History
The network was launched on March 4, 2005 from the site of Gallagher-Iba Arena on the Oklahoma State University Campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The network's first live event was a semi-final game of the Ohio Valley Conference men's basketball tournament that saw Southeast Missouri State University fall to Eastern Kentucky University. The network was launched as a response to upstart rival CSTV (now CBS Sports Network). ESPN was also being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department due to "warehousing" of college games from certain conferences, or signing a deal with a conference for all their games, but only televising a small number and not allowing the conference to make other arrangements for TV broadcasts.
ESPN and XOS Technologies signed a partnership for college athletics websites to compete directly with CSTV's growing internet presence. On August 28, 2006, ESPNU launched a new SportsCenter spin-off dealing entirely with college sports. That show, called SportsCenterU, was originally scheduled to be broadcast from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, but ESPN changed its plans and the show originates from Charlotte.
Mike Hall was the show's lead anchor until August 2007, when he left for the new Big Ten Network. The new anchors are Mike Gleason and Lowell Galindo. They are joined on-set by color commentators that vary with the sports season.
Also, on August 28, 2006, ESPNU premiered ESPNU.com. The website included live streaming college sports events, multi-media player dedicated to college sports, podcasts and ESPN Motion clips of studio programming from the ESPNU television network.
ESPNU expanded its live programming to water polo by broadcasting its first-ever water polo match between the women of Princeton University and Bucknell University on March 28, 2009 from DeNunzio Pool, Princeton, NJ.
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