By The Numbers: ESPN3 To Provide Microsoft's Xbox 360 With 3,500 Live Events
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at 01:50PM 
June 14, 2010: ESPN said it has signed an exclusive "collaboration" with Microsoft to bring ESPN3.com’s live events, video-on-demand clips and sports highlights and other interactive features to the Xbox 360 console.
Content is scheduled to begin arriving to consumers in November. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The deal expands on an ESPN-Microsoft alliance that began in 2007 that provided standard and HD sports events, shows and videogames to Xbox Live.
Microsoft also unveiled a three-year alliance with videogamer Activision that will provide exclusive content as well as first-launch options to Xbox 360.
According to ESPN and Microsoft, Xbox Live Gold members who receive their Internet connection from an affiliated service provider will have at no additional cost access to more than 3,500 live, global events every year via ESPN3.com, which is ESPN’s 24/7 broadband sports network. Events would include college basketball, college football and bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer, tennis (including all four Grand Slam tournaments) and golf major.
Consumers will also be able to replay sports and events with full DVR control; employ Kinect, Microsoft’s new technology that allows users to control the content they watch with just their voice or wave of the hand; pull up current scores on-demand while watching the game; and switch between events to see what the most popular games are in the Xbox Live community in real time.
ESPN said that ESPN3.com is available in more than 50 million households nationwide such affiliated Internet service providers as Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Cox. It is also available (at no cost) to approximately 21 million U.S. college students and U.S.-based military personnel via on-campus educational networks and on-base military networks.
ESPN recently relaunched and expanded ESPN3.com from its previous ESPN360.com format.
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