Espn2hd !!better!! -

There was one infamous glitch, of course. In 2011, during a tight college basketball game between Duke and North Carolina, the ESPN2HD feed glitched for 47 seconds, freezing on a frame of Coach K screaming, his face stretched into a Francis Bacon painting. Twitter melted down. But it was fixed. And fans forgave, because the other 99.9% of the time, the deuce was finally, unequivocally, beautiful.

The tipping point was a corporate one. Disney/ESPN realized they were bleeding potential ad revenue. Advertisers pay a premium for HD broadcasts because viewers watch longer and with more attention. Every blurry car commercial during an ESPN2 NASCAR race was a wasted impression. In late 2007, ESPN made the quiet but monumental decision: they would not just launch an ESPN2 HD feed; they would re-engineer the channel. espn2hd

For the next decade, “ESPN2HD” became more than just a technical specification. It became a brand promise. When “Mike and Mike” simulcast on ESPN2 in HD, the bagels looked delicious. When “First Take” debuted with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, the HD close-ups made their facial expressions dangerously vivid. When the World Cup qualifiers aired, you could see the rain sheeting off the pitch. There was one infamous glitch, of course

The year is 2003. You are a sports fan in suburban Ohio. You have just convinced your parents to buy a “big screen” — a 42-inch rear-projection Sony Trinitron. It weighs 300 pounds and hums like a refrigerator. You also have a new digital cable box from Time Warner. Why? Because the local broadcast networks are promising “High Definition” for the Super Bowl. You’ve heard the words: 1080i. Widescreen. Crystal clear. But it was fixed

But the true baptism came at 7:30 PM that night. It was the “NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at Martinsville.” The race was delayed by rain, but when the green flag dropped under the lights, the world changed. The deep burgundy of the track’s clay, the metallic flake in the paint schemes, the orange glow of the brake rotors—all of it exploded into homes. A fan in a bar in Charlotte shouted, “Holy [expletive], look at the dust .” Dust. You could see individual particles floating in the stadium lights.

But a revolution was coming. By 2005, HDTVs were dropping below $2,000 for the first time. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 were pushing HD gaming. And more importantly, ESPN2’s programming was changing. It was no longer just the "deuce" for roller hockey and bass fishing. It had become the home of crucial NASCAR races, the growing UFC phenomenon (starting with “The Ultimate Fighter” finale in 2006), and the nascent buzz of Major League Soccer. The NFL Draft had started to bleed over from ESPN. College football’s Big 12, Pac-10, and Big East games were increasingly landing on ESPN2 as prime-time slots.