Aug. 15, 2005

PLANO - ESPN, Inc., has reached a five-year agreement (through 2010) with the Southland Conference for coverage of football and men's basketball, in addition to the right to televise coverage of the conference's Olympic sports. Driven by its increased commitment to intercollegiate conferences, ESPNU, the new college sports network, will televise the first Southland events as part of the deal.

As part of the agreement, ESPN will televise the men's basketball championship game on ESPN or ESPN2 through the 2009-2010 season. Each Southland school will also be eligible to participate in ESPN's Bracket Buster through the 2009-2010 season.

Also, in its inaugural season of live football coverage, ESPNU will televise two Thursday night games featuring Southland teams. Both Southeastern Louisiana's game against Alcorn State Sept. 8 as well as the Stephen F. Austin/Northwestern State game the final week of the Division I-AA regular season will be televised by the network.

"ESPNU looks forward to bringing the nation the great competition and traditions of Southland athletics," said Burke Magnus, vice president and general manager of ESPNU. "This agreement is a model of our commitment to offer a unique assortment of quality programming to college sports enthusiasts, while also maximizing exposure for conferences, institutions and student-athletes."

"We are absolutely thrilled to continue and expand our longstanding relationship with ESPN, and look forward to both our football telecasts on ESPNU this fall," Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett said. "We appreciate the interest in the Southland Conference shown by ESPN, and this agreement is a tribute to the collective success of the league and our member institutions."

The new pact also includes distribution rights for Southland Conference programming across multiple ESPN platforms, including ESPN Mobile, ESPN Interactive, ESPN360 (formerly ESPN Broadband), ESPN.com, ESPN Pay-Per View, ESPN Video on Demand, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, ESPN Deportes and more.

ESPNU, the new college sports network, was launched in March 2005. The ESPNU schedule will feature more than 300 live events (regular-season and championships) in the network's first year. Action includes a variety of top football and men's and women's basketball mixed with baseball, softball, volleyball, lacrosse, ice hockey, wrestling and more. ESPNU also offer comprehensive studio programming, replays of ABC Sports, ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN Regional Television games, plus specials and more.

In the 2005 Beta Research Cable Subscriber Study - Interest in Emerging/Mid-sized/VOD Networks, ESPNU was ranked sixth (tied) among men 18-34 for high interest in watching each network, out of the 21 mid-sized networks assessed.

ESPNU has secured distribution agreements with DIRECTV, Adelphia, Mediacom, several smaller affiliates and is close to distribution agreements with others. The 24-hour television network is the key component of the multi-media ESPNU initiative that will deliver college sports content across ESPN's family of services, such as ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Mobile, ESPN Radio, ESPN Interactive, ESPN360, merchandising and more.