPN Classic shows are supposed to meet certain "criteria," among others including being rivalry games (Michigan/Minnesota), or "timeless" (Big East basketball, which they showed every Wednesday from January-March, in addition to an old-fashioned broadcast of the final). I have ESPN Classic on Time Warner basic at school; it's on Cablevision's iO Digital at home.
IIRC, that game was on a Friday night. Baseball had the stadium occupied that Saturday. ESPN Classic ended up picking the game up. That game could have been the first live event on ESPN Classic. Or else it was a WC02 game.
............and definitely more than FSC, so it's not a bad place to air US Soccer games that can't get a slot on ESPN1/2. And how neat would it have been to see Chelsea v Barca re-aired as an "instant classic" . We can dream I guess......
ESPN Classic also did several live college basketball games as "Turn Back The Clock" games, where they had graphics from 1979, the year ESPN came on the air. They also had a retro announcer, Jim Simpson.
There were a lot of people complaining (and possibly filing a lawsuit) that ESPN/ABC were holding the rights to a lot of broadcasts, but not actually showing them, especially college games. I would suppose that the launch of ESPNU and the movement of some live events to ESPN Classic is done to answer their critics.
I thought they were going to make an ESPN3. Or was that just a rumor? It would be cool if they did make it because I'm assuming they'd put more soccer on it.
ESPN Classic is part of basic in Baltimore I'm pretty sure. The Wednesday night games weren't all Big East, they showed 2 or 3 Conference USA games, as well.