ESPN announce free weekend over 3-6 February

January 23, 2012   ·   2 Comments

ESPN will be available free to view for millions of sports fans over the weekend of 3-6 February offering viewers the opportunity to sample an extensive range of live British and international sport.

ESPN’s Free Weekend, sponsored by Nokia Lumia, begins at 6am on Friday 3 February and will make ESPN and ESPN HD available to all Sky, TopUp TV and BT Vision subscribers in the UK and Ireland. Additionally, the channel will be available for free to the 10million UK households who have the subscription-free digital TV service Freeview, meaning that in total, some 20 million UK households will have free access to the channel.

Jeroen Oerlemans, ESPN Vice President, TV Channels Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: “Millions of UK fans have already discovered the great range of great sport ESPN offers – from the Barclays Premier League to Serie A, to cricket, darts, motorsports and UFC. This is a great opportunity for us to introduce that to millions more and let them sample the programming ESPN has on offer.”

The weekend runs until 6am on Monday 6 February and will provide fans access to a great line-up of live sport, including top flight football from across Europe, action from the NBA, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and live studio shows such as Talk of the Terrace & Pardon the Interruption.

Highlights of the free period include live coverage of the Barclays Premier League match on Saturday at 4:30pm between Roberto Mancini’s title-chasing Manchester City host Martin Jol’s Fulham.  The fixture, which will be available on Freeview will make broadcasting history as the first Premier League match to be screened live on free-to-air television in it’s 20 year existence.

In addition to the Barclays Premier League action, European football will feature from Friday night as German champions Borussia Dortmund travel to face FC Nuremburg, then on Saturday night Roma take on Inter Milan in Serie A. Sunday will see three more games from the Italian top flight, including the evening kick-off between title-chasing AC Milan and Napoli. These games, along with FC Kaiserslautern v FC Cologne from the Bundesliga, form part of ESPN’s newly launched Sunday line-up, where the sporting action is complemented by wraparound studio analysis and highlights as well as ESPN’s football debate and chat show Talk of the Terrace and Pardon the Interruption, as Mark Chapman and Steve Bunce dissect the week’s sporting stories.

The Free Weekend will also feature ESPN’s live and exclusive coverage of the NBA regular season, with Friday night action as the New York Knicks travel to the Boston Celtics. The Knicks will be looking to stars Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire to secure a win over their East coast rivals. In addition, UFC 143 will be live from Las Vegas on Saturday night, as Nick Diaz fights Carlos Condit for the UFC Interim Welterweight Championship.

New to the ESPN line-up, the ATP World Tour 250 will be in Montpellier for the Open Sud de France, with top 20-ranked players including Tomas Berdych, Gilles Simon and Robin Soderling set to compete. ESPN will broadcast coverage from the quarter finals through to the final across the weekend.

Live Sport on ESPN during the Free Weekend :

Friday 3rd February
from 12.00pm	Open Sud de France – Quarter finals	ATP 250 World Tour
7.30pm	Nuremberg v Dortmund	German Bundesliga
1.00am (Saturday early morning)	New York Knicks at Boston Celtics	NBA
Saturday 4th February
4.30pm	Manchester City v Fulham	Barclays Premier League
1.00pm	Open Sud de France – Semi finals	ATP 250 World Tour
8.00pm	SV Hamburg v FC Bayern Munich	Bundesliga
11.45pm	Edison Miranda v Isaac Chilemba	Friday Night Fights
3.00am (Sunday early morning)	UFC 143 Nick Diaz v Carlos Condi	Ultimate Fighting Championship
Sunday 5th February
11.30am	Genoa v Lazio	Italian Serie A
1.45pm	AC Milan v Napoli	Italian Serie A
4.45pm	Kaiserslautern v Cologne	German Bundesliga
6.45pm	Talk of the Terrace	ESPN’s studio show
7.15pm	AS Roma v Inter Milan	Italian Serie A
9.30pm	Pardon the Interruption	ESPN’s studio show
10.00pm	Open Sud de France – Final (as live)	ATP 250 World Tour

ESPN’s free weekend is available across all platforms from 6am on Friday 3 February until 6am on Monday 6 February. 

Tags: ATP World Tour 250, BT Vision, ESPN, Freeview, Fulham, Manchester City, NBA, Premier League, Sky, TopUp TV, UFC 143