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ESPN on BT Vision and Top Up TV

by Matt Smith

There have been a few more developments since the launch of the new ESPN channel on Monday.  They’ve made some additions to their roster of sport, predominantly football with a bit more football and then another load of football on top of that, and more importantly agreed deals with BT Vision and Top Up TV to carry the new channel.

As many expected, it will only be the new ESPN channel on these platforms, with ESPN America just being available in full to Sky and Virgin Media customers.  However, ESPN’s opening week schedule has included a decent amount of MLB action, meaning that the channel might be a better option for some baseball fans than first thought. 

The current schedule on ESPN’s UK website is a little confused when it comes to the baseball offerings.  They’ve got the White Sox and Cubs mixed up for one game and the Sunday Night baseball game is listed as being on live in the early hours of Sunday, rather than Monday, morning.  Nonetheless, the general gist of the schedule is that there are several games to watch live or ‘as live’ over the course of the week.

For example, the Red Sox-Yankees game is being shown live at midnight tonight, followed by ESPN’s magazine show Baseball Tonight.  A recording of the Cardinals-Mets game is on at 06.00 tomorrow morning with more Red Sox-Yankees action in the early hours of Friday.  Angels-White Sox follows that at 6.00 on Friday.  There’s then a live game at 01.00 on Sunday morning with the Sunday Night baseball game live in the early hours of Monday morning.

We don’t yet know how the baseball coverage will be affected when the Premier League football season starts up, but the broadcasting times of MLB games shouldn’t clash with most of the other sports on the channel.

So even without ESPN America, BT Vision and Top Up TV subscribers will have access to some baseball via the new ESPN channel.  Whether it’s worth the price really comes down to what other options are open to you and if there are other sports on the channel that appeal as well.

Liking football would be a good head start in that respect.

In any case, it is at least a positive that there are now several different options out there to be considered for British baseball fans. From the full ESPN package on Sky or Virgin Media, the ESPN standalone channel on BT Vision or Top Up TV, to MLB.TV online, hopefully there’s a decent fit there for you among them. 

Once again, we just need the free-to-air option to return as well.

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3 comments

Nick_K August 5, 2009 - 10:48 pm

Been watching it on Virgin the last few days been liking it it werid hearing so many people in the US talk about Baseball tonight I get to watch it.

Reply
Owen August 6, 2009 - 10:39 am

Sorry for being stupid but:

Is it a seperate package to get ESPN and ESPN America. I noticed that my ESPN America has been switched off.
If anyone could help along with prices that would be great.

Regards

Reply
Tim August 6, 2009 - 1:59 pm

Owen – I think it depends on which provider you are with (Virgin, Sky, BT Vision). I know that with BT Vision you can only get ESPN (not America) either through one of BT’s programming packages or by paying £10 a month to add it on to your service.

It’s also worth noting that on BT Vision, where the ESPN channel is hosted on one of the freeview channels, it does not broadcast between about 3am – 12pm. Not sure whether that applies to Top-Up TV too but I would imagine so. Not sure why that is – they don’t broadcast anything else in its place on BT Vision.

That will obviously have an adverse effect on live MLB broadcasts beginning in the early hours of the morning.

Reply

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