ESPN Turns to Free to View weekend to attract more subscriptions.

Sports channel ESPN will be free in over 20 million homes in the UK and Ireland next weekend as the American broadcaster attempts to appeal to a wider audience and boost subscriptions.The weekend will also be sponsored by the Nokia Lumia phone, and will include a special ESPN hub product offering an app which is exclusive on the Windows smart phone. 


The event which will last for 22 hours and will take in football from the Bundesliga, Serie A & the Premier League. The likes of Manchester City, Inter Milan & Borussia Dortmund will be in action in their respective leagues. 


The channel will be free to air across  all Sky, TopUp TV and BT Vision subscribers in the UK and Ireland. Additionally, the channel will be available for free to the 10million UK households who have the subscription-free digital TV service Freeview, meaning that in total, some 20million UK households will have free access to the channel.


Jeroen Oerlemans, ESPN Vice President, TV Channels Europe, Middle East & Africa, said: "This is a great opportunity for us to introduce that to millions more and let them sample the programming ESPN has on offer."