ESPN.com is the official website of

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. It is owned by ESPN Internet Ventures, a division of ESPN Inc.

History

Since launching in April 1995 as ESPNET.SportsZone.com (ESPNET SportsZone), the website has developed numerous sections including: Page 2, SportsNation, ESPN3, ESPN Motion, My ESPN, ESPN Sports Travel, ESPN Video Games, ESPN Insider, ESPN.com's Fanboard, ESPN Fantasy Sports, ESPNU.com, and ESPN Search. ESPN.com also has partnerships with MLB.com, NBA.com,

NFL.com The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...

, WNBA.com,

MLSsoccer.com Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

NHL.com, Baseball America, Golf Digest, Scouts Inc., Jayski.com,

USGA.org The United States Golf Association (USGA) is the United States national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the Sport governing body, governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and ...

, Sherdog.com, and Masters.org. It also has sections devoted to certain sports and leagues including: the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

Indy Racing League The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices o ...

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

, Soccer,

Women's sports The participation of women and girls in sports, physical fitness and exercise, has been recorded to have existed throughout history. However, participation rates and activities vary in accordance with nation, era, geography, and stage of econ ...

(ESPNW),

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

, and eSports. Each section contains pages devoted to: scores, teams, schedules, standings, players, transactions, news wires, injures, and columnists pages.

Columnists

Some notable current and former ESPN.com and ESPNW.com columnists are Allison Glock, Jemele Hill,

John Buccigross John Buccigross (; born January 27, 1966) is an American sportscaster. He has been an anchor for ESPN since 1996.

, Chris Mortensen,

John Clayton John Clayton may refer to: Arts and entertainment Writing *John Clayton (architect) (died 1861), English architect and writer *John Bell Clayton and Martha Clayton, John Bell Clayton (c. 1907–1955), American writer *John Clayton (sportswriter) ( ...

, Adam Schefter,

Andy Katz Andrew D. Katz (born April 7, 1968) is a college basketball analyst for the Big Ten Network and a college basketball correspondent for the NCAA. He formerly worked as a senior college basketball journalist for ESPN.com, and was a regular sport ...

, Bill Simmons,

Jayson Stark Jayson Stark (born July 19, 1951) is an American sportswriter and author who covers baseball for ''The Athletic''. He is most known for his time with ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' and ESPN. Biography Stark grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and ...

Buster Olney Robert "Buster" Olney (born ) is an American sports journalist for ESPN, ''ESPN: The Magazine'', and ESPN.com. He previously covered the New York Giants and New York Yankees for ''The New York Times''. He is also a regular analyst for the ES ...

, Paul Lukas, Gene Wojciechowski, Scoop Jackson,

Pat Forde Pat Forde is a sports journalist who is a national columnist for ''Sports Illustrated''. He previously worked for ESPN, ''The Courier-Journal'' in Louisville, Kentucky, and ''Yahoo Sports''. Personal life and education Forde is a native of C ...

Jim Caple Jim Caple is a former columnist and senior writer for ESPN.com. He has worked previously with the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' and the ''St. Paul Pioneer Press''. Caple attended R.A. Long High School in Longview, Washington. He graduated from t ...

, Michael Smith, and in the last stages of his journalism career, Hunter S. Thompson. The website was part of the MSN portal from 2001 to 2004. ESPN launched a

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in th ...

website in 2000, ESPN Deportes.com. The content of some ESPN.com articles is argued to have been plagiarized.

ESPNW

ESPNW’s mission is to “inform and inspire female athletes and fans." The website covers a wide range of topics related to women in sports including women's soccer, martial arts, basketball, tennis, food and nutrition for athletes,

Title IX Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...

legislation, LGBTQF inclusion, poetry, personal essays and music for athletes. Coverage of men’s sports is also included on the website. In 2019, personal essays by feminist self defense practitioner Rachel Piazza and gymnast Ellen Hagan were featured in their culture section. Since its inception ESPNW has included extensive coverage about women’s soccer. The 2011 Women’s World Cup was only the 6th women’s World Cup and the participation of the United States helped raise domestic awareness about the involvement for women in soccer, such as Mia Hamm. According to journalist Jack Bell, author of the ''New York Times'' article, 'Hamm Joining ESPNW for Women’s World Cup',“in the women’s game, the world is catching up to the United States; in the men’s game, the United States is always playing catch up.” ESPNW hired well regarded female athletes to commentate on their newly formed network. The involvement of such important figures as Mia Hamm helped grow ESPNW's reputation among sports fans. Hamm helped popularize the online network when she worked as a commentator during the 2011 World Cup for ESPNW as well as ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3.

Local sites

ESPN started local chapters of its website in response to the decline of local sports coverage available as newspapers continue to go out of business across the country.ESPN: The local leader in sports?
- Sports Business Daily, 14 September 2009 Each page covers local professional and college teams, hiring locally known writers, and in some cases making use of the city's ESPN Radio affiliate. In markets where the

ABC Owned Television Stations ABC Owned Television Stations is a division of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution operated by Disney Networks Group that oversees the owned-and-operated stations of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), a division of The Walt Disney ...

owns a station, their sports coverage is incorporated with the corresponding ESPN local site. Some local sites have expanded into high school sports coverage.

Current

*ESPNBoston.com – with affiliate WEEI *ESPNChicago.com – with

WMVP WMVP (1000 AM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, carrying a sports format. Owned by Good Karma Brands, the station serves the Chicago metro area as the market affiliate of ESPN Radio, the flagship station of the Chica ...

and

WLS-TV WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North Stat ...

*ESPNCleveland.com – with affiliates

WKNR WKNR (850 AM) – branded as ''850 ESPN Cleveland'' – is a commercial sports radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio, serving Greater Cleveland. Owned by Good Karma Brands, WKNR is the Cleveland affiliate for ESPN Radio and the AM flags ...

and WWGK *ESPNDallas.com *ESPNLosAngeles.com – with KSPN and

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network. ...

*ESPNNewYork.com – with

WEPN-FM WEPN-FM (98.7 MHz) branded as ''ESPN New York'', is an all-sports radio station licensed to New York City. The station is owned by Emmis Communications and its operations are controlled by Good Karma Brands, under a local marketing agreeme ...

and

WABC-TV WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neig ...

References

* {{Webby Awards, cat=Sports, year=2001, type=People's Voice Winner Internet properties established in 1993 ESPN media outlets