This Is What It Looks Like When An ESPN Network Goes Off The Air

The Worldwide Leader In Sports became a bit less world-wide last night, a s ESPN shut down operations around much of the globe while handing over control of its channel in the UK and Ireland to British Telecom. Here's what overseas viewers watching ESPN America saw in the network's final moments:

That's pretty unceremonious. Still, if international viewers' final memory of American sports programming is Bomani Jones, it's not the worst thing in the world. After a few minutes of a black screen, the following promo for Sky Deutschland's U.S. sports-themed channel ran on a loop (even in countries like Italy that won't have access to the network):

When one door closes, another one opens (if you're German). The future for U.S. sports programming in other countries, meanwhile, looks very bleak.