As part of a wider story on the growing multimedia features of the Xbox 360, the New York Times report a particularly intriguing nugget of info for sports fans: Evidently Microsoft and Disney are having “in-depth discussions” to have ESPN provide live streams of sports events on Xbox Live.
The Times reports that the streams would be available for a “per-subscriber fee,” although it’s not clear exactly what that means. (Would it be an additional cost on top of an Xbox Live Gold subscription? Let’s hope not…). The content that would be available would be similar to the streams on the ESPN360 service, where many different sports events often get additional coverage (such as extra Wimbledon matches not available on cable) and more international sports are covered as well (including the Australian Football League).
The deal would also purportedly allow Microsoft to make videogames “in association with ESPN,” although with Microsoft no longer focusing much on sports games, it’ll be interesting to see how the license would be used.
But note that no deal has actually been struck yet — all the info comes from anonymous sources “close to the talks,” which were intended to remain private.
