 | |
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bristol, Connecticut |
| Owner | ESPN Inc. |
| Parent | ESPN Internet Ventures |
| URL | www |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Available, but not required |
| Launched | April 1, 1995 (as ESPNET.SportsZone.com) |
| Current status | Active |
ESPN.com is the official website of ESPN. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc.
Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), [1] the website has developed numerous sections including: Page 2, SportsNation, ESPN3, ESPN Motion, My ESPN, ESPN Sports Travel, ESPN Video Games, ESPN Insider, ESPN.com's Fanboard, ESPN Fantasy Sports, ESPNU.com, and ESPN Search. ESPN.com also has partnerships with MLB.com, NBA.com, NFL.com, WNBA.com, MLSsoccer.com, NHL.com, Baseball America, Golf Digest, Scouts Inc., Jayski.com, USGA.org, Sherdog.com, and Masters.org.
It also has sections devoted to certain sports and leagues including: the National Hockey League, National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, NASCAR, Indy Racing League, NCAA, golf, soccer, women's sports (ESPNW), cricket, and eSports. Each section contains pages devoted to: scores, teams, schedules, standings, players, transactions, news wires, injures, and columnists pages.
Some notable current and former ESPN.com and ESPNW.com columnists are Allison Glock, Jemele Hill, John Buccigross, Chris Mortensen, John Clayton, Adam Schefter, Andy Katz, Bill Simmons, Jayson Stark, Buster Olney, Paul Lukas, Gene Wojciechowski, Scoop Jackson, Pat Forde, Jim Caple, Michael Smith, and in the last stages of his journalism career, Hunter S. Thompson. The website was part of the MSN portal from 2001 to 2004. [2] [3] ESPN launched a Spanish language website in 2000, ESPN Deportes.com. [4] The content of some ESPN.com articles is argued to have been plagiarized. [5]
ESPNW’s mission is to “inform and inspire female athletes and fans." [6] The website covers a wide range of topics related to women in sports including women's soccer, martial arts, basketball, tennis, food and nutrition for athletes, Title IX legislation, LGBTQF inclusion, poetry, personal essays and music for athletes. Coverage of men’s sports is also included on the website. In 2019, personal essays by feminist self defense practitioner Rachel Piazza and gymnast Ellen Hagan were featured in their culture section. [7] [8] Since its inception ESPNW has included extensive coverage about women’s soccer. [9] The 2011 Women’s World Cup was only the 6th women’s World Cup and the participation of the United States helped raise domestic awareness about the involvement for women in soccer, such as Mia Hamm. According to journalist Jack Bell, author of the New York Times article, 'Hamm Joining ESPNW for Women’s World Cup',“in the women’s game, the world is catching up to the United States; in the men’s game, the United States is always playing catch up.” [9] ESPNW hired well regarded female athletes to commentate on their newly formed network. The involvement of such important figures as Mia Hamm helped grow ESPNW's reputation among sports fans. Hamm helped popularize the online network when she worked as a commentator during the 2011 World Cup for ESPNW as well as ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3. [9]
ESPN started local chapters of its website in response to the decline of local sports coverage available as newspapers continue to go out of business across the country. [10] Each page covers local professional and college teams, hiring locally known writers, and in some cases making use of the city's ESPN Radio affiliate. In markets where the ABC Owned Television Stations owns a station, their sports coverage is incorporated with the corresponding ESPN local site. Some local sites have expanded into high school sports coverage.
The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000, the league began its first season in April 2001 with eight teams in the United States. The league suspended operations on September 15, 2003, shortly after the end of its third season, after making cumulative losses of around US$100 million.
Brandi Denise Chastain is an American retired soccer player, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion, two-time Olympic gold-medalist, coach, and sports broadcaster. She played for the United States national team from 1988 to 2004. In her 192 caps on the team, she scored 30 goals playing primarily in the defender and midfielder positions. She scored a World Cup-winning penalty shootout goal against China in the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup final.
Mariel Margaret "Mia" Hamm is an American former professional soccer player, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion. Hailed as a soccer icon, she played as a forward for the United States national team from 1987 to 2004. Hamm was the face of the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), the first professional women's soccer league in the United States, where she played for the Washington Freedom from 2001 to 2003. She played college soccer for the North Carolina Tar Heels and helped the team win four NCAA Division I Women's Soccer Championship titles.
The United States Soccer Federation (USSF), commonly referred to as U.S. Soccer, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the official governing body of the sport of soccer in the United States. Headquartered in Chicago, the federation is a full member of FIFA and governs American soccer at the international, professional, and amateur levels, including: the men's and women's national teams, Major League Soccer, National Women's Soccer League, youth organizations, beach soccer, futsal, Paralympic, and deaf national teams. U.S. Soccer sanctions referees and soccer tournaments for most soccer leagues in the United States. The U.S. Soccer Federation also administers and operates the U.S. Open Cup and the SheBelieves Cup.
The participation of women and girls in sports, physical fitness, and exercise has been recorded to have existed throughout history. However, participation rates and activities vary in accordance with nation, era, geography, and stage of economic development. While initially occurring informally, the modern era of organized sports did not begin to emerge either for women or men until the late industrial age.
Fox Soccer was an American television specialty channel specializing in soccer, owned by 21st Century Fox, which operated from 1997 to 2013. It formerly broadcast rugby and Australian rules football, but in its final years it was devoted strictly to soccer.
Mary Abigail Wambach is an American retired soccer player, coach, and member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame. A six-time winner of the U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year award, Wambach was a regular on the U.S. women's national soccer team from 2003 to 2015, earning her first cap in 2001. As a forward, she currently stands as the highest all-time goal scorer for the national team and is second in international goals for both female and male soccer players with 184 goals, behind Canadian Christine Sinclair. Wambach was awarded the 2012 FIFA World Player of the Year, becoming the first American woman to win the award in ten years. She was included on the 2015 Time 100 list as one of the most influential people in the world.
Julie Maurine Foudy is an American retired soccer midfielder, two-time FIFA Women's World Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. She played for the United States women's national soccer team from 1988 to 2004. Foudy finished her international career with 274 caps and served as the team's captain from 2000 to 2004 as well as the co-captain from 1991 to 2000. In 1997, she was the first American and first woman to receive the FIFA Fair Play Award.
Briana Collette Scurry is an American retired soccer goalkeeper, and assistant coach of the Washington Spirit as of 2018. Scurry was the starting goalkeeper for the United States women's national soccer team at the 1995 World Cup, 1996 Summer Olympics, 1999 World Cup (champions), 2003 World Cup, and the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. She played in the semi-final and playoff for third place in the 2007 Women's World Cup. She was a founding member of the WUSA, playing three seasons as starting goalkeeper for the Atlanta Beat (2001–2003).
Cynthia Marie Parlow Cone is an American soccer executive and president of the United States Soccer Federation. A former professional soccer player, she is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist and 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup champion. As head coach in 2013, Parlow Cone led the Portland Thorns FC to clinch the inaugural National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) championship title.
Alyson Kay Wagner is an American sports broadcaster and retired soccer midfielder who last played for Los Angeles Sol of Women's Professional Soccer and the United States women's national soccer team. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time FIFA Women's World Cup bronze medalist. She has worked for Fox Sports, CBS Sports and ESPN as a soccer analyst. She is the first woman to call a FIFA Men's World Cup game on English-language U.S. television, serving as the analyst alongside Derek Rae for Iran's 1–0 win against Morocco on June 15, 2018. She is also an owner of USL Championship club Queensboro FC and a founding owner and co-chair of the National Women's Soccer League expansion club awarded to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2023.
Michael Owen's WLS 2000 is an association football video game developed by Silicon Dreams Studio and published by THQ for the Nintendo 64. Released on 10 November 2000, the game stars English footballer Michael Owen.
ESPN Australia is the Australian division of ESPN, part of the ESPN International grouping. It is offered in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands.
In the United States, sports are televised on various broadcast networks, national and specialty sports cable channels, and regional sports networks. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44 percent of the total worldwide sports media market. U.S. networks are willing to pay a significant amount of money for television sports contracts because it attracts large amounts of viewership; live sport broadcasts accounted for 44 of the 50 list of most watched television broadcasts in the United States in 2016.
Alexandra Morgan Carrasco is an American professional soccer player who plays as a striker. She is the captain of San Diego Wave FC of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), the highest division of women's professional soccer in the United States, and the United States women's national soccer team. She co-captained the United States women's national soccer team with Carli Lloyd and Megan Rapinoe from 2018 to 2020.
Danielle Victoria Slaton is an American retired professional soccer player. She is currently a soccer analyst for MLS Season Pass, Fox Sports and the Pac-12 Network. A five-year member of the United States women's national soccer team from 2000-2005, Slaton also played for the Carolina Courage in the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) and was named the league's Defender of the Year. She went on to play for the French club Olympique Lyonnais where she was a starting defender on the team in the Division 1 Féminine.
The Women's Professional Lacrosse League (WPLL) was a women's lacrosse league in the United States. The league was formally composed of five teams: the Brave, Command, Fight, Fire, and Pride. The league announced on February 27, 2020, that it would restructure and downsize the league to four teams, which would ultimately be: the Brave, Command, Fight, and Pride. League play started on Saturday, June 2, 2018.
Catarina Cantanhede Melônio Macário is a football player who plays as a forward for Chelsea in the Women's Super League in England. Born in Brazil, she represents the United States internationally.
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league owned by the teams, and under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federation. At the top of the United States league system, it represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The NWSL was established in 2012 as a successor to Women's Professional Soccer (2007–2012), which was itself the successor to Women's United Soccer Association (2001–2003). The league began play in 2013 with eight teams, four of which were former members of Women's Professional Soccer.
| Executives |  | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. networks |
| ||||||||||||||||
| International |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Co-owned Canadian sports networks | |||||||||||||||||
| Ventures | |||||||||||||||||
| Defunct ventures |
| ||||||||||||||||
| Sports broadcasting rights | |||||||||||||||||
| Other properties | |||||||||||||||||
| Notable personalities | |||||||||||||||||
| Miscellaneous | |||||||||||||||||
Owners: Walt Disney Company (80%); Hearst Communications (20%) | |||||||||||||||||
