ESPN Classic will go dark on January 1 of 2022, ending a nearly three-decade run of nostalgic pay-TV sports programming.The network was founded as Classic Sports Network in 1995 and was acquired by ESPN in 1997.
The decision to shut it down follows several years of declining distribution. Several major providers had dropped the network entirely, and satellite operators Dish and DirecTV had shifted it to a video-on-demand offering.
Its reach had dwindled to a fraction of that of ESPN, which was in 84 million households as of 2020.While ESPN Classic programming initially filled a gap in sports fandom, the rise and ubiquity of YouTube and other video sources has made it much less unique.
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