Viewers feasted on live sports programming during the Thanksgiving week, with pro and college football games generating huge viewership numbers.

NFL football games led the ratings onslaught, generating the three most-watched games of the year led by CBS's Thanksgiving day Washington Commanders-Dallas Cowboys game, which drew 41.76 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings published by SportsMedia Watch. The telecast was the second most-watched NFL regular-season game on record behind only last Thanksgiving’s Giants-Cowboys game, which drew 42 million viewers.

Fox's November 23 Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions game drew 33 million viewers, while NBC’s San Francisco 49’ers-Seattle Seahawks Thanksgiving evening game drew 24.78 million viewers.

CBS’s November 26 late Sunday afternoon NFL window – mostly featuring the Buffalo Bills-Philadelphia Eagles matchup -- drew 30.90 million viewers for fourth place on the chart. Also, the November 20 Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Monday Night Football telecast averaged more than 29 million combined viewers across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Plus, and ESPN Deportes – the biggest Monday Night Football audience for the Walt Disney Company since 1996, according to ESPN. 

On the college football front, Fox’s November 25 Ohio State-Michigan game drew a season-high 19 million viewers and finished as the most-watched regular season college football game in 12 years. 

The biggest non-football audience was Fox’s Thanksgiving day college basketball game between Michigan State and Arizona, which drew 5.18 million viewers, the largest regular-season college football audience in 15 years, according to SportsMedia Watch. 

ESPN’s season debut of Monday Night Football last week helped the sports network secure its third straight primetime ratings win.

The sports network averaged 2.3 million viewers in primetime during the week of September 12 to September 18, besting Fox News, which averaged 2.2 million watchters, according to Nielsen. ESPN’s ratings were bolstered by the Sept. 12 Seattle Seahawks-Denver Broncos NFL telecast, which averaged 17.3 million viewers combined across ESPN, ABC, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Plus and ESPN2. 

MSNBC finished third with 1.2 million viewers, followed by HGTV with 893,000 viewers and USA Network with 823,000 watchers.

The rest of the top 10 most watched networks for the week include TLC (762,000 viewers), Hallmark Channel (722,000), CNN (705,000), INSP (660,000) and Food Network (652,000), according to Nielsen.

ESPN could not unseat Fox News on the total day charts, as the news network averaged 1.4 million viewers to take its 37th consecutive crown in the category. ESPN finished second with 841,000 viewers, followed by MSNBC (791,000), CNN (597,000) and HGTV (475,000), said Nielsen. ■  

La Liga soccer will return to ESPN as the network announced a new long-term deal with Spain’s La Liga soccer league. 

The eight-year deal calls for all 380 La Liga league matches per season to air across ESPN, ESPN Plus, ABC and ESPN Deportes in both English and Spanish beginning in August, according to network officials. The games currently air on beIN Sports. 

La Liga content is no stranger to ESPN: ESPN Deportes aired La Liga games as late as 2012.

ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a conference call Friday to announce the deal that the agreement helps solidify streaming service ESPN Plus’ appeal to soccer fans. Along with streaming all 380 La Liga league games, ESPN Plus also offers soccer action from such leagues as Major League Soccer, German Bundesliga, Copa del Rey, and English Football League.  

Read Also: Disney in 'Conversations' About NFL Sunday Ticket

The service will also feature shoulder La Liga programming -- including magazine shows, weekly and season previews and highlight specials -- in both English and Spanish. 

“La Liga is one of the best and most popular sports leagues in the world,” Pitaro said. “We’ve been very focused on growing our Spanish language content offerings … and La Liga will play a big part in that going forward.” 

ESPN EVP of programming and original content Burke Magnus added that the network will continue to look to acquire national and international soccer content going forward. “We’re always on the hunt for premium content that adds vale, so we’ll take them as they come,” he said. “For today, we couldn’t be more excited to get perhaps the best league in the world for the next eight years.” 

ESPN Deportes will be the Spanish-language home for Super Bowl LV, the network announced as part of a deal with the NFL and CBS.

As part of the deal, ESPN Deportes will also receive exclusive Spanish-language rights to an AFC Divisional Game and the AFC Championship Game, marking the first time the AFC Championship will air on a Spanish-language network in the U.S.   

ESPN Deportes will offer its third Super Bowl telecast. The network currently offers weekly regular season Monday Night Football games in Spanish, as well as studio shows such as NFL Live.

“The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event of the year and we are proud to once again collaborate with the NFL and CBS to serve as the exclusive Spanish-language home for the event,” said Freddy Rolon, vice president of programming and acquisitions for ESPN in a statement.  “We are also excited to offer the AFC Championship in Spanish for the first time in the U.S.”  

Added Amanda Herald, Vice President, Marketing Strategy, Operations & Planning for the NFL: “The NFL’s Hispanic fan base is rapidly expanding and growing more passionate every day. It is of the utmost importance to us to make NFL football accessible to Spanish-speaking fans and we are ecstatic to see this come to fruition with ESPN Deportes during the postseason.”  

You know it’s basketball season when a man in a gorilla suit starts appearing in promos for a sports network’s senior studio show.

Viewers to ESPN Deportes and its ESPN México sibling are being treated to two new “This is SportsCenter” spots featuring anchors Jorge Eduardo Sánchez, Ricardo Puig and Jorge Mercader … and “Go,” the iconic gorilla-suited mascot of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns.

The first spot, “Jungle,” opens with Sánchez explaining that ESPN offers the opportunity for its employees to decorate their own office space and give it a personal touch. The spot then cuts to Puig, who asks his colleague, “Go,” if he’d like to go to lunch, revealing his “jungle” cubicle while he jumps over the wall to head to lunch.

The second spot, “Go Bananas,” features Mercader searching for something to eat in the refrigerator and finally deciding on a banana. When he closes the fridge, he is surprised to find “Go” behind the door. A stare-down ensues, and Mercader is forced to relinquish his snack to the hungry gorilla.

Both commercials were created by ESPN International’s marketing team in Mexico and are an extension of the “This is SportsCenter” effort seen across ESPN’s English-language networks in the U.S.

The NBA-themed effort comes as ESPN Deportes bulks up its roster of soccer commentators by hiring Jorge Pérez-Navarro for “a variety of soccer events” on both ESPN Deportes and ESPN Deportes Radio, making regular appearances on the sports chat show Jorge Ramos y Su Banda.

Pérez-Navarro was formerly with Telemundo’s sports department and, prior to that, spent more than a decade as co-host for Univision’s sports 

Between May 18 and May 28, ESPN Deportes found itself in the enviable position of being the U.S. Spanish-language broadcast home of the UEFA Europa League finals; Spain’s Copa del Rey final; the German Bundesliga final; and the UEFA Champions League final.

On June 10, the network will launch month-long coverage of the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament, with 51 matches being held in 10 cities across France.

Before you judge ESPN Deportes as only about soccer, the network has a message for you: UEFA Euro 2016 is Más Que Fútbol, or “more than soccer.”

Ahead of the opening match, ESPN Deportes launched an integrated marketing campaign centered on a 60-second spot featuring scenes of Paris interspersed with exciting soccer plays and emotional fans.

The effort focuses on ESPN Deportes play-by-play coverage and does not mention its other coverage of Europe’s quadrennial football championship: ESPN Deportes will air a 30-minute pregame edition of Fuera de Juego; a halftime show; in-between match programming; and a two-hour TV-only presentation of Jorge Ramos y Su Banda, which is simulcast on ESPN Deportes Radio, immediately following the last match of the day.

ESPN will air 40 matches in English, including the opening and title matches (11 games will air on ESPN2). ESPN Deportes will air 45 matches live and six matches on tape-delay.

The Más Que Fútbol spot is also available in English, ESPN Deportes noted, and promotes the tournament coverage on ESPN.

The opening match, featuring host France vs. Romania, airs June 10 at 2:30 p.m. ET. The final is set for Sunday, July 1 at 2:30 p.m. ET.

On May 16, media buyers, planners and multicultural advertising executives will once again spend three days shuttling around Midtown Manhattan to enjoy free drinks, savory hors d’oeuvres and a largely positive presentation on why 2016-17 will be vitally important for their clients to engage with broadcast and cable television viewers.

Upfront Week is still vitally important. Television — particularly Hispanic television — remains a key conduit for reaching current and potential consumers, Clorox chief marketing officer Eric Reynolds said at last month’s Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies conference in Miami Beach, Fla. These comments were echoed by the agency heads and broadcast media executives in attendance, who acknowledged the rise of digital and social media but also stressed multicultural marketers cannot ignore Hispanic television.

But the biggest headline this year may be what Upfront Week attendees won’t.

Gone are separate upfront presentations from ESPN Deportes and Telemundo. Those networks will now be featured in presentations from big sibling ESPN and parent NBCUniversal, respectively. Univision is still doing a standalone upfront presentation.

Discovery U.S. Hispanic networks had not publicly announced its upfront plans at deadline for this article. Additionally, beIN SPORTS has not released details on its May 16 upfront presentation, which will include discussion of its Spanish-language networks serving U.S. Hispanics.

Here’s a brief run-down on what advertisers can expect starting May 16 in New York:

MONDAY, MAY 16
Morning
(Time TBA)
beIN SPORTS

6:30 p.m. TELEMUNDO
Hammerstein Ballroom, The Manhattan Center
Jennifer Lopez, currently serving as executive producer and co-star of the NBC crime drama Shades of Blue, will treat Upfront attendees with a private concert. According to the network, Lopez’s performance will mark the first of several collaborations by the entertainer in upcoming Telemundo projects to be announced. NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and its brands Telemundo and NBC Universo will join the NBCUniversal advertising upfront presentation that morning at Radio City Music Hall as part of its entire portfolio of broadcast and cable networks.

TUESDAY, MAY 17
9:15 a.m.
ESPN
Minskoff Theatre

ESPN has used the Minskoff Theatre for the last several years, but this will be the first time ESPN Deportes buyers will be in attendance to hear about the Spanish-language sports network’s properties and advertising solutions. Previously, ESPN Deportes held its own events at locales such as Hearst Tower, where in 2014 it hosted a breakfast presentation and shuttled VIPs to the event, seated alongside key talent such as sportscaster Jorge Ramos.

Details on ESPN Deportes’s role at ESPN’s total market presentation were scant at deadline. However, John Fitzgerald, vice president of multimedia sales for ESPN Deportes and ESPN Audio, said advertisers interested in his networks will hear about the power of total market reach, and its live sports programming — rather than its studio shows and talent such as the aforementioned Ramos.

11 a.m.
UNIVISION
Lyric Theatre

“United We Stand, Together We Grow:” That’s the slogan behind a new marketing campaign that will serve as the theme of Univision’s 2016 upfront presentation.

According to the network, the motto highlights Univision’s core differentiators: young and influential viewers, “massive unduplicated reach” and its commitment to serving the needs of its diverse multicultural viewers.

“The Univision story is a unique one that no other media company has,” Univision executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jessica Rodriguez said in prepared comments. “Our ‘United We Stand, Together We Grow’ campaign illustrates our ability to reach high value multicultural consumers in the U.S. by delivering on our unyielding mission to inform, entertain, and empower our audience anywhere, anytime,” she said. “With fun and inspirational creative, this campaign demonstrates Univision’s unique ability to help our marketing partners deliver sustained business growth.”

Keith Turner, Univision’s President of Advertising Sales and Marketing, added, “We inspire loyalty among our young, influential, digitally savvy audience, which allows us to deliver results for advertisers across our multi-platform distribution network.”

The campaign, developed by the Our Man In Havana agency, will include out-of-home billboard displays in key markets, as well as print and digital advertisements.

AN EARLY JUMP ON UPFRONTS

Azteca America conducted an upfront road show this year, with events for advertisers already held over the last several weeks in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Dallas.

For the network, it’s “Game on!” That’s the theme of its upfronts, with advertisers learning about a roster of family game shows, adventure reality programming, dramas and live sporting events from network president Manuel Abud and executive vice president of network sales and digital Craig Geller.

“Azteca America enters this upfront season on the heels of delivering its best March ratings in five years across all key demos in primetime,” Abud said. “We have made good on all of last year’s promises and our ‘Game On!’ theme underscores our proven counter-programming strategy, further solidifying our position as an entertainment leader in the U.S.”

Azteca also introduced its digital programming strategy under the theme “A Better Life,” with content that is specific to the needs of its audience. By going to AztecaAmerica.com, visitors can get the latest news, entertainment and sports in their language and from their point of view. “

“A Better Life” extends into other social media as well, with feature deals, opportunities and information important to Latinos, available on their computers and mobile devices, and through social media platforms.

ESPN said Freddy Rolón has been named vice president and general manager of ESPN Deportes, where he has served since 2004 and, since 2011, has been VP of programming and business initiatives.

Lino Garcia, who had been GM of ESPN Deportes since before the Spanish-language service launched in 2004, left as part of the layoffs and restructurings in October 2015 that were planned to eliminate about 300 positions, ESPN said today. Rolón reports to Russell Wolff, the executive VP and managing director of ESPN International, whose role includes the sports programmer's international and U.S. Hispanic businesses. (Garcia had reported to Traug Keller, the senior VP of ESPN Audio, and Rolón will continue to work with Keller on ESPN Deportes Radio, ESPN said.)

Rolón also will work closely with Gerardo Casanova, vice president and general manager, ESPN Latin America North (Mexico and Central America), on audience and content development, ESPN said, citing new Mexico City studios as assets that can be drawn on to maximize the engagement of Mexican and U.S. Hispanic sports fans.

Rolón will oversee all aspects of the ESPN Deportes business, including the ESPN Deportes television network, "and will work closely with ESPN’s programming, production, audio, digital and print media teams, to maximize the relevance and appeal of ESPN’s English-language products to U.S. Hispanic fans."

“Freddy brings an expert blend of market intelligence, content know-how, brand knowledge and leadership to his new role,” Wolff said in a release. “The collaboration between Freddy and Gerardo will also help us find creative and innovative ways to best serve U.S. Hispanic fans on all of ESPN’s platforms.”

“ESPN is perfectly poised to serve the growing U.S. Hispanic audience in both Spanish and English,” Rolón said in the release. “We have tremendous expertise within the ESPN Deportes team, in addition to company-wide support for our efforts. I’m excited to work with this talented team of professionals to develop ESPN’s English, Spanish and bi-lingual strategies, and to identify new opportunities to propel our business forward.”

ESPN Deportes's first Spanish-language Super Bowl telecast drew an average 472,000 total viewers, based on a 1.8 rating according to Nielsen, the programmer said. That was the biggest non-soccer audience ever for the 14-year-old network and the household audience was a 51% bump over the results a year ago when the game was shown in Spanish language on NBC Universo.

The English-language telecast on CBS, drew 111.9 million viewers on average, down from a year ago, based on Nielsen fast nationals. Streamed, the game drew nearly 4 million viewers, CBS also said.

This is only the third Super Bowl U.S. telecast with a Spanish-language production; Fox Deportes had the first one, in 2014, and that remains the biggest-ever non-soccer sports telecast on Spanish-language pay TV, ESPN said.

On WatchESPN, Super Bowl 50 delivered ESPN Deportes’ fifth-most-watched event ever, attracting an additional 5,600 average minute impressions to the TV audience, 29,000 unique viewers and a total of 1.5 million minutes viewed, ESPN Deportes said in a release. It is the most-watched, non-soccer event for ESPN Deportes on WatchESPN – trailing only four UEFA Champions League matches.

The biggest non-soccer telecast on ESPN Deportes prior to #SB50 was 355,000 average viewers for the Premier Boxing Champions event on Aug. 29, 2015, the network said. ESPN Deportes lists its distribution at 6.1 Hispanic homes, with total distribution of about 20 million homes, a smaller base than NBC Universo (43 million homes) but similar to Fox Deportes (22 million homes).

Dish Network is launching the high-definition version of Spanish-language ESPN Deportes today in its DishLATINO package, ahead of the network's Sunday telecast of the Super Bowl in Spanish. The channel already was part of the Dish lineup in standard definition. ESPN Deportes obtained the Super Bowl Spanish-language rights in a pact with CBS and the National Football League. It's running pre-game coverage all this week. 

ESPN Deportes cites its U.S. reach as 6.1 million Hispanic homes, though the total distribution is estimated at about 20 million.

Here are quotes from the announcement:

“By offering ESPN Deportes in HD to DishLATINO customers, we are addressing demand to increase HD penetration of Spanish-language sports networks to a growing Hispanic fan base,” said Sean Breen, Senior Vice President, Affiliate Sales, Disney & ESPN Media Networks. “Watching live sporting events in HD heightens and enhances the viewing experience for fans, and today’s launch is yet another example of how we are working closely with our distributors to add value to their customers’ pay TV subscriptions.”

“We are always looking for ways to enrich our customers’ experience, and the addition of ESPN Deportes in HD helps bring to life some of the biggest events in sports,” said Alfredo Rodriguez, vice president of DishLATINO. “The Super Bowl is the perfect way to kick-off this programming, delivering Spanish-language, HD coverage of American football’s biggest night.” 

“Expanding ESPN Deportes’ HD distribution is essential in our effort to continue delivering topnotch sports content to our Spanish-language fans,” said Freddy Rolón, Vice President, Programming & Business Initiatives, ESPN Deportes. “We are thrilled that our DishLATINO viewers will be able to watch our content in the highest quality available as we get ready to deliver a wide variety of great sports events this year including the anticipated Super Bowl 50, Serie del Caribe, Copa MX, Copa del Rey final, German Cup, Europa League, UEFA Champions League, NBA and The Finals, Wimbledon, EURO 2016, the Spanish Super Copa, the U.S. Open and much more.”

For the third year in a row, U.S. audiences will have a choice of channels on which to watch the National Football League’s title game — they’ll just need to know how to speak Spanish.

Through a sublicensing deal struck with rights-holder CBS, ESPN Deportes will simulcast Super Bowl 50 in Spanish on Feb. 7. The Spanish-language channel has simulcast English-language sibling ESPN’s NFL games, including Monday Night Football, since 2006.  

The deal, which came together in late December, means the biggest event in U.S. television will have a Spanish-language home for the third consecutive season. NBC simulcast its coverage in 2015 with co-owned network NBCUniverso; Fox did the same in 2014 with its Fox Deportes network.

CBS, which doesn’t own a Spanish-language TV network, worked with the NFL to reach terms with ESPN Deportes.

“We’re excited to partner with CBS and ESPN Deportes,” NFL executive vice president of media Brian Rolapp said. “We are committed to delivering our games in customized ways to serve our growing Hispanic fan base, and look forward to connecting with our fans on Super Bowl Sunday on [both of these networks].”

ESPN Deportes already airs postseason games, having televised the Jan. 9 AFC Wild Card game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans, simulcast in English by The Walt Disney Co. corporate siblings ESPN and ABC. It will also pair with ESPN to telecast the Pro Bowl on Jan. 31.

The rest of the NFL playoffs are televised exclusively by English-speaking networks, with Spanish audio available via SAP.

This approach has its limitations. For instance, during Jan. 9’s CBS broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers’s Wild Card victory over the Cincinnati Bengals, the SAP feed didn’t match what was seen on-screen, including a pre-kickoff interview conducted by CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson.

CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus didn’t want to take such an approach with the big game.

“As the broadcaster of Super Bowl 50, it was a priority for us to find a Spanish-language partner to reach the NFL’s Hispanic fan base,” he said. “The ESPN Deportes presentation will be a great complement to our broadcast.”

ESPN’s game coverage of Super Bowl 60 will begin at 6 p.m. (ET) from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., with the Monday Night Football Team of play-by-play announcer Alvaro Martin, color commentator Raul Allegre and sideline reporter John Sutcliffe. A 90-minute pre-game show will start at 4:30 p.m. (ET); postgame coverage will also follow.

The NFL has made great strides in seeking to best connect with Hispanic sports fans. According to the 2010 ESPN Deportes Poll, in addition to research conducted independently by Experian Marketing Services, the NFL had a lower passion score than Spain’s first-division soccer league among all U.S. Latinos.

Single out bilingual Hispanics, though, and the NFL is among the most popular sports properties. Among English-speaking Hispanics, the NFL ranks No. 1 among all professional sports leagues, according to Experian.

Securing domestic Spanish-language TV rights to North America’s premier sporting event reflects ESPN Deportes’s commitment to growing the NFL’s Hispanic fan base, vice president of programming and business initiatives Freddy Rolon told Hispanic Television Update in an exclusive interview.

“There has been a long-term commitment to building the fan base, and this is just a continuation of that commitment,” he said. “Hopefully we can continue having the big game in the future.”

In years past, excitement and anticipation about Super Bowl commercials was perhaps more fervent than for the game itself. As ESPN is now an option and with no 360-degree sales opportunity (as their was with Fox and NBCUniversal), what does this say about the evolving Super Bowl buy?

“Our sales team is out in the market with a package that includes Super Bowl programming across ESPN and ESPN Deportes,” Rolon said. “We can offer both the game on ESPN Deportes and game content across our other platforms.”

ESPN Deportes Radio will broadcast the Super Bowl for the third consecutive year, as part of a separate media-rights deal.

Was there concern from media buyers and planners, advertisers and/or agencies about a viewer dip in CBS’s ratings due to viewers shifting to ESPN Deportes? Or were media buyers excited about a new opportunity to reach Hispanics who prefer to consume Spanish-language media?

“We are adding to the overall audience of the Super Bowl,” Rolon said. “We are reaching a broader audience, and we are serving an audience that hasn’t really been served before. The Super Bowl is a cultural event, and now we are giving Spanish-speaking fans the option to watch the event on a platform that is directed to them.”

Rolon continued: “There’s a demand for fans to watch sports in a fully immersed environment. They want to see the facts, teams and results in a targeted way. Their experience is a hundred times better when all of the graphics align to what they see.”

Rolon declined to disclose financial terms, saying only that CBS and ESPN Deportes “saw a great opportunity on working together to offer the game in Spanish. With the NFL’s input, we quickly agreed to find a way to make a deal.”

ESPN Deportes has obtained the Spanish-language rights to air Super Bowl 50 in a pact with CBS and the National Football League. The telecast begins at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 7, live from Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

This is the first Super Bowl telecast for ESPN Deportes, and it will feature the announcing team that has called Monday Night Football contests since 2006 (and Sunday Night Football games before that): Alvaro Martin on play by play, Raul Allegre doing analysis and sideline reporter John Sutcliffe. 

While Fox Deportes had the first Spanish-language Super Bowl telecast in 2014, alongside Fox, and NBC Universo had it in 2015 (renaming itself from mun2 on the same day) alongside NBC, CBS did not have an in-house Spanish-language sports partner to call on. In a release from CBS, the NFL and ESPN Deportes, CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said "as the broadcaster of Super Bowl 50, it was a priority for us to find a Spanish-language partner to televise this historic broadcast and reach the NFL’s Hispanic fan base.” ESPN Deportes lists its distribution at 6.1 Hispanic homes, with total distribution of about 20 million homes, a smaller base than NBC Universo (43 million homes) but similar to Fox Deportes (22 million homes). 

ESPN Deportes is planning multimedia coverage leading up to the big game starting on Monday, Feb. 1. On Super Bowl Sunday, the network's coverage also will include a pregame special at 4:30 p.m. and a postgame show. ESPN Deportes Radio will broadcast the Super Bowl in Spanish for the third consecutive year under a separate agreement with the NFL.

U.S. Hispanics who prefer to consume SportsCenter in Spanish on ESPN Deportes can now enjoy the technology and look and feel of English-language SportsCenter telecasts, thanks to the launch of a state-of-the-art facility in Mexico City.

ESPN Deportes christened the new, four-studio production center on Dec. 7 at 11:30 p.m. (ET), following the network's Monday Night Football broadcast. Carolina Padron, Ciro Procuna and Jorge Eduardo Sanchez continue as SportsCenter anchors for ESPN Deportes.

The studio is designed to enhance content presentation for the viewer, increase consumer engagement, and provide a better stage for ESPN Deportes anchors, Rodolfo Martinez, vice president of production for ESPN International and ESPN Deportes, said.

The studio upgrade comes 10 months after one of its primary competitors, Fox Deportes, gave a facelift to its own signature in-studio sports news program, Central Fox.

ESPN’s new Mexico City studio space is the result of growth at ESPN Deportes that led to limit studio space, Martinez said in an interview.

“We built our first studios in Mexico City 12 years ago with the objective of serving ESPN Deportes only," he said. "Then, the network produced two shows. Now, we offer 10 hours of programming each day."

By bringing the presentation and technology of ESPN Deportes's version of SportsCenter in line with ESPN’s, U.S. Hispanic sports fans are receiving the best programming available, regardless of their language preference, Martinez said.

“The product and ESPN Deportes’s different platforms have become crucial for the growth of our brand in the U.S.,” he said. “These upgrades were done in Miami, Los Angeles, and in Bristol, Conn., and, come Jan. 4, all of our programming will be presented with full HD migration.”

A sleeker look and feel for SportsCenter isn't the only upgrade on ESPN Deportes’s Christmas Wish List that has been by The Walt Disney Co.

On Dec. 1, ESPN relaunched its Spanish-language websites across the globe, including ESPNDeportes.com, its primary destination for U.S. Hispanics.

Built on the technology infrastructure and design elements seen on ESPN.com, which received its own overhaul in April of 2015, ESPNDeportes.com is now designed to load faster and boasts improved site navigation.

The new ESPNDeportes.com now automatically adjusts to any screen, regardless of device or platform.

“Bringing a uniformly great experience to sports fans all over the world is central to our mission at ESPN,” ESPN executive vice president of digital and print media John Kosner said.

New Spanish-language editions of the ESPN app will come next spring.

Sling TV, Dish Network’s OTT service for cord-cutters, said it has extended support to the Google Nexus Player (pictured) and other devices powered by the Android TV platform.

On the programming front, Sling TV has also added ESPN Deportes to its “Deportes Extra” $5 per month add-on pack, which can be purchased on top of Sling TV’s core $20 per month service. Launched earlier this month, Deportes Extra, a tier for soccer fans, also features Azteca, beIN Español, beIN HD (English), Univison, Univision Deportes and UniMás.

Sling TV said its app for Android TV is now available via the Google Play store.

Similar to device bundle deals with Roku (for the Roku 3 player and the Roku Streaming Stick) and with Amazon (for the Fire TV box and Fire TV stick), Sling TV is offering the Nexus Player, the first device to run Android TV, at a 50% discount when new customers pre-pay for three months of Sling TV. Nexus Player users can also sample Sling TV for seven days for free.

Launched last fall, the Asus-made Nexus Player regular sells for $99.95, though outlets such as Walmart are offering it for less. The puck-shaped player features a remote with voice-based search, and is outfitted 1.8GHz Quad Core Intel Atom processor, 802.11ac, and an HDMI output. Other CE companies that have launched or are developing Android TV-powered products include Sharp, Philips, Razer, Nvidea, and Sony.

Sling TV also supports Android and iOS mobile devices, Web browsers, and the Xbox One.

“We’re committed to making Sling TV available on the most popular devices consumers use to stream live and on-demand entertainment,” Roger Lynch, CEO of Sling TV, said in a statement. “Today, we again bolstered our device footprint by expanding to Nexus Player’s Android TV platform, and we expect this partnership to deliver additional convenience for both new and existing Sling TV customers.”

Arizona will open the 2015 playoffs against Carolina on Saturday afternoon in ESPN's first-ever NFL postseason telecast.

The battle in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium also marks the kickoff of the most expansive NFL playoff coverage in Spanish, as ESPN Deportes will jump in with its own presentation of the Cardinals-Panthers. Later that night, NBCUniversal’s mun 2 will televise the Baltimore Ravens-Pittsburgh Steelers matchup, which also will air on NBC.

On Sunday, Fox Deportes, alongside Fox Broadcast, will showcase the Detroit Lions against the Dallas Cowboys. 

Last season, Fox Deportes became the first Spanish-language network in the U.S. to televise the NFL’s title tilt. This year that distinction falls to Comcast’s programming unit, as mun2 will culminate its transformation to NBC Universo on Feb. 1, Super Bowl Sunday.

Left unanswered:  Which network will televise Super Bowl L in Spanish. CBS will air the golden anniversary of the NFL’s Big Game from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. next year. However, CBS doesn’t have a Spanish-language outlet.

All of the league’s extant parties expressed interest in securing the rights to the contest. However, talks have yet to materialize. “We have not had discussions with the NFL; we expect them to take place soon,” said Carlos Sanchez, executive vice president and general manager of Fox Deportes.

Although the NFL is growing among Latinos – a 2013 ESPN Deportes Sports poll found that 60% of all Hispanics are NFL fans, more than boxing, NBA and MLB, and the game trails only soccer and Olympics overall. Moreover, among U.S.-born Hispanics, the NFL is the most popular sport.   

Despite such sentiment, and this year’s expanded postseason, the NFL, which has set a goal of raising its revenue base to $25 billion, from $10 billion today, by 2027, has not fully capitalized in this arena. ESPN Deportes’ coverage of Monday Night Football aside, there are only a handful of other regular-season games in Spanish-language play.

Could Spanish-language media leader Univision’s cable networks Galavision, or its dedicated sports network, Univision Deportes, be in the mix for an NFL package and/or Super Bowl L?

The league declined comment about its Spanish-language television game plan.

As for the 2015 postseason, the networks are sanguine about the ratings and commercial prospects.

*ESPN Deportes.  The Carolina-Arizona affair marks the apex of a long run with NFL that began before the network’s full-time bow. Fred Rolon, vice president of programming and business, noted that the service in 2001 -- when ESPN held the rights to the Sunday Night Football package -- made the games available in Spanish through ad hoc telecasts that were carried by Comcast and Time Warner Cable. ESPN Deportes launched as a 24/7 network in 2004.

The 2014 Monday Night Football schedule scored as ESPN Deportes’ most-watched and highest-rated season on record. During the recently completed campaign, the service averaged 59,000 Hispanic households and 85,000 of those viewers, up 31% and 25%, respectively, from 45,000 and 68,000 in 2013. Its coverage was highlighted by the 100, 000 Hispanic households and 128,000 watchers for the Oct. 27 game between Washington-Dallas, which stands as the second-most-watched MNF telecast behind Chicago Dallas on Dec. 9, 2013.

“The NFL continues to build,” said Rolon. “This was ESPN Deportes’ most successful season so far with Monday Night Football and the Wild Card is an exclamation point for us.”

Rolon said there was strong interest in the game on Madison Avenue and great crossover with ESPN. He said a number of marketers have taken “a total market position” with a presence in both the Spanish- and English language telecasts of the contest.

That roster includes General Motors, Mars, Pepsi, P&G, Anheuser-Busch and McDonald's, according to ESPN officials.  

Fox Deportes. Now in the second of two-year deal, Fox Deportes has a quartet of playoff telecasts on tap: its Wild Card coverage of Detroit-Dallas on Jan. 4, Divisional round matchups hosted by Seattle and Green Bay on  Jan. 10 and 11, as well as the NFC Championship game on Jan. 18.

Last Feb. 2, Fox Deportes made history, when it became the first Spanish-language channel in the U.S. to air the NFL championship game.

Super Bowl XLVIII played big, setting a new record with an average audience of 561,000 total viewers to become the most-watched non-soccer sports event in Spanish cable history. Despite Seattle’s 43-8 shellacking of Denver, viewership built throughout the game and peaked at 794,000 total viewers and 568,000 adults 18-49 during the second half.  

“The first year proved to be very successful,” said Sanchez. “It was much better than we expected.”

The network averaged 49,000 total viewers with its Thanksgiving Day coverage of Philadelphia’s throttling of Dallas on Thanksgiving. Officials said the average audience performance was eight times greater than its competitors and was six times larger among Latinos 18 to 49.

Sanchez is confident Fox Deportes’ 2015 postseason schedule, featuring studio talent at game-site locales and telecasts highlighting Latino players and coaches that viewers can identify with, will perform well, even without the Super Bowl paydirt.  

“The NFL is growing sports among Latinos. We want to be involved with the league and keep our leadership position among viewers,” he said.

NBC Universo. With the Sept. 28 Hispanic Heritage Game between New Orleans and Dallas and the Thanksgiving night matchup of Seatlle-San Francisco in the books, mun 2 will begin putting the money end of its one-year primetime deal with the NFL in play on Saturday night. Mirroring NBC’s playoff schedule, the 40 million subscriber mun2 will televise the Ravens-Steelers encounter on Jan. 3, the Divisional game hosted by the New England Patriots on Jan. 10 and Super Bowl XLIX from Glendale, Ariz. on Feb. 1, when the service will officially morph into NBC Universo.   

Network president Rubén Mendiola, who is overseeing the change to a modern, general-entertainment cable channel for Latinos that will showcase FIFA, NASCAR and other sports action, said the programmer is “super-focused on the Super Bowl. This is the biggest transformation for the network. All of operations are moving to Miami and the changeover will culminate with Super Bowl,” he said, expressing thanks for the NFL assist the service is receiving from NBC Sports. “Their support has been tremendous. They are helping us with the look of our telecasts and their story-telling approach to sports.”

Mendiola said “it’s been very exciting to see how the market is reacting” to the shift to NBC Universo.

That includes media buyers who are supporting the network’s NFL slate. Mike Rosen, executive vice president of advertising sales for NBCUniversal Hispanic Group, said the team packaged the regular season, postseason Super Bowl together.

Those efforts have yielded “a mix of traditional advertisers that look to reach Hispanic viewers, as well as some new ones,” said Rosen. “The NFL postseason and Super Bowl will hopefully open more doors for NBC Universo going forward.”

Rosen wouldn’t disclose the sell-through level or identify the advertisers viewers will see in NBC Universo’s Super Bowl telecast. He did say the sales have “exceeded our expectations and there were high expectations.”

He said NBC Universo will deliver a bonus audience with its culturally relevant presentation of the title game:  “We hope the telecast will extend the reach of what will hopefully be another record audience with the Super Bowl.”