X-Nico

23 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.

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.

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.

AWA International Television Championship

It was filled with a several months long tournament and was defended on their television broadcast on ESPN.

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.

GWF North American Heavyweight Championship

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

Herschel Walker trade

For this reason, ESPN.com lists it as the 8th most lopsided trade in sports history.

Human Dog Sled Competition

In past years, ESPN has given brief coverage to the final matchups of the event.

Isidore Newman School

In May 2010, ESPN.com ranked Newman at the top of a survey of which high schools produce the best NFL players—even though the school has produced only three NFL players—because of the success of the Manning brothers.

Jerry Crasnick

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

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.

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.

Refugio Independent School District

In 2011, ESPN's Outside the Lines program highlighted Jason Herring and the Refugio High School football team's preparation for the state playoffs, where they routinely could not avoid running up the score.

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".

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.

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

The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy is the second book by ESPN columnist Bill Simmons.

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.

2009 Allstate 400 at the Brickyard

Along with ESPN, the IMS Radio Network, working with Performance Racing Network, provided radio coverage on terrestrial radio, World Harvest Radio International also provided Shortwave feed of the IMS coverage, and with Sirius XM Radio holding the satellite radio rights.

Andre Aldridge

During his three years at ESPN, Aldridge reported and anchored for various shows on the network, including NBA Tonight, NBA Matchup, and Friday Night Fights.

Bill Couturié

He recently co-produced and directed the film Guru of Go, a documentary for the ESPN 30 for 30 series about Paul Westhead' s unorthodox fast break basketball offense at Loyola Marymount University called "The System" featuring Gregory "Bo" Kimble and the late Hank Gathers.

Cricinfo Magazine

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

Danny Perez Ramírez

He holds wins over contender Julio César García, the 2006 winner of ESPN's The Contender Grady Brewer, and former IBA Middleweight Champion Jose Luis Zertuche.

Dave Strader

Following the death of longtime ESPN broadcaster Tom Mees in 1996, Strader was hired by the cable network to take the vacant play-by-play spot on National Hockey Night broadcasts.

David Padgett

As a high school senior, he was the top-rated center and considered the fourth-rated prospect overall by Inside Hoops, the seventh overall by Rivals Hoops, and fifteenth overall by ESPN.

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.

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.

ESPN College Football Saturday Primetime

Some notable voices of ESPN College Football Primetime over the years have been Ron Franklin, Mike Gottfried and Adrian Karsten, but all have gone on to different assignments, except for Karsten, who died in 2005.

ESPN Deportes

ESPN Deportes is available on some cable systems including Comcast, AT&T, Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Brighthouse Networks, as well as on Dish Network and DirecTV.

ESPN Deportes.com

Several journalists from ESPN Deportes and ESPN Latin America also appear on ESPN Deportes.com, including Raúl Allegre, John Sutcliffe, Ciro Procuna, Francisco Alemán, Tito Puccetti, Enrique Sacco and Martín Urruty.

Fisher Field

the 2006 edition was televised nationally on ESPN2 as part of the High School Showcase (it was the last Thanksgiving high school football game ESPN has aired to date).

Frank Tanana

He was given the nickname "Frank Tanana Daiquiri" by broadcaster Chris Berman of ESPN.

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.

Gianluca Pagliuca

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

Henry Lundy

Lundy returned to the ring five weeks later, again on ESPN, with a unanimous decision win over Omri Lowther in Montreal, Quebec – a fight Lundy agreed to take on just three days’ notice.

Three months after winning the title, Lundy made his first defense against John Molina Jr. in the main event of ESPN’s Friday Night Fights at Twin River Casino in Lincoln, Rhode Island on July 9, 2010.

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.

James Hasty

He also has served as a college football analyst for ESPN.

Jeff Allison

ESPN's Peter Gammons made mentions of the similarities between the two players during his commentary at the 2008 MLB All Star Game.

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.

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 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.

Larry Nuber

During a 1989 "Thunder" broadcast, Nuber and fellow announcer/former racer Steve Chassey got involved in a heated dispute over Rich Vogler which eventually caused both men to be let go by 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.

Linda Cohn

Cohn returned to the East Coast in 1992, when she was hired by ESPN to work on SportsCenter, and has since become a familiar face among SportsCenter viewers.

Mallory Holtman

In the weeks following the initial ESPN.com reports, Holtman and Wallace, often with Tucholsky, have appeared on Inside Edition, The Early Show, ESPN First Take, SportsCenter, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Matthew Barnaby

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

Mock draft

Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay of ESPN and Mike Mayock of the NFL Network are considered television experts on the NFL Draft.

Nick Burdi

Burdi participated in the Area Code Games in the summer of 2010, attracting the attention of scouts, including Keith Law of ESPN.com.

Norris Division

As part of his shtick, ESPN's Chris Berman often refers to the National Football League's NFC North division (previously the NFC Central division) as the Norris Division or "NFC Norris" since the two divisions included teams from three of the same cities: Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis–St. Paul.

Nudity in sport

The Body Issue, ESPN magazines annual issue featuring nude photographs of athletes

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.

Omri Lowther

In August 2006, on ESPN's Friday Night Fights he would go onto lose a ten round decision to title contender Henry Lundy.

Perry Swenson

Perry is currently in a 12-episode series follows former PGA Tour professional and current ESPN commentator Charlie Rymer, Hootie & the Blowfish band member Mark Bryan, musician Josh Kelley and Duramed Futures Tour player Perry Swenson as they enjoy an extended Myrtle Beach golf vacation.

Playmakers

Although the ratings were very high for ESPN—Playmakers was the highest-rated show on the network other than its Sunday night NFL and Saturday college football games—ESPN eventually canceled the series under pressure from the National Football League, who thought professional football was being negatively portrayed.

Proposed Major League Baseball franchises in Portland, Oregon

ESPN.com reported that the Portland metropolitan area was a bigger location then the ones that house the Cincinnati Reds, the Kansas City Royals and the Milwaukee Brewers.

Scott Secules

He may be best known for the nickname Scott "Won't You Let Me Take You on a" Secules given to him by ESPN broadcaster Chris Berman.

Taurian Fontenette

Video clips of the feat have been shown on ESPN's SportsCenter and also have been widely distributed over the internet.

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.