ESPN has always been pretty progressive in their coverage of "non-traditional" sporting events [1]. It goes far beyond soccer (which is the most popular sport in the world everywhere
except in the US). They basically invented and nurtured the X-Games into the highly rated big bucks sport it's become. They also put professional billiards on the map, and although Travel Channel hogs all the credit for poker's current TV popularity, ESPN was televising pro poker long before TC was.
ESPN is the lineal descendent of ABC's Wide World of Sports (which carried all kinds of interesting non-mainstream sports [including chess] back in the day), as well as Sports Illustrated's excellent 1970's sports coverage (before they sank to lowest common denominator level with crap like the annual swimsuit issue). The late Dick Schaap has a lot to do with ESPN's interest in chess; Dick was covering chess for SI way back in the '60's and 70's and later was a highly-respected part of the ESPN staff.
[1] I mean the ones that my no-neck friends and acquaintances are always bitching about: "That doesn't belong on ESPN! They should reserve *more* time for baseball/football/NCAA basketball/etc." That just makes me laugh -- I find billiards and poker *way* more interesting than any of the "big five" (Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and NASCAR); when these guys complain about two measly hours of poker on ESPN, I just reply that the network should replace the couple hundred hours of basketball every March with World Series of Poker reruns.
