ESPN announces ESPNW..

[SirFozzie]

ESPN for Women..

ESPN aims for female audience with espnW - USATODAY.com (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2010-09-30-espnW-baseball-tv-playoffs_N.htm)

Apparently it will start as a blog, but they're kicking around ideas to make it their own network.

My thoughts on what the tag line should be:

"ESPNW, because we didn't learn our lesson last time with ESPN Hollywood."

[thesloppy]

I don't believe anything until I hear it on Fox Sports for Jews.

[Atocep]

Remember when "The Ocho" was a joke? That was about 5 ESPN channels ago.

[Cringer]

I hope they do it actually, and I hope they make a legit effort to get as much womens pro sports games on there as possible. The only female pro sports league I actually enjoy watching is WPS (soccer), but I think overall it would be good for all girls to have real access to watching these leagues. I am sure I am the minority though.

[sterlingice]

It will start as a blog but might be its own network? Those seem some pretty far steps apart.

I could see it maybe going ESPN3 and being streaming online. But I'd suspec even that would be a huge money loser unless they showed everyone else's productions (costs money to film sports and all).

Then again, if it were a network- it'd be the WNBA channel as ESPN already has the rights and would gladly ship it off the main channel, I suspect. But it would quickly succumbed to crap creep after a month of abysmally low ratings and we'd get all sorts of tangentially related slop in an effort to catch that lightning in a bottle that can deliver, oh, a 0.7 rating so they'd have something to play 6 hours a day. And your cable prices would go up another $1 for the privilege because it would be a way to roll a price increase in ESPN into something else.

SI

[spleen1015]

If women were really interested in watching women sports, they would be doing it already.

[Cringer]

If women were really interested in watching women sports, they would be doing it already.

Really? Because my daughter and I were both really interested in watch WPS games and it was kind of a pain in the ass, and only happened when either A) my internet connection didn't suck that day or B) We paid extra to have the package that includes FSC and we saw one game of random teams a week.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the ratings would be that of men's sports, even NHL or MLS. It would be nice to see more of it though. Out of 14 girls on my U12 girls soccer team they all watched the World Cup, only my daughter knew WPS existed until recently, and I am sure she is the only who has been able to see any of it. The ones I have talked to about it show interest in it though. The US Womens U20 World Cup was on more mainstream ESPN though and was watched by some of them.

[BishopMVP]

Soccer isn't the best argument. I love La Liga, Bundesliga, Champions League and especially Copa America games (aka high-level mens games) yet I still have to jump through all those hoops. New England was in the Superliga final and it wasn't on any English-language channel in Boston.

EDIT - I will add that I would have no problem with ESPN having more live (or even tape-delayed) sporting events during non-primetime hours, but I don't want it interfering with sports I do care about or taking up large amounts of Sportscenter. But based off the way ESPN deals with the WNBA, they'll either go all or nothing... and based off their programming trend they'd rather have multiple hours of video of guys sitting around talking on the radio than sports. ESPN3 has been great in this regard, and that might be your best hope.

[Ksyrup]

I would never watch women's sports on my own, but thanks to my daughters, I have started watching softball and basketball. Almost exclusively, we've watched it (or recorded it) for my older daughter to better understand the game and specific game situations, etc. I'm a firm believer in watching as much of a sport as you can at as early an age as you can so that "the game" sinks in and rules, situations, etc., become intuitive. Especially for girls, who are on the whole less athletic and less instinctive in game situations (from my perspective over the past 4-5 years), this is crucial. Even during MLB games, if I see a particular hitting, baserunning, pitching, etc., approach that I view as a "teachable moment," I'll record it and show my daughter later. I think that kind of thing really helps.

So yeah - I'd be all for a channel that shows a bunch of women's college sports or even expands some of the coverage they've given to college and association softball leagues. That would be great. If I didn't have daughters...not so much.

[Easy Mac]

So I guess the channel name would stand for Entertainment and Sports Programming Nobody's Watching.

[stevew]

I think it's a good move, especially when they get a network out there going. They'll be able to run this as a lesbian network without taking the flack of it being a lesbian network.

[Ksyrup]

ESPNW original programming presents...

The L Word - proper technique for shooting a Layup

[JediKooter]

I thought they already had a channel, it's called Lifetime...

[stevew]

Lifetime is for abused heterosexual women.

[JediKooter]

Ah.

[terpkristin]

If women were really interested in watching women sports, they would be doing it already.

While I'm not sure I agree that they'd be doing it already (it seems hard to find any women's sports other than WNBA on TV, but I must confess I don't look for them), I can say that I have no desire to watch most women's sports that are on TV. If they showed any women's league soccer (or more women's college soccer), I might be inclined. I have no interest in WNBA, so that's out. I enjoy watching tennis (women's and men's), but I only really end up watching are the major tournaments, where they show both.

/tk

[panerd]

I didn't get the impression from the article that it is going to be slanted towards women's sports at all. It looked like it will be blogs and articles about things like the spelling bee, cheerleading, working out, yoga, and women talking about being women (a la Oprah but with female athletes). Correct me if I am wrong but there is only a passing mention of women's sports in the entire article.