In a move that was quite unexpected. ESPN announced today that they are shutting down its cellphone company, Mobile ESPN, and said they will look to partner with other wireless providers to offer content to subscribers.
In a letter published on their website today, the company said they will cease wireless service provider operations on December 31. Subscribers will have the option to continue their service or suspend it without any termination fees.
This certainly is a bit of a surprise. If you watch ESPN with any regularity, they saturated their airwaves with all kinds of pitches for their mobile service, and one would guess they would have been able to sign up a few hundred thousand customers just through sheer osmosis. However, they were only able to sign up tens of thousands of subscribers since its launch late last year.
Since mobile video is becoming much more of a popular service with cellular customers, Mobile ESPN does still stand a very good chance of partnering with another provider in order to offer sports-related content, such as game highlights. We'll know soon enough in the next few weeks.
