ESPN Events

Sporting event promotion company

ESPN Events is an American multinational sporting event promoter owned by ESPN Inc. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and shares its operations with SEC Network and formerly with ESPNU. The corporation organizes sporting events for broadcast across the ESPN family of networks, including, most prominently, a group of college football bowl games and in season college basketball tournaments. ESPN Events previously operated primarily as a syndicator of college sports broadcasts; the company was founded as Creative Sports, a sports programming syndicator that merged with Don Ohlmeyer's OCC Sports in 1996. After ESPN purchased the merged company, the division was renamed ESPN Regional Television (ERT), which distributed telecasts for syndication on broadcast stations and regional sports networks; these telecasts were also available on the ESPN GamePlan and ESPN Full Court out of market sports packages. Most of ERT's broadcasts were presented under the on air branding ESPN Plus (not to be confused with ESPN+, the current subscription service), but this name was later phased out in favor of dedicated on air brands for each package, such as SEC Network (later renamed SEC TV as to not be confused with the then upcoming SEC Network cable channel). Following its acquisition of the Las Vegas Bowl in 2001, ERT began to double as an organizer of sporting events. The subdivision, which later began to operate under the name ESPN Events, would acquire and establish other bowl games to provide additional post season opportunities for bowl eligible teams. ESPN Events also organizes several pre season tournaments in college basketball, as well as the season opening Camping World Kickoff and Texas Kickoff football games. All ESPN Events are broadcast by ESPN's networks. ESPN Regional Television began to wind down its syndication operations in the 2010s, as the proliferation of competing outlets (including other sports channels, conference specific networks such as ESPN's own SEC Network, as well as digital services such as ESPN's own ESPN3 and WatchESPN platforms) took over most of the conference rights and overflow formerly held by the company.

The company traces its history to Creative Sports, Inc., a North Carolina based sports syndicator owned and founded by Bray Cary. ESPN Inc. purchased Creative Sports, Inc. and OCC Sports, Inc. in the mid 1990s. On July 22, 1994, ESPN Regional Television was incorporated in Delaware. ESPN Regional Television was formed in 1996, through ESPN Inc.'s combination of Creative Sports and OCC Sports, under the direction of Chuck Gerber and Loren Matthews. In August 2008, ESPN reached a 15 year, $2.25 billion broadcast rights agreement with the SEC. As part of the deal, ESPN also assumed the syndicated package of games previously held by Raycom Sports; beginning in 2009, ERT syndicated SEC football and basketball under the SEC Network brand. The original business of ESPN Regional Television began to grow obsolete with the launch of dedicated networks dedicated to specific conferences, including the Big Ten Network, Pac 12 Network, and the ESPN operated SEC Network, since they largely assumed rights to the game packages that ESPN had previously syndicated. As such, the division pivoted to focusing solely on organizing events, particularly within college football and basketball. All Big 12 basketball games moved to ESPN linear channels after the 2013–2014 season. Conference USA – Broadcast rights were for regular season football games. American Sports Network (a unit of Sinclair Broadcast Group that initially operated under a very similar model to ERT) began to syndicate other C USA games with the 2014 season. Currently, its rights are held by CBS Sports Network, ASN's successor Stadium, ESPN, and NFL Network. Mid American Conference basketball – Broadcast rights were assumed by SportsTime Ohio in 2010; Sportstime Ohio lost the rights to American Sports Network in 2015. Mountain West Conference – Broadcast rights to MW football and basketball games are now held by CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports (conference rights were previously held by the now defunct MountainWest Sports Network). Big Ten Conference – Big Ten Network assumed the packages held by ESPN Regional Television upon its launch in August 2007. Southeastern Conference (SEC) – Broadcast rights to SEC football and basketball games not selected to air on ESPN or CBS were assumed by the SEC Network beginning in the 2014–15 academic season. The conference rights were previously held by Raycom Sports, and before that Lincoln Financial Sports (formerly Jefferson Pilot Sports from 1987 to 2009); from the beginning of ESPN's SEC contract in the 2009–10 season, ERT produced syndicated broadcasts branded as SEC Network (later rebranded as SEC TV in 2013 as to not to be confused with the incoming cable network) as a successor to the Raycom Sports SEC package. Sun Belt Conference football and men's basketball (telecasts from the conference are branded under the Sun Belt Network name). The Sun Belt Network ceased operations in 2014. Western Athletic Conference – ESPN Plus broadcast WAC men's and women's basketball until 2014, when American Sports Network won those syndication rights, beginning with the 2014–15 season.

The company's success with college tournament operation and broadcasting led ESPN Regional Television to form a college marketing division, which provides colleges all in one services for selling sponsorships, local media rights and other marketing campaigns. The University of South Florida, the University of Kansas and the University of Oregon are some of the clients that the division began representing in 2000.