From: nhmas@gauss.med.harvard.edu (Mark Shneyder 432-4219)
Subject: Re: ESPN2 - Tell us about it
Organization: HMS
Lines: 23
NNTP-Posting-Host: gauss.med.harvard.edu

In article <1r997l$3fc@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> mac18@po.CWRU.Edu (Michael A. Cornell) writes:
>
>The USA Today says "late this year".  The question is, will hockey be moved to
>ESPN2 permenantly, or will it be where they have a game of the week on
>ESPN, and have a bunch of other games on ESPN2?
>

Yes and No. ESPN2 will be launched as early in September. Cap Cities
are currently working with cable companies to ensure a good start-up
base needed for a launch for any brand new cable service.

The problem ESPN2 faces is the TCI-Cablevision connection in the
merger of their Prime and SportsChannel networks. Prime SportsChannel
will try to wrestle away NHL from ESPN in the off-season. Also,TCI
and Cablevision have control a large number of cable systems around the
country with a total of 15 million subscribers. TCI-Cablevision will
do their best that ESPN2 never gets off the ground successfully. And the
NHL's value will suddenly skyrocket in this cable war between Prime SC
and ESPN. NHL is more vital to the survival of a regionalized Prime
SportsChannel since they virtually have no national major league sports
contracts and only cover local NHL/NBA/MLB sports teams.

-PPV Mark
