July 13, 2005

Click Here to See Sportcenters Schedule of 50 States in 50 Days

ESPNU, the new college sports network, will present nightly event telecasts tied to ESPN’s SportsCenter Across America, a 50-states-in-50-days summer tour July 17-Sept. 4. The game replays on ESPNU, which will generally be presented at 10 p.m. ET, will showcase a college sports telecast that involved a team (or teams), player or event originating from the state that SportsCenter is visiting that day. The collection of ESPNU telecasts during the 50-day stretch will include football, men’s and women’s college basketball, ice hockey, softball, baseball, lacrosse and wrestling.

Massachusetts is the first stop on the SportsCenter tour (July 17). Segments from SportsCenter on ESPN that day will originate from Boston’s Fenway Park, site of the Yankees at Red Sox game. That night at 10 p.m. on ESPNU, the network will offer the Syracuse at Boston College men’s basketball game from February of this year.

Other examples of ESPNU events will include Kansas at Kansas State men’s basketball from this past March for the Kansas stop (July 24), a 1999 Kentucky at Florida men’s basketball game featuring star guard and South Dakota native Mike Miller for South Dakota (August 10), Baylor’s 2005 NCAA Women’s Basketball title game win over Michigan State for Texas (Aug. 17), LSU at Tulane baseball from April 2005 for Louisiana (Aug. 28) and BYU at Utah football from November 2004 for Utah (Aug. 29). See below for a complete list of scheduled ESPNU events tied to SportsCenter Across America.

SPORTSCENTER ACROSS AMERICA
Each SportsCenter Across America segment will originate from a mobile SportsCenter set with an anchor and a live audience at a sporting event germane to the state. These daily segments will include event action, historical notes, factoids and vignettes about each state’s contribution to the national sports scene, as well as “Best” lists compiled from ESPN research and ESPN.com voters, and several long-form features.

ESPNU
ESPNU, the new college sports network, was launched in March 2005. The ESPNU schedule will feature more than 300 live events (regular-season and championships) in the network’s first year. Action includes a variety of top football and men’s and women’s basketball mixed with baseball, softball, volleyball, lacrosse, ice hockey, wrestling and more. ESPNU also offer comprehensive studio programming, replays of ABC Sports, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Regional Television games, plus specials and more.

ESPNU has secured distribution agreements with DIRECTV, Adelphia, Mediacom, several smaller affiliates and is close to distribution agreements with others. The 24-hour television network is the key component of the multi-media ESPNU initiative that will deliver college sports content across ESPN’s family of services, such as ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Mobile, ESPN Radio, ESPN Interactive, ESPN360, merchandising and more.