Left to right – Ed Durso, Executive Vice President, Administration – Ed Erhardt, President, ESPN ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales – Christine Driessen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer – George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN, Inc. – John Skipper, Executive Vice President, ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine – Sean Bratches, Executive Vice President, Affiliate Sales and Marketing – Mark Shapiro, Executive Vice President, Programming and Production – Lee Ann Daly, Senior Vice President, Marketing.

ESPN, Inc., the leading destination for American sports fans, continued its growth in 2002, led by major programming acquisitions and original programs, increased viewership, greater distribution of its domestic networks and international network launches.

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For the first time in television history, ESPN, the flagship network with more than 87 million households, is televising all four major professional leagues – baseball, football, basketball and hockey – after acquiring domestic rights from the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2002. The agreement includes regular-season games, playoffs, exclusive coverage of one of the conference finals and the championship games on ESPN and ABC Sports.

ESPN announced plans to launch ESPN HD, a high-definition simulcast service of ESPN, scheduled to begin in April 2003. The new service will feature 100 live high-definition telecasts of Major League Baseball (MLB), NBA, National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League (NHL) games.

ESPN viewership increased in calendar year 2002, driven by exciting event series including the Men’s World Cup, the Women’s Final Four, NHL, MLB, the Little League World Series, the French Open, the NBA and the highest-rated series on basic cable – the NFL.

SportsCenter celebrated its 25,000th live edition in August, more shows than any other television series.

ESPN Original Entertainment attracted viewers with Pardon the Interruption; The Season; original movies Season on the Brink and The Junction Boys; and Beg, Borrow and Deal, a reality game series. ESPN plans to produce a scripted drama in 2003.

The X Games franchise achieved record viewership and attendance, furthering the brand. ESPN’s Ultimate X, the large-format movie produced with Touchstone Pictures, was released in May; the inaugural Latin X Games were held in Rio de Janeiro; and a new event will debut in May 2003 – the X Games Global Championship, which will feature teams competing in simultaneous winter and summer events.

ESPN Outdoors doubled attendance and increased ratings for the Great Outdoor Games and generated growth among tournament audiences for B.A.S.S., the nation’s largest fishing organization, with 600,000 members, acquired by ESPN in 2001.

ESPN2 now serves about 85 million homes, making it nationally equivalent to ESPN. ESPN Classic, featuring the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series SportsCentury, is approaching 50 million homes. Distribution of ESPNEWS, the only television sports news network, grew from 33 million to 40 million homes. ESPN Regional Television, the leading distributor of college games, produces approximately 700 programs annually for local broadcast and cable outlets.

ESPN Radio, which carries regular-season and all post-season MLB games, the World Series, the NBA regular season and finals, college football’s Bowl Championship Series and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) Finals, is distributed to some 700 U.S. stations.

ESPN.com, the leading sports Web site, doubled its consumer usage year over year, averaging over 12 million unique users monthly, with a record-high 13.4 million in March.

ESPN The Magazine has grown rapidly, setting a new subscriber base of 1.65 million for January 2003.

ESPN International, with ownership or equity interest in 25 networks in 11 languages, launched its first ESPN-branded networks in Europe with ESPN Classic Sport in France and in Italy, and a second network, ESPN+, serving Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

ESPN Deportes, a separately produced Sunday night block in Spanish, is slated to expand to a 24-hour network in 2003.

Together with Disney Interactive and Sega Sports, ESPN unveiled the first of six sports games — NFL2K3, Powered by ESPN. It won “Best Sports Game” at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June.

ESPN ABC Sports Customer Marketing and Sales was voted first among broadcast and cable networks by advertising clients for its innovative sales and marketing support capabilities. Cable operators again selected ESPN number one in perceived value to affiliates. ESPN maintains its lead among basic cable networks in affiliate, national and local advertising revenue.

ESPN continues to exploit new technologies, and is expanding its
broadband content and its wireless agreements with all major domestic carriers. ESPN has built a video-on-demand library with 2,700 titles – all in its mission to serve fans better tomorrow than it does today.