International Journal of Sport Management Volume 8, 2007, 95-114 1 Volume 8, #1, January 2007 Print and Broadcast Connections of ESPN: An Investigation of the Alignment of Editorial Coverage in ESPN The Magazine with ESPN’s Broadcasting Rights Galen Clavio Paul M. Pedersen Introduction ust over a decade ago, the Walt Disney Company purchased the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), one of the so-called “Big Four” television networks in the United States. With that acquisition in 1996, Disney as- sumed operational control over the En- tertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN)—the self-appointed ‘Worldwide Leader in Sports’—which was part of the ABC family of networks. The purchase of ABC and ESPN was not an unusual business strategy (verti- cal integration) for a corporation with the market power of Disney. Other exam- ples in the previous ten years included General Electric’s purchase of NBC (1986) and Westinghouse’s acquisition of CBS (1995) (Welch, 2001). As Stotlar noted (2000), “From satellite services, cable channels, production facilities, sport teams, and content sources, these vertically integrated, divisionalized mul- tinational corporations may well repre- sent the future of sport” (p. 6). Although vertical integration among media con- glomerates and sport entities is not un- common, the acquisition of ABC/ESPN appeared to point the way towards a new type of cross-promotion in the in- dustries associated with sport and en- tertainment. Disney’s acquisition of ABC/ESPN was not its only foray into the sports world. In 1993, the corporation had pur- chased an expansion team in the Na- tional Hockey League (NHL), naming it the Anaheim Mighty Ducks after a Dis- ney-produced movie of the same name. The corporation also had begun to exert control over Major League Baseball’s (MLB) California Angels. This team— now known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim—had seen Disney’s found- er, Walt Disney, on its board of directors until his death in 1966. After more than three decades of possessing only a minority ownership stake in the team, Disney acquired a controlling interest in the Angels in 1999, just four years after producing Angels in the Outfield, a sports movie which featured the team. J