MANILA: ESPN5, the collaboration between TV5 and ESPN in The Philippines akin to what Disney’s sports arm has with Sony in India, has launched a new digital gateway with a dedicated site and streaming player.
The digital launches are the latest developments in the collaboration between TV5 and ESPN after TV5 successfully launched the co-branded ESPN5 channel in October and produced a local edition of the iconic SportsCenter show in December.
“ESPN has a strong connection with fans around the world because we are fans ourselves, driven by a similar obsession for sports,” said Joyee Biswas, head of Southeast Asia, ESPN. “The launch of our new co-branded digital multi-sports products for Philippine sports fans showcases our digital leadership and offers sports fans outstanding news, features and video experiences around top sports of interest to Filipino sports fans. These new products perfectly complement TV5’s recently launched ESPN5 channel and reinforce our signature ‘Game around the Game’ analysis across platforms.”
Vincent “Chot” Reyes, president of TV5, said, “We are proud to be able to feature Philippine sports news, stories from the PBA, PSL, GILAS, and all other sporting events TV5 covers as part of ESPN’s digital platforms. Now we can truly give our audience the broadest array of sports content when they want it, where they want it.”
ESPN Website
From mainstream sports in the Philippines, to the best of ESPN’s comprehensive coverage of global sports that interest Filipino fans, ESPN.com and the ESPN app (the app is launching later this year) will bring fans closer to the games, leagues and athletes they love via world-class digital products. Both the website and app will offer the best of local and global sports including (but not limited to) PBA, NBA, NFL, Volleyball, soccer, tennis, eSports and more.
The new ESPN.com brings Filipino sports fans a clean, dynamic presentation and the editorial team powering coverage on the website and app combines writers, reporters and editors from both TV5 and ESPN. Together, the combination will offer sports fans a combination of local and global sports content including scores, analysis, news, video, blogs and more.
Built on the technology and content management platform that power ESPN’s portfolio of digital sports properties, they reflect ESPN’s mobile-first focus with digital products, and allow easy discovery and navigation of ESPN’s enormous library of content and brings Filipino fans easy, powerful personalization, an official release states.
ESPN.com
The new ESPN.com features responsive design, automatically adjusting to any screen, delivering a dynamically optimized experience for fans on Android and iOS smartphones and tablets, as well as laptops and desktops. The design and user experience is familiar to the app experience – delivering continuity for the Filipino user – regardless of how they engage ESPN on digital devices.
ESPN Player
The ESPN Player, a subscription sports streaming service, will offer live and on demand sports including NCAA College Sports, X Games and IndyCar. NCAA College sports will include Basketball (March Madness and Final Four), Volleyball, Football, Lacrosse and ESPN College studio shows. Full linear simulcasts of the SEC Network, ESPNU and Longhorn Network will also be available on ESPN Player. Additionally, fans will be able to stream ESPN’s X Games, a thrilling display of the best athletes in action sports, including at least four scheduled events in 2018: X Games Aspen, X Games Norway, X Games Minneapolis and X Games Sydney. Filipino sports fans will also be able to watch every race from the Verizon IndyCar series LIVE and on-demand. The exclusive coverage includes driver cams and comprehensive coverage of the iconic Indy 500 race.
Advertising
The new ESPN.com and ESPN app will allow ESPN to continue to push digital advertising forward and provide greater scope for flexibility and innovation, delivering seamless solutions for advertisers across devices, and leverage the strengths of sports and ESPN – the world’s leading sports brand, unmatched content, mobile connection and social, the release further asserts.
ESPN.com will deliver impactful, effective solutions for advertisers based on a new Universal Advertising Package (UAP), which offers the best advertising experience for each device, screen and orientation. The approach streamlines creative delivery and ad serving on the new ESPN.in, and ensures the best representation for brands, no matter the device. The move is designed to enable advertisers to take advantage of the increased effectiveness of multiplatform campaigns compared to single-platform, the release concludes.
