Another person who has not been keeping up with the industry ESPN Classic (U.S.) will NEVER become "ESPN3". And I do mean NEVER. Not in the next 10 years, 50 years, or 100 years. Why not? COX, Time Warner, and Comcast all insisted on a "no conversion" clause in the current carriage agreement they did with ESPN, Inc./Walt Disney Company. The "no conversion" clause prohibits ESPN Classic (U.S.) from carrying live programming beyond a handful of hours (i.e. less than 9) each week. There is already a Tennis Channel, a Golf Channel, a Auto Racing-only channel in SPEED Channel. There is also a free-to-air all-Olympic sports channel, now known as Universal Sports [owned by NBC Universal and available for FREE with a digital TV tuner in New York City (channel 4.4), Los Angeles (channel 4.4), Chicago (channel 5.3), Philadelphia (channel 10.3), Dallas (channel 5.3), San Francisco (channel 11.3), Washington (channel 4.3), San Diego (channel 39.3), Hartford (channel 30.3), and Las Vegas (channel 3.3) among others], with more swimming, cycling, skiing, beach volleyball, speed skating, figure skating, European Champions League Ice Hockey, etc. than you care to watch. (Note: NBCU is offering Universal Sports to NBC affiliates as a replacement for the soon-to-go-dark NBC WeatherPlus channel digital free-to-air channel.) -- "ESPN World", if it were to happen, will consist of just enough soccer (English Premier League and UEFA Champions League will be more than sufficient), plus endless retransmissions of "SportsCenter UK", SportsCenter Australia, PTI UK, PTI Australia, ESPNsoccernet Press Pass, "ESPNscrum Press Pass" (a rugby talk show), "ESPNcricinfo Press Pass" (a cricket talk show), etc. "ESPN World" will cost at least $20 a month, if not $25 or $30 a month. All "ESPN World" needs to have is live coverage of 95% of matches involving Manchester United to sell enough subscriptions in the U.S. to pay for itself over time. (FYI: Manchester United fans in the U.S. outnumber Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea fans combined by a factor of 3 to 1.) The current price of Setanta Sports USA, at $15 a month, is not sufficient for Setanta Sports USA to pay for itself. That price has to go up regardless of whether the channel remains branded "Setanta Sports" or if it were bought out (i.e. turned into "ESPN World", but with rugby, aussie rules, Irish sports, and French Ligue 1 stripped out and replaced by "SportsCenter UK" and SportsCenter Australia.)
So fox sports world basically. I sometimes miss the days when FSW was around before they became FSC. At least for a while they still had FSWR but even that is now just FSR. The coverage of the Dakar rally was always interesting.
That's interesting to know. I was trying to find out details of the carriage agreement, because I haven't been able to find any information related to restrictions on ESPN Classic content. Do you know where I can find that?