Seeking to position its technology as a digital hub for all things team sports, ESPN is making its streaming app and its website a platform to help regional sports network subscribers to watch their teams.
Starting this week, as the Boston Red Sox begin their 2024, season, the ESPN app and ESPN.com will provide users with links, in areas such as live score tickers, directly to the team's exclusive RSN home, New England Sports Network.
Links to SportsNet Pittsburgh, home to the MLB's Pittsburgh Pirates and NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins, will be added to ESPN at a later date. And Monumental Sports Network -- RSN home to the NHL's Washington Capitals, NBA's Washington Wizards, and WNBA's Washington Mystics -- will be linked by ESPN starting in May, timed to the start of the WNBA season.
An ESPN rep told Next TV that the linkage is part of a strategy to ebb user frustration over sports programming fragmentation. (Deadline first reported this story.)
With ESPN still charging users close to $10 a month to access its walled garden, integrating ESPN adds value. For the RSNs, meanwhile, ESPN delivers reach. ESPN Digital said it set a record last year by drawing 111.4 million average monthly unique visitors.
“We pledged to make our games more easily accessible for fans, and this partnership is a big step in that direction,” Zach Leonsis, president of media and new enterprises for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, told Deadline.
