ESPNever ending

Here’s a gift idea for that person in your life who can’t bear to be parted from his or her sports team for one minute: ESPN will begin offering a branded cell phone late next year via Sprint.

Targeting the most fanatical of fans, the phone allows users to check game highlights and will offer streaming video of sports. Well, that’s a nice start, but the possibilities seem endless: ESPN announcers on your voicemail, ringtones of college fight songs, obnoxious walkie-talkie features that shout sports scores—not just at you but at surrounding commuters…

And what if other channels begin to offer similar phones? A Comedy Central phone that text-messages you jokes or laughs maniacally when it rings? A Food Channel phone that offers suggestions on lunchtime fare and has Emeril take your messages? A Playboy phone? OK, let’s not go there.

To think people once used phones to, well, make phone calls. How quaint!

—Posted by Mae Anderson

December 2, 2004 | Permalink