ESPN phone comes loaded with ads

Walt Disney owned sports channel ESPN announced that it has signed six major advertising agreements for it’s soon to be launched mobile service dedicated to sport fans.

The agreement will come into affect from February 5, 2006 when the service will be available nationwide. The parties to one-year long advertising contract include Cisco Systems Inc, Molson Coors Brewing Co, General Motors, Hilton Hotels Corp., Nike Inc. and Visa.

As part of the agreement, the logo of each sponsor will be displayed on phones, animated billboards, banner ads, scoreboards and columnist pages as well as the trivia-and-polls page of SportsNation.

An ESPN spokesperson further said that as part of the agreement they are also exploring sponsored features; such as a sports question-and-answer page called “Answer Guy”.

Available through a specially designed and branded handset being manufactured by Sanyo, the Mobile ESPN phone service carries sports statistics, short video clips and other short-form content.

People who are interested can do so now by ordering online and is expected to available through Best Buy stores nationwide in February 2006.