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Mobile ESPN will broadcast live college football games, as many as 25 a month through the 2006 season from ESPN and ESPN2, directly to self-branded cell phones, starting tomorrow when Florida State battles Miami. The Disney Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) for sports fans serves its customers over Sprint Nextel’s CDMA voice and data network, which includes 3G EV-DO technology for fast data transfers. ESPN becomes the first broadcaster to mobilize a live sporting event. One-touch, automatic access to the live college football games is available to those who sign up for the $25 per month Total Sports Package, which also includes access to all other Mobile ESPN content (audio, video and alerts), wireless Internet (WAP) access and text messaging. It is a real test for handset TV. Particularly for the type where the signals piggyback over a carrier's cellular bandwidth—averaging 300 to 500 kbps on Sprint's high-speed EV-DO network in Mobile ESPN's case. Newer technologies integrate receivers into handsets that receive digital TV via standards like DVB-H and MediFlo separately from the cellular networks used for voice and other content services, so as to free up bandwidth and deliver - proponents say - better quality video. Mobile ESPN like some other high profile MVNO launches - Amp'd and Helio, for example - has struggled to pick up subscribers over its first six months. Merrill Lynch issued a note in July estimating the MVNO would only sign up 30,000 people during its first financial year. Far less than the 240,000 originally estimated, and infinitesimal compared to the 90 million homes ESPN enters everyday. There have been rumblings that Disney should have launched Mobile ESPN during football season in the first place. Perhaps the delivery of live football games will juice up the MVNO enough to get enought new people interested to boost ratings. That's the plan at least.
Walt Disney and company launched Mobile ESPN in February with a re-branded (and not-so-handsome) Sanyo MVP mobile phone, which nonetheless offered a convenient "E" launch button so users could gain easy access to news, video clips, games, fantasy teams and more sports related content - a supposed sports lovers dream.
A second phone, the thinner Samsung Ace - also known as the A900 - finally joined the Sanyo in July (see top image).
The Sanyo went for a pricey $399 in the beginning, but is being given away today. Mobile ESPN is now selling the Samsung for only $49.
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