ESPN Latin America
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ESPN Latin America is an ESPN channel that broadcasts in Latin America, not to be confused with ESPN Deportes, which is another channel which broadcasts in the United States in Spanish. ESPN Latin America is not available in the U.S. nor authorized to air most of the programming seen on its U.S. sister channels due to television rights affecting the programs. It is adapted to the demands of Spanish-speaking viewers, who tend to prefer soccer and Hispanic baseball players to the more Anglo-centric programming or athletes.
ESPN Latin America first aired in 1989. It cablecasts programs in Spanish; some of the programs are live or taped retransmissions of the sister channels ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes. Some of those programs include English-language audio on a second audio program (SAP) with commentators from sister channels of the U.S. or commentators who work just for the ESPN Latin America channel. One of the voiceover announcers who announces programming on TV commercials has also appeared as a voiceover substitute for CNBC programs like Kudlow & Company and Mad Money in the U.S.
ESPN Latin America, unlike its U.S. sister channels, has more programs related to soccer, such as live games from the Spanish football league and Major League Soccer. It also airs live retransmissions of ESPN2 Wednesday Night Baseball with Ernesto Jerez as the Spanish-language play-by-play announcer and other baseball commentators such as Venezuelan brothers Luis Alfredo Álvarez and Fernando Álvarez and former Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player Candy Maldonado. Other retransmissions include ESPN2 Friday Night Fights and ESPN2 Tuesday Night Fights, with commentary by former Puerto Rican boxer José Torres ("Chegüí"). On weekday mornings at 9 p.m. Eastern Time, ESPN Latin America also airs the taped SportsCenter programs which air live the night before on ESPN in the U.S. at 11 p.m. ET.
Many of the TV commercials shown on ESPN Latin America are for companies from Mexico (e.g. Bimbo sliced bread), Venezuela (e.g. Empresas Polar beer) and Argentina (e.g. General Motors Argentina), where the viewer numbers are higher than in other countries.
ESPN Latin America's main competitor is News Corporation's FOX Sports Latin America from Los Angeles (formerly called FOX Sports Americas), which, unlike ESPN Latin America, has a FOX Sports Latin America Northern Cone channel for the Caribbean/Mexico baseball-focused region, and another channel called FOX Sports Latin America Southern Cone for central and southern South America, which is more soccer-oriented.
The Disney/Hearst Corporation joint venture has also added some secondary regional channels for the Spanish-speaking Americas in the last few years, like ESPN Dos (ESPN2) for the Caribbean/Mexico region, and ESPN Más (ESPN+) for the Río de la Plata region (Argentina/Uruguay/Paraguay/Bolivia).
The channel is also available in Portuguese for Brazil, where ESPN also owns regional channel ESPN Brasil. An exclusive feed for Brazil was launched in December 15th 2005, introducing programming subtitled in Portuguese, ESPN Brasil programming and events commented by ESPN Brasil staff.
[edit] External links
- (Spanish) ESPNdeportes.com
- (Portuguese) ESPN.com.br
