ESPN Deportes will have a dramatically raised profile in the first two months of the year.
ESPN, CBS and the NFL have reached an agreement allowing ESPN Deportes to air Super Bowl 50, it was announced late Monday. The network’s lead NFL team of Alvaro Martin and Raul Allegre will call the game, the first Super Bowl telecast to ever air on an ESPN cable network.
While Super Bowl broadcasters tend to keep all aspects of coverage within the corporate family — the NFL-produced halftime show a notable exception — CBS Corporation’s lack of a Spanish-language outlet appeared to force its hand. In a press release announcing the move, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said it had been a “priority” for the company to “find a Spanish-language partner to televise this historic broadcast and reach the NFL’s Hispanic fan base.”
It should be noted that while the primary Super Bowl broadcast on CBS should exceed 110 million viewers, the Spanish-language simulcast will be hard pressed to reach the one million mark. Last season’s Super Bowl 368,000 viewers on NBC Universo, while Super Bowl 48 had 561,000 on Fox Deportes in 2013.
Super Bowl 50 is by far the biggest milestone in ESPN Deportes history, but not the only one on the horizon. On Thursday, the network’s coverage of the two College Football Playoff semifinals will be simulcast on ESPN2 — making the Spanish-language telecast available over 70 million* more homes.
Combined with the debut earlier this month of a brand new SportsCenter studio in Mexico City, the moves point toward renewed focus on ESPN Deportes — which will reach its 12th anniversary next week.
* ESPN Deportes was in 19.8 million homes in September, according to competitor Univision. ESPN2 was in 92.9 million as of July, per TV By the Numbers.
