The Mary Sue

ESPN Just Launched an Esports Network

"Esports" vs. "eSports"

by Maddy Myers Jan 14th

ESPN has just announced their latest vertical for coverage: competitive video games. As of today, the channel has announced "ESPN Esports," as well as the hiring of Tyler "Fionn" Erzberger as a writer and Darin Kwilinski as an editor.

That Time Liam Neeson Got Fired From His Teaching Job for Punching a Knife-Wielding Student

Or exactly what you'd expect to happen in Liam Neeson's classroom.

by Dan Van Winkle May 1st

Class is pain 101. Your instructor's Liam Neeson.

ESPN’s Colin Cowherd Would Rather Quit Than Commentate eSports; The Feeling Is Mutual

Nerds and jocks can finally agree.

by Dan Van Winkle Apr 27th

We've previously reported on those in the broadcast sports field being willfully oblivious to the fact that eSports is a huge industry, and rest assured, it's still happening. ESPN Radio show host Colin Cowherd reacted to seeing a Heroes of the Storm tournament on ESPN2 by promising—I mean, er, threatening. Yeah—to quit if he were ever forced to cover eSports.. aside from angry rants, I guess.

ESPN Hires The Muppets to Make Us Care About Sportball

"I say 'piffle!'"

by Teresa Jusino Mar 20th

ESPN and The Muppets released these videos starring Kermit, Miss Piggy, Statler and Waldorf, and Bunsen and Beaker to encourage us to take part in the ESPN Tournament Challenge.

Ant-Man Teaser To Air During Agent Carter, And A New Age of Ultron Trailer Will Air On ESPN?? Because Sports???

Okay?

by Sam Maggs Jan 2nd

You know how we feel about trailers for trailers around here (hint: it's not amazing), but we couldn't let these one pass us by.

ESPN President on Twitch/Amazon Deal: Whatever, eSports Aren’t Real Sports Anyway

Obviously, he is not a golfer.

by Dan Van Winkle Sep 5th

ESPN President John Skipper didn't hold back when asked how he felt about Amazon's nearly $1 billion dollar purchase of online video game streaming platform Twitch. He's got some feelings about the legitimacy of eSports and online streaming.

FCC Fines Networks Millions for Airing Olympus Has Fallen Emergency Alert Trailer

I guess they're taking a break from the important work of stopping people from saying dirty words.

by Dan Van Winkle Mar 3rd

When the Olympus Has Fallen trailer aired last year, you were being subjected to dangerous desensitization to more than just crappy movies: Your innate ability to be ~~mildly inconvenienced~~ brought to a state of alert by the Emergency Alert System was damaged when networks aired the trailer. But don't worry, the FCC is on it.

ESPN Hosts Hacking Competition for Women [Now Hear How This Makes Sense]

The Future Is Now!

by Susana Polo Nov 13th

ESPN, coding, and women aren't three things you'd expect to see in connection to each other, unless, perhaps, it was a statement about how the cultures of the first two aren't generally known for involving a lot of the latter, at least in participatory roles. And then there's the notorious rivalry on screen and stage of "Jocks vs. Geeks." But this weekend two hundred people, most of them women, came together at Stanford University for espnW's first Hack Day, a competition to see who could code the best mobile app for sports fans, regardless of their gender.

ESPN Fantasy Games Flaw Let Anyone Get Any Player from Any Team, Thankfully Fixed

by James Plafke Sep 24th

Apparently, there was a humongous flaw within ESPN's Fantasy Sports leagues that allowed anyone to force anyone else in any league (including leagues you weren't even in) to drop any player to the waivers, then change the waiver order in their favor to pick up the dropped player before anyone else could, by using an extremely easy process involving URLs. Thankfully, ESPN quickly fixed the issue.

The Ole Miss-Admiral Ackbar Commercial Loved By A Nation

by Glenn Davis Sep 7th

You may remember that the Ole Miss Rebels are looking for a new on-field mascot. And the reason you might remember this may well be that for a while, one of the most widely-supported choices was none other than Star Wars’ Admiral Ackbar. Sadly, that ship has sailed (this lists the final five choices as “a land shark, a bear, a horse, a lion or two characters named Hotty and Toddy”), but now the Ackbar campaign lives on through what appears to be a universally-loved ESPN commercial from last night – and it’s not hard to see why. >>>Check it out at SportsGrid.

ESPN Officially Partners With XBox 360 for Streaming HD Video

by Glenn Davis Jun 14th

The long-rumored potential deal between ESPN and Microsoft’s XBox 360 to stream sporting events on the console is official.

The deal will bring 3500 sporting events to the XBox (with most in HD), accessible live or on demand. The feature offers extras like instant fan polling and trivia questions during games if desired. Plus, if you’re an XBox Live gold subscriber (about $50/year), you’ll get this feature at no additional cost.