In 2004, ESPN released a made-for-TV movie entitled 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story which used a new ( but similarly colored ) No. 3 logo.

In 1995, Stephen Greenberg co-founded Classic Sports Network with Brian Bedol, which was purchased by ESPN and became ESPN Classic.

Its major interests include 15 daily and 38 weekly newspapers, and more than 300 magazines around the world, including Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Elle and O, The Oprah Magazine ; 29 television stations through Hearst Television Inc. which reach a combined 18 % of U. S. viewers ; ownership in leading cable networks, including A + E Networks, and ESPN Inc .; as well as business publishing, Internet businesses, television production, newspaper features distribution and real estate.

* ESPN Inc. ( owns 20 %; also shared with Disney, which owns the other 80 %)

In a recent interview with ESPN Deportes, Sosa said he would " calmly wait " for his induction into baseball's Hall of Fame, for which he will become eligible in 2013.

This would be the final Super Bowl hosted by Musburger, as all subsequent Super Bowls on ABC were hosted by ESPN's Chris Berman following the Disney purchase of ABC ( which included ESPN ), and the subsequent integration of ESPN and ABC Sports ( now ESPN on ABC ).

In September 2004, Roger Lodge hosted a sports trivia game show on ESPN titled ESPN Trivial Pursuit, which aired five episodes.

Further adding to the debate was the 2004 ESPN made-for-TV movie Hustle, starring Tom Sizemore as Rose, which documents Rose's gambling problem and his subsequent ban from baseball.

In February 2006, Disney CEO Bob Iger initiated a trade with NBC Universal in which a number of minor assets, including the rights to Oswald, were acquired by The Walt Disney Company in exchange for sending sportscaster Al Michaels from Disney's ABC and ESPN to NBC Sports.

He also released a book Man in the Middle, published by ESPN Books ( ISBN 1-933060-19-0 ) which talks about his professional and personal life as a closeted basketball player.

During his infamous Decision, broadcast on ESPN, James announced he would take his " talents to South Beach and join the Miami Heat ," which triggered a volatile fusillade of anger, primarily from Cleveland fans ; Cavaliers ' owner Dan Gilbert released an over-the-top letter that reeked of bitterness, as he claimed that Cleveland would win a championship before James would.

Many movies with a general sports theme will include ESPN announcers and programming into their storylines ( such as in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which gently lampoons the channel's multiple outlets by referencing the as-yet-nonexistent ESPN8, " The Ocho ", a reference to a nickname formerly used for ESPN2, " the Deuce "; the slogan for the network was " If it's almost a sport, you'll find it here!

SNL also parodies ESPN Classic with fake archived obscure women's sportscasts from the 1980s such as bowling, weight lifting and curling, with announcers who know nothing about the sport, and instead focus on the sponsors which are always women's hygiene products.

ESPN and the ACC have a rights deal that extends through the 2026-27 season which provides additional football, men's and women's basketball and Olympic sports coverage on a variety of platforms, suggesting the bias may have a financial motivation.

SEC coverage is primarily provided by CBS and the ESPN family of networks, which includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ABC.

In the same month, the league also announced another landmark television contract with ESPN worth $ 2. 25 billion or $ 150 million a year for the life of the contract, which is for fifteen years.

Like most other Disney-owned cable channels, starting in 2008, Toon Disney began airing in High-Definition ( the only ones which didn't were ESPN Classic & SOAPnet ).

Canadian National Basketball Association star Steve Nash, who himself was inspired by Fox when he was a child, directed a 2010 documentary Into the Wind, which aired on ESPN as part of its 30 for 30 series.

The major AM radio stations in Brunswick are WSFN 790, an ESPN affiliate and primarily a sports station ; WCGA 1100 ; WGIG 1440 ; and WMOG 1490, which are all news and talk stations.

In 2003, Limbaugh had a brief stint as a pro football commentator with ESPN.

In particular, ESPN the Magazine's 1999 NFL preview predicted the Rams would be the worst team in the NFL via numerical rating system ; worse even than the Browns who had returned as an expansion team that year.

At the start of the 1997 season, the WNBA had television deals in place with NBC ( NBA rights holder ), and the Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation joint venture channels, ESPN and Lifetime Television Network, respectively.

At the time, ABC had lost its contract for NFL broadcast rights, and despite recently signing a long-term contract with ESPN, Michaels was interested in rejoining broadcast partner John Madden at NBC for the Sunday night package.

On the NBA's trade deadline on February 24, 2011, numerous sports news outlets including ESPN reported that the Pacers had agreed to a three-team trade that would have sent Josh McRoberts to the Memphis Grizzlies and Brandon Rush to the New Orleans Hornets, while the Pacers would have received O. J.

A new BottomLine was also released that day on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic and ESPNU, but it was quickly removed and reverted back to the old BottomLine ( which had been used since April 2003 ) due to an equipment failure ( however, this ticker was successful for the 2009 NFL Draft and the 2009 NBA Draft ).

In February 2008, BattleBots announced that ESPN had offered to broadcast a " Collegiate BattleBots Championship " competition limited to a single 160-pound weight class to be held during the summer of 2008, with competitors from as many as 160 colleges.

) A new four-year agreement between the BCS and ESPN had forestalled any possibility of the Cotton Bowl Classic joining the BCS until 2015 at the earliest.

The AWA even teased fans with Slaughter appearing to win the World title from Zbyszko live on ESPN, only to have the decision reversed on a technicality ( a booking practice the AWA had been employing for years ).

She was named National College Player of the Year by ESPN in 1995, was named a first-team collegiate All-American by Kodak / WBCA and the Associated Press, and is one of only two North Carolina women's basketball players to have had her jersey retired.

While being interviewed for ESPN Classic's SportsCentury ( about the year in sports in 1994 ), Vincent believed that the strike turned out to be a lost cause since the end result was federal judge Sonia Sotomayor ruling that work had to resume under the previous collective bargaining agreement.

On April 17, 2012, ESPN reported that Brown was being named the new head coach of the SMU Mustangs, replacing the aforementioned Matt Doherty, who had been fired from SMU earlier in March.

In the United States, the game show 2 Minute Drill on sports network ESPN had its roots in Mastermind.

Judging from his words over the air, Caray had a distaste for the sports entertainment empires ESPN and Fox.

When the Rush returned in 2010, the AFL signed its TV deal with NFL Network, but the Rush were not featured as often as they had been with ESPN and NBC, averaging between 2 and 3 telecasts a year on NFL Network in 2010 and 2011, but were shutout from the national spotlight in 2012.

ESPN purchased the rights to the game following its 2010 playing and the 2011 Gator Bowl aired on ESPN2 ; with the acquisition of the Gator Bowl the ESPN family of networks became the home of every New Year's Day bowl game ( the network already had the rights to the Outback, Capital One, and Rose bowls and acquired the rights to the TicketCity Bowl and the remainder of the BCS games ).

Beginning in 1992 and continuing until the 2005 playing ( by which time the game had become the Insight. com and then Insight Bowl ), the game aired on ESPN.

On December 17, ESPN reported that Benson had told Saints players that he planned to keep the Saints in San Antonio for the 2006 season and possibly beyond, and that he was willing to sue the NFL for the right to stay there.

Matthew later rebounded with a lackluster ( though controversial ) draw against Fermin Chirino, a bout in which many felt that Matthew had won by a 10-round unanimous decision, followed by two more exciting bouts against journeyman Tim T. Williams ( on ESPN ), who was KO'd in round 10, and Tennessee toughman Knox Brown, who had only previously been down at the hands of John Mugabi, and was again floored by Hilton in a 10-round decision victory on the USA Network.

This was a particularly hard blow to Sega, the previous holder of the ESPN license, who had already been affected by EA's NFL deal.

However, ESPN. com columnist Jayson Stark stated that " no player has ever — and again, that word is ' ever ' — had his Hall of Fame candidacy helped more by the sabermetrics boom than Blyleven.

The growing presentation of cheerleading as a sport to a global audience has been led by the 1997 start of broadcasts of cheerleading competition by ESPN International and the worldwide release of the 2000 film Bring it On.

While ESPN is one of the most successful sports networks, it has not been free from criticism.

ESPN has been a part of popular culture since its inception.

Many jokes have been made by comedians about fake obscure sports that are shown on ESPN.

ESPN has been criticized for not reporting a taped recording of Bernie Fine's wife apparently acknowledging that she knew her husband may have molested children, particularly because ESPN ran a number of articles criticizing Joe Paterno for not taking enough affirmative action to report Jerry Sandusky's child abuse.

Its athletic teams are called Hilltoppers, and its mascot is Big Red who has been featured in several ESPN commercials.

The World Series has traditionally been featured on ESPN.

Atlantic City hosts The United States Poker Championship at the Trump Taj Mahal casino, which has been broadcast by ESPN in recent years.

Since 2007, ESPN2 as well as ABC and ESPN have been the exclusive carrier of all Nationwide Series races, replacing Fox, FX, TNT and NBC.

Extreme Ironing has been featured in news stories on CBS Sunday Morning, in The New York Times, The Sun, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Sydney Morning Herald, Calcutta Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Toronto Star, TIME Magazine, ESPN. com, The Financial Times, MTVu, and CNN. com.

Since 2002, the Winter X Games have been held at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, and according to ESPN they will continue to be held there in 2012.

This fight was also considered by many experts as a Saad Muhammad classic, and has been shown on ESPN Classic's Classic Fights show.

The film has garnered a large cult following and has been hailed by many publications, such as Time and ESPN, as one of the funniest sports movies of all time.

Of golf's broadcast television partners in the U. S., NBC is the only network to provide four days of major tournament coverage ( CBS, which airs the Masters and the PGA Championship, only provides weekend coverage of its tournaments ; since 2010, the Open Championship has not been aired live on an over-the-air network, with all four rounds airing on ESPN and only edited highlights screened by ABC ).

* The song has been used in advertisements for the Discovery Channel's Future Car program, American Express, American football on ESPN, Carling beer, Folksam, Little Debbie, Nissan Altima and the Oldsmobile Alero, as well as the " Go Greener " campaign in Scotland.

ESPN. com wrote that saves have not been determined to be " a special, repeatable skill — rather than simply a function of opportunities ".

It has been ranked the third most pitcher friendly park by ESPN, as of 2012.