The walls are coming down fast for mobile sports viewers.
On April 7, ESPN released an application called “WatchESPN”
that makes its possible for iPad, iPhone and iTouch viewers to access commercial free broadcasts of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.com.
Initially, the application allows Time Warner Cable Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Bright House Networks subscribers who authenticate themselves to receive ESPN’s programming anywhere they go with their mobile devices, but ESPN executives indicated that release of the application is part of a broader overall strategy. The application is available for free through the Apple’s App Store.
“This is where the market is heading,” Sean Bratches, ESPN’s executive vice president of sales and marketing, said in a Wall Street Journal report. “This is re-energizing the company in terms of things we can do by exploiting technology to serve sports fans.”
ESPN’s move comes just days after Time Warner Cable Television and Cablevision Systems Corp. released iPad applications that made sports programming available to its subscribers. Those applications allow viewing within range of Wi-Fi hookups. The new ESPN application pushes well beyond that model by allowing viewers to see ESPN anywhere, so long as consumers can prove through authentication that they already pay for ESPN in the home.
ESPN’s new application also demonstrates how Apple chief executive officer Steve Jobs is wielding considerable corporate clout to make sports programming a driver of mobile device sales. ESPN is a part of Walt Disney Co., and cable companies get their rights to ESPN programming through deals with Disney.
By agreeing to allow their subscribers to access ESPN anywhere once they have authenticated themselves, cable operators are helping to drive sales of mobile devices, potentially at the expense of their core television distribution business (a risk that’s offset by the potential rewards mobile device direct marketing). Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder and member of its board of directors.
[…] the biggest provider of cable services Comcast was previously shut out from the WatchESPN service — only customers from Verizon’s FiOS home-fiber service, Time-Warner Cable and Bright […]