X-Nico

27 unusual facts about ESPN


Alex Alben

At Starwave, Alben worked on pioneering CD-ROM products and helped launch popular web sites such as ABCNews.com and ESPN.com.

Athletics at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metres

In the ESPN documentary 9.79*, eventual silver medallist Christie states, and footage of the race shows, that Lewis "ran out of his lane... two or three times" during the race, which should have resulted in Lewis' automatic disqualification.

Bill Konigsberg

In May 2001, while working for ESPN.com, he came out on the front page of the website in an article entitled "Sports World Still a Struggle for Gays".

Brian Windhorst

Brian Windhorst, also known as "Windy" or "Scoop", (born January 29, 1978) is an American sportswriter for ESPN.com who covers the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association

It was the first NCAA Division II conference to have its tournament televised as part of Championship Week on ESPN.

Chute Boxe Academy

He was quoted in an ESPN article as stating that friendships formed with his former rivals helped to save his career upon his departure from Chute Boxe.

ESPN College Hoops

It is the sequel to the debut game of the series, NCAA College Basketball 2K3, and the first game in the series to feature the ESPN license.

ESPN College Hoops 2K5

The game features an ESPN "broadcast", where the ESPN commentators and logos are seen throughout the season, with an authentic ESPN broadcast during the game.

Fiction Reform

Their song "Small Silhouette" was featured on ESPN's SportsCenter LA in October 2009 and was the first public exposure of the song.

Game-winning RBI

ESPN would continue to occasionally show "GW RBI" in their on-screen statistics well into the 1990s.

Green Umbrella

Cricshop is run as the online shop of the website cricinfo.com - the world's largest cricketing portal run by ESPN.

GWF North American Heavyweight Championship

The title was featured on the promotion's show that aired nationally on ESPN.

GWF Television Championship

The title was defended on the promotion's show that aired nationally on ESPN.

Jerry Crasnick

Jerry Crasnick (Born May 24, 1958) is a sports writer, currently covering baseball for the sports website ESPN.com.

Joe Dean

He coined the phrase "String Music" and is also known for other phrases such as, "Stufferino" and "Lexington, K-Y." During his run, he worked with NBC, TBS, ESPN, TVS and Jefferson Pilot.

John Hollinger

He left Sports Illustrated to write for ESPN.com in the summer of 2005, and his weekly columns are available through their "insider" subscription service.

Mayo Civic Center

The American Wrestling Association held a weekly television broadcast for both syndication, and cable on ESPN, from 1989-1990.

Mendoza Line

"Then they were giving George Brett a hard time because he had a slow start that year, so they told him, 'Hey, man, you're going to sink down below the Mendoza Line if you're not careful.' And then Brett mentioned it to Chris Berman from ESPN, and eventually it spread and became a part of the game."

Olu Famutimi

In Michigan, he played for the Flint Northwestern Wildcats where he climbed the national ranks as the 7th best player in the country according to ESPN.com.

Sarah Burke

She won ESPN's 2001 Award for female skier of the year and was voted 2007's Best Female Action Sports Athlete at the ESPY awards.

Seven Days in Sunny June

The original jersey was used by the Peruvian team during the 70s and was awarded by ESPN as the "Best World Cup jersey of all time".

Shootaround

So infused is the term into basketball's lexicon, in fact, that ESPN's NBA re-cap show is called NBA Shootaround.

Swin Cash

In the off-season, Cash has appeared as a studio analyst on ESPN's NBA Fastbreak (according to ESPN.com) and during the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, she alternated with Teresa Edwards in presenting in-game commentary for NBC's presentation of the women's basketball tournament from the network's New York broadcast studios.

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy

Simmons has written under the name “The Sports Guy” for 12 years, 9 of them with ESPN, and currently receives 1.4 million page views per month.

Vaughan Mills

An ESPN X Games Skatepark was also planned as the main entertainment venue on the site.

Vice Verses

The band premiered 11 of the 12 tracks on September 17, 2011 through ESPN Music commencing with the match between Oklahoma and Florida St.

Wins Above Replacement

ESPN publishes the Baseball Reference version of WAR on its statistics pages for position players and pitchers.


1982–83 NBA season

The USA Network extended their cable deal with the NBA for another two years, and ESPN shared broadcast rights with them.

2010–13 NCAA conference realignment

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick stated in an interview with Pat Forde, then of ESPN.com, that at most schools, realignment was being driven primarily by university administrators who saw an opportunity to improve the academic image of their schools—not by athletic directors.

Adirondack Frostbite

In 2004, ESPN SportsCenter anchor Steve Levy and NHL analyst Barry Melrose became the team's owners and the team changed its name to the Frostbite.

Anne Marie Anderson

Following graduation from Hofstra, Anderson relocated to Bristol, CT and worked as a production assistant, assignment editor and associate producer on ESPN staples such as SportsCenter, NFL Gameday and Outside the Lines.

AnnMaria De Mars

She is the mother of Ronda Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist judoka and mixed martial arts Bantamweight world champion; and of María Burns Ortiz, a sports journalist who serves as the social media columnist for ESPN.com and as a contributor to Fox News Latino.

Ari Wolfe

Wolfe's impressive resume lead ESPN to hire him as the play-by-play man for the Madden Challenge in 2007, shown on Superbowl Sunday on ESPN2.

Boxing After Dark

Replacing them were Fran Charles, former ESPN and Fox Sports Net analyst Max Kellerman who receives "something in the neighborhood of $10,000 for each Boxing After Dark telecast" (Thomas Hauser) and former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.

Brad Childress

ESPN reported that Childress did not consider consulting with team owner Zygi Wilf on this decision.

Carolyn Peck

Peck was not out of basketball for long, however: ESPN hired her as a basketball analyst within months.

Chris Duncan

Since October 2, 2011, Duncan has been a host for "Stully and Duncan," a nightly radio program on the St. Louis ESPN Radio Affiliate, WXOS.

College Hoops 2K6

It also marked the first time since the original NCAA College Basketball 2K3 that the series was without an ESPN license.

Craig Minervini

He also has done play-by-play for various other sports include Notre Dame football on NBC, CBS Sports Spectacular, College World Series on ESPN, Major League Soccer, XFL on TNN, boxing on TNN, mixed martial arts on TNN, Syracuse Chiefs AAA baseball, and Syracuse Orange football, basketball, lacrosse, and soccer.

Cricinfo Magazine

The magazine was discontinued after the July 2007 edition, shortly after ESPN acquired Cricinfo from Wisden in June 2007.

Daniel Brailovsky

He was then a correspondent for SportsCenter and Fútbol Picante, as well as the radio/TV show ESPN Radio Formula.

Doris Burke

In 2003, Burke was named to ESPN's top men's basketball team working with Dick Vitale on the men's games and working the sidelines for ESPN and ABC for their coverage of the NBA.

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Doris Burke (born Doris Sable on January 4, 1965) is a sideline reporter and color analyst for ESPN college basketball, as well as NBA on ESPN and NBA on ABC games.

Doug Ammons

Doug Ammons has turned away sponsorship offers from many kayaking companies and also declined the opportunity to have a show with ESPN on a race he founded, a big water race on the North Fork Payette River.

Doug Gottlieb

Gottlieb was also a frequent guest on other ESPN television shows, including SportsCenter and also on College Basketball Gameday Final.

ESPN Deportes

According to Nielsen, 5.5 million Hispanic households are subscribed to a plan that includes ESPN Deportes.

Fred Christenson

Christenson left ESPN after nearly 20 years of service in 2006 and went to work for Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder’s newly acquired company Six Flags, Inc. (SIX) as Regional Vice President of Parks Strategy and Management.

Gary Hoey

As writer, producer, and guitar player, Hoey's clients have included Disney, ESPN, and No Fear, and he has performed the National Anthem for the New England Patriots, San Diego Padres, and the Boston Red Sox.

Georgie Bingham

During her time at ESPN, she participated in broadcasts from Wimbledon, The Open, the US open golf and tennis, The ESPYs, and interviewed Pele, David Beckham, Tracy McGrady, Michael Phelps, Kobe Bryant among others.

Gianluca Pagliuca

In the 1997 book The Big Show: Inside ESPN's SportsCenter, Olbermann remarked, "We'll spare you which expletive."

Glentoran F.C.

Burrows won the ESPN goal of the season and Sky Sports goal of the season, achieved almost 5 million views on YouTube and went up against world famous player Lionel Messi for the FIFA goal of the season award.

Herman Ngoudjo

He defeated Randall Bailey in a split decision June 8 on ESPN to set up a fight for the IBF title.

Holly Rowe

Other broadcasts that Rowe has been a part of with her time at ESPN include play-by-play for Women's World Cup matches, coverage of the Running of the Bulls, coverage of swimming, and broadcasts of track & field events.

J. C. Pearson

Pearson left Fox following the 2008 season to return to ESPN to call college football games on ESPN2 and ESPN with Dave Lamont.

Jemele Hill

Hill also makes regular appearances on television, including SportsCenter and several ESPN programs, including ESPN First Take, Outside the Lines and The Sports Reporters.

Jim Wacker

After the season, Wacker was named as National Coach of the Year by ESPN, the UPI, and The Sporting News.

John Dykes

Highlights of his time with ESPN STAR Sports include his anchoring the broadcast of cricket's 1999 World Cup in England, trips to Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows to work alongside Vijay Amritraj on Grand Slam tennis, and his work in Augusta for Tiger Woods' triumph at the 2001 Masters.

LaPhonso Ellis

In 2009 Ellis began his first full season as a college basketball analyst for ESPN.

Lexington Legends

The event received coverate on various television programs including NBC's The Tonight Show, ESPN's Pardon the Interruption and SportsCenter, and MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Matthew Barnaby

On December 5, 2011, ESPN terminated its contract with Barnaby after his arrest on suspicion of DWI earlier in the day.

Mike Durbin

In 1996, Marshall Holman became the new color analyst for ESPN's coverage, while Durbin took over play-by-play duties.

Norwalk Community College

Matthew Berry, current writer for ESPN.com and senior director of fantasy sports of ESPN.

Ocoee High School

The Marching Band has performed in the Cotton Bowl Music Festival, the Florida Citrus Parade, the Ikea Thanksgiving Parade, multiple Under Armour Football All-American Games that were broadcast on Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), multiple Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades at Universal Studios Florida, and the New York City Veteran's Day Parade.

Rob Paternostro

Whilst recovering from injury in 1999, Paternostro worked at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut putting together highlight packages for SportsCenter and NBA Tonight.

Shane Theriot

He has performed with many influential musicians, authored guitar instruction books and DVDs, and composed and produced music for MTV and ESPN, among others.

Shaun Weiss

Most recently, he is seen in a commercial for Captain Morgan's ("Maxi-Mixers are going fast! How about a demo, Phil?"), Castrol, and ESPN Mobile MVP as Mike 'Big Grunz' Grunski.

Solomon Wilcots

During this time he spent spent three seasons (1998–2000) as a sideline reporter for ESPN's Sunday Night football, for which he received an Emmy Award in 2000 for sideline reporting.

SportsChannel

The network obtained the National Hockey League rights from ESPN in 1988 by offering the NHL almost triple the amount of money that ESPN was offering (a move not unlike the 2005 NHL rights grab by Comcast/OLN over ESPN).

Steve Bunin

Prior to ESPN, Bunin served as sports anchor/director at five different local news stations: WOTV-TV in Battle Creek, Michigan, from 2002-2003, WLAJ-TV in Lansing, Michigan, from 2000-2001, KNAZ-TV in Flagstaff, Arizona, from 1998-2000, WICZ-TV in Binghamton, New York, in 1997 and WTVH-TV in Syracuse, New York, in 1995-1996, where he worked alongside future CNN anchor Christopher Lawrence and future ABC anchor David Muir.

Texas Fight

Another version used at the annual Texas-OU game is "Give 'em hell, give 'em hell! OU sucks!" In a commercial for ESPN's College GameDay, Kirk Herbstreit improvised "Yeah, we're Texas, just north of Mexico. Home of the armadillo, black gold and El Arroyo..." before Longhorns coach Mack Brown says, "we don't freestyle 'Texas Fight', Big Boy."

The Basketball Jones

The show championed the “fan perspective” of sports reporting pioneered by ESPN’s Bill Simmons.

The ESPN Sports Poll

The ESPN (Chilton) Sports Poll was created by the Chilton Company in 1993 and launched on January 4, 1994.

Tommy Smyth

In 2007 he joined ESPN's MLS broadcast team and has also done a few World Cups for ESPN, including 2006, where he partnered with Adrian Healey.