ESPN adds documentaries, college sport and news to streaming service

ESPN Player is adding sports documentaries, live US college sport and studio programming to its MENA offering.

ESPN Player is the sports network’s digital streaming platform for live and on-demand sports. The service is available on desktop, mobile, tablet and Android TV, across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and parts of Asia.

The programming now includes:

ESPNFC, a daily soccer news show, featuring pundits including Steve Nicol, Shaka Hislop, Craig Burley and others; SportsCenter Global which features regular updates from ESPN’s news service; as well as a catalogue of ESPN Films sports documentaries, including many from the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning 30For30 series.

It also includes coverage of the entire NCAA College Football season, with more than 800 college football games live and on-demand; and, over 2,000 college basketball games of the NCAA Tournament, AKA March Madness – including the Final Four and the National Championship game.

“Adding ESPN Player to our already popular sports news and information platforms (ESPN.com, ESPNCricinfo.com and the ESPN App), allows us to continue delivering world-class sports content to fans across the MENA region,” said Martin Healy, head of Advertising Sales and Partnerships for The Walt Disney Company Middle East.

“The new additions of a daily ESPNFC football show and SportsCentre to the service broadens the appeal of ESPN Player, delivering greater value to a wider fan base than ever before. After observing the global popularity of ESPN’s 30for30 documentary series – including the 10-part series ‘The Last Dance’ – we also look forward to the reaction of MENA sports fans to the wide breadth and quality of the documentaries available on the service,” he added.

beIN Connect, the OTT service of beIN Sports offers 19 sports channels as well as four movie channels and three kids channels. The sports offering includes live and on-demand Euro Champions League, EPL, Ligue 1, la Liga, Serie A, Rugby, ATP World Tour, NBA and more.