Latest in ESPN

There was just no fuel last night in the New York Jets as the Cleveland Browns took down their conference rivals 23-3 in the second week of ESPN’s Monday Night Football. As Odell Beckham Jr. showed the Jets how it's done with an 89-yard career-long touchdown and  an eloquent one-handed grab earlier in the game, the…

Jimmy Pitaro, a seasoned digital executive who has been president of ESPN for the past year and a half, offered a predictably upbeat assessment of the Disney unit in an appearance Thursday at the Paley Center. The 45-minute conversation with SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm started with a four-minute recitation of…

Football is back in America and from the early results, it's a touchdown for the well compensated NFL and its clearly relieved broadcasting partners. Cementing a shifting trend away from years of declining ratings, the September 5 official season kickoff game was up double digits over 2018 and Sunday Night Football…

ESPN used its high-profile season opener of Monday Night Football to warn DirecTV viewers of a looming carriage deadline with the AT&T-owned distributor. The exact date of the contract expiration wasn’t specified, but it is understood to be sometime in September and also would apply to AT&T’s U-verse cable platform…

The upset by Canadian teenager Bianca Andreescu over superstar Serena Williams at the US Open Women’s tennis tournament propelled the network to a 2.7 overnight rating for its three-hour telecast. That’s ESPN's best for the event and up 13% from a 2.4 year ago, the previous high. The two-hour match portion, which saw…

Last night’s women’s semifinals at the U.S. Open, which saw Serena Williams defeat Ukrainian fifth seed Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-1, earned a 1.6 rating for ESPN. That’s up 14% from a year ago and equals the sports network’s best for that round since 2017 when all four players were Americans. The telecast’s rating peaked…

A battle between young tennis titans Coco Gauff of the US and top-seeded Naomi Osaka of Japan at the US Open tennis tournament drew a 1.9 overnight rating for the 90-minute segment on ESPN2, according to Nielsen. The match – in which Osaka prevailed 6-3, 6-0 – peaked in its final quarter hour, 8:15-30 p.m. ET, at a…

A force perhaps greater than the Jedi faith is likely to hit Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando this holiday weekend and it could prove harder than making the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs, to paraphrase Han Solo. Just days after the House of Mouse opened its $1 billion-budgeted Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge…

The 2019 U.S. Open coverage on ESPN has grown in the ratings compared with last year on each of its first four days, the network said Friday. And that’s before Saturday’s primetime showdown in the year’s final tennis Grand Slam tournament featuring 15-year-old U.S. phenom Coco Gauff against defending champ (and…

Major League Soccer's annual championship game, the MLS Cup, will air this year on ABC, marking first time the American pro league’s title match will appear on a broadcast network since ABC aired it in 2008. The game is set for Sunday, November 10 at 3 PM ET/noon PT and will also be available to stream live on the ESPN…

Ready for some football….The other kind of football. ESPN and the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) have inked an exclusive agreement for worldwide rights (excluding U.S.) to the league's regular season and playoff matches. ESPN already holds the rights to NWSL broadcasts in the U.S. via a separate agreement…

ESPN’s loss is the Philadelphia Eagles gain, as veteran quarterback Josh McCown has opted to leave his position as an analyst with the sports network to return to football. McCown retired in the off-season after serving as a mentor last year to New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold. He will fill the Eagles need for a…