 | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Nationwide |
| Headquarters | Bristol, Connecticut |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | ESPN Inc. (The Walt Disney Company (80%) Hearst Communications (20%) |
| History | |
| Launched | May 6, 1995 |
| Closed | December 31, 2021 |
| Former names | Classic Sports Network (1995–1997) |
ESPN Classic was an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which controlled an 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which had 20%).
The channel was originally launched as the Classic Sports Network in 1995, and was acquired by ESPN in 1997. The network originally focused on carrying classic sporting events, other programs and documentaries, and live specials (such as the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony) focusing on sports history.
By the 2010s, due to the increasing number of sport-, league-, and college conference-specific networks that had assumed rights to the archive and live content that was historically aired by ESPN Classic, a larger amount of programming was devoted to archive content whose rights were owned by ESPN outright, reruns of recent events from ESPN's networks, as well as ESPN original documentaries, and overflow coverage of events from other ESPN networks.
In 2014, ESPN began to phase out ESPN Classic as a linear service, and transition it to a branded video on-demand offering. A number of major providers, such as AT&T, Altice USA, Comcast, and Verizon Fios dropped ESPN Classic in the years that followed. Due to this change in format, ESPNews and ESPN's digital platforms have supplanted its role as an overflow service. In 2021, media reports indicated that the channel would close at the end of the year, and it did so in the late hours of December 31, 2021.