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Pioneering sportscaster Lesley Visser will make history in the spring when she becomes the first woman to receive the Sports Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sports Emmy Awards. The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences said today that she will be honored at the 41st annual ceremony on April 28 at Jazz at…

Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett is no longer suspended by the National Football League for his part in a helmet-swinging brawl on national TV. But another TV spot by Garrett could find him again in legal trouble. During an ESPN interview earlier this week, Garrett claimed that Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudol…

Major League Baseball teams returned to the field this week for the start of spring training. Grapefruit and Cactus league play has been an annual ritual for more than a century ahead of the spring start of the regular season, but this year there are as many existential questions as fastballs flying through the…

UPDATED with Bob Iger comments on Star Wars franchise and Disney+ content. The Disney+ streaming service, which launched in November, has 28.6 million subscribers as of February, the company said Tuesday as it reported fiscal first-quarter earnings after the bell. The sub number is higher than the 20 million-25…

ESPN has iced a deal for Willie, a documentary film about the remarkable life of the National Hockey League’s first black player. ESPN2 will have the TV premiere of the pic about Willie O’Ree on February 17, and the Worldwide Leader’s digital outlets will offer it throughout this Black History Month. A native of…

UPDATED: Media outlets across the nation are revising their programming schedules to honor Kobe Bryant, after the Los Angeles Lakers legend, his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, and seven other people died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Calabasas. ESPN is re-airing the basketball icon’s final NBA game tonight at 9 p.m…

ABC News and ESPN will present a primetime special tonight on the life and legacy of late NBA legend Kobe Bryant. Good Morning America anchors Robin Roberts and Michael Strahan will host the program along with ESPN Reporter Tom Rinaldi. The hour-long special will feature reporting on the latest details surrounding the…

UPDATE: ESPN reporter Edward Aschoff’s fiancée said Wednesday that he died of advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, not pneumonia, as earlier believed. Aschoff died on Christmas Eve at age 34. Further tests after his death revealed the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which was centered in his lungs and had reached stage 4. Berteau…

There's a lot of social media spittle flying over Vince Vaughn shaking hands with Donald Trump at Monday's 2020 College Football Playoff National Championship in New Orleans, but the real action was on the field and in the sets of eyeballs tuning in. Supported by the Wedding Crashers star, No. 1-ranked Louisiana State…

UPDATED, 2:38 PM: ESPN said today that Vick, the two-part 30 for 30 documentary about former NFL star Michael Vick, will premiere at 9 p.m. Thursday, January 30. The second installment will bow a week later, at 9 p.m. February 6. PREVIOUSLY, October 28: The past decade for ESPN has been an eventful one, to put it…

The weekend’s Wild Card playoff games drew solid ratings for the NFL. Viewership for Saturday and Sunday averaged 30.5 million viewers across four games, up 7% from the 2019 Wild Card average of 28.6 million viewers. It is the most-watched Wild Card round average since 2016. Sunday’s Vikings-Saints game, in which a…

The NFL Playoffs Wild Card game Saturday afternoon, a Houston Texans 22-19 overtime victory over the Buffalo Bills, averaged 26,409,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN Deportes, according to Nielsen. The numbers reflect an increase of 14 percent vs. last year, when the Colts-Texans game averaged 23,110,000…