ESPN Deportes is one of the several sports channels available on ESPN Network, within the USA. Fans can enjoy the most comprehensive soccer coverage in the US, featuring the US National teams, Major League Soccer, and the nation’s premier soccer league, as well as the NCAA Men’s and Women’s soccer championships and the UEFA Champions League, via the television, the internet, or mobile device.
ESPN Deportes is available in the USA for participating providers, including DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon FiOS, AT&T U-verse, and many cable providers, so check your local listings.
The growth of ESPN Deportes in the last decade
Since the establishment of ESPN Deportes in July 2001, Hispanic sports fans residing in the United States have been able to tune into the premium Spanish-language sports channel with telecasts made in Los Angeles, Bristol, and Mexico City.
Initially, only the Home Run Derby and several Sunday Night Baseball games were broadcast, courtesy of ESPN and MLB, but the coverage soon expanded to a complete broadcast of boxing, Live streaming of Sunday Night Football and Sunday Night Baseball games.
ESPN Deportes first went on-air in January 2004 with Somos ESPN Deportes. This show featured an assortment of Latino sports stars, in addition to previewing key programming.
The introduction of the channel was followed by the initial Spanish edition of SportsCenter, as well as a live telecast of the major NBA games between the Dallas Mavericks and the Golden State Warriors.
In its first year of broadcasting, ESPN Deportes managed to showcase over 200 live events, and only a few studio programming. Today, there are still no other multimedia Spanish-language sports brands, besides ESPN Deportes, offering highly diverse, culturally relevant content across multiple platforms, including online, radio, television, print, mobile, and social, with nearly 1,000 original events every year reaching close to 11 million sports fans in the US, every week.
ESPN Deportes Television
While the network has quite a few competitors across multiple demographics, it out-delivers all of them by 9 percent in M18-49, 10 percent in Hispanic households, and 12 percent in M18-34 – according to a national survey performed by Nielson. Nielson further claims that ESPN Deportes is not just the most watched Spanish-language sports cable network, but also the highest rated since 2008, owing to its availability in over 5.7 million Hispanic households.
In addition, the ESPN Deportes channel, which includes ESPN Deportes and ESPN Deportes HD TV, has managed to schedule an average of over 500 LIVE events every year, with incredibly diverse original content with an excess of 119 hours of studio programming every week.
ESPN Deportes Radio
ESPNDeportes radio was launched one year after the television broadcast. It started out with just a handful of affiliates, but now stands as the only 24/7 sports radio network for Spanish-language in the US, with 47 affiliates all over the country and reaching more than 1 million listeners every month, which it a product of its availability in about 80 percent of the United States Hispanic market.
Listeners have access to the most comprehensive offering of live sporting events available in the US, with over 300 live events scheduled every year.
ESPN Deportes La Revista
This magazine was first available in the newsstands in 2005. Several years later, it has managed to increase its circulation to 250,000 fans owing to its association with impreMedia. It is still the only general sports magazine in Spanish language in the US.
How to stream ESPN Deportes on Digital media
ESPNDeportes.com
The site, ESPNDeportes.com was launched in 2000, which makes it the first ESPN Deportes brand to be accessible to US and Latin America fans. Since then, the site has grown to be a leader in the Spanish-language category, allowing 4.1 million users in the US to watch ESPN Deportes live online, every week.
ESPN Deportes+
It is also important to note that ESPNDeportes.com has a digital vertical, or a recent addition to its digital assets, referred to as ESPN Deportes+. This is a broadband channel that offers a highly comprehensive coverage of exclusive live events available on ESPNDeportes.com and ESPN3 en espanol online, via a multi-screen network accessible via PC, tablets, smartphones, and Xbox. ESPN Deportes+ airs about 500 live events every year, since its launch.
ESPN Mobile
Another aspect of ESPN Deportes’ digital presence is via ESPN Mobile, which offers Spanish-language sports content via wireless devises. It is the top ranked mobile web and sports apps targeting Hispanics, with a total of 332 minutes of streaming, and 5.2 million unique visitors since its launch. In fact, the ESPN Mobile service has continued to grow year-on-year at 12% in terms of unique visitors, and 40% if terms of total minutes that Hispanic fans can watch the ESPN Deportes live stream.
WatchESPN
ESPN Deportes is also available in WatchESPN, which is accessible online via PC or Mac at WatchESPN.com, as well as on mobile devices including tablets and smartphones via the WatchESPN app.
Fans can also watch ESPN Deportes on Apple TV provided they have a video subscription from an affiliated provider. ESPN Deportes was officially launched on WatchESPN in August 2013, at the same time as the launch of ESPNEWS on the same platform.
WatchESPN was launched in April 2011, and is currently available to 55 million households across the country to fans who have access to the ESPN network as a component of their video subscription from Comcast Xfinity TV, Verizon FiOS, Bright House Networks, Time Warner Cable, Midcontinent Communications, Cox, Cablevision’s Optimum TV, AT&T U-verse, or Charter.
Stream ESPN Deportes on other websites
Besides the official streaming channels, fans can watch live ESPN Deportes games on a variety of other websites for free, Ustream.tv and Youtube TV. Many fans are particularly familiar with streaming ESPN Deportes live on Justin TV, owing to the popularity of this website for streaming live content to the internet by wiring in from a television, using webcams, or streaming directly from a mobile device.
Depending on the medium used by the broadcaster to stream the content, the quality of the video may not be very good, but you still get to watch your favorite team on the Spanish-language channel.
ESPN Sync is also worth mentioning as the first Spanish-language sports – second screen app.
Programming available on ESPN Deportes
The main focus of ESPN Deportes is soccer, with particular emphasis on a variety of competitions including Mexico First Division, UEFA Champions League, World Cup Qualifiers, Major League Soccer, Spain’s La Liga, and major South American tournaments like Copa America and Copa Libertadores. The programming also includes daily news shows that offer updates of the most recent soccer highlights.
Fans can also catch Hablemos de futbol, Goles de Espana, Futbol Picante, and many more on ESPN Deportes.