International sports broadcaster ESPN has agreed a new three-year global programming partnership with Special Olympics, along with extending its global presenting sponsorship deal with the organisation’s Unified Sports initiative.
The new global programming agreement will see ESPN continue as an official broadcaster of the 2017 Special Olympics World winter Games in Austria, the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games in Seattle, and the 2019 Special Olympics World summer Games, as well as providing additional news and feature coverage of other Special Olympics events, athletes and stories over the course of the three-year agreement. The agreement follows coverage and programming around the 2015 Special Olympics World Games held in Los Angeles last July.
ESPN’s coverage of the World Games and USA Games events will include a combination of competition highlights and studio programming, features, news stories and more. Other ESPN coverage of the Special Olympics movement over the course of the agreement will include news, features, vignettes, interviews and magazine programmes across ESPN digital and print media platforms.
ESPN’s coverage of the major events will extend around the world via its networks and media platforms in North, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In addition, Special Olympics and ESPN will work together to explore additional local media partners.
ESPN will further its support as the global presenting sponsor of Special Olympics Unified Sports, extending a role it has held since 2013. Dedicated to promoting social inclusion through shared sports training and competition experiences, Special Olympics Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team.
For the last three years ESPN has invested more than $3m (€2.65m) and strategically used its multi-platform media assets and marketing expertise to expand Unified Sports globally. As part of the continued support of Unified Sports, ESPN will invest in Special Olympics’ goal to build Unified Sports programming and resources in 10,000 schools by 2020.