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ESPN and the The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club today announced that they have expanded their Wimbledon digital rights agreement in the Americas (U.S., Mexico, Central and South America* and the Caribbean). Under the expanded agreement, starting Monday June 22 ESPN will deliver nearly double the hours of live broadband coverage on ESPN360.com this year, expand its live mobile streaming on ESPN Mobile TV by nearly 60 percent and adds additional highlights on ESPN.com and ESPNdeportes.com.

“ Wimbledon is one of the great ‘sports holidays’ on the calendar for fans each year,” said John Skipper, executive vice president, content, ESPN. “Through ESPN’s platforms, the competition, pageantry and personalities of Wimbledon will be available to fans at their desk, in their pocket and on their television like never before.”

ESPN360.com, the company’s signature live sports broadband network, will deliver live coverage of all courts (up to nine, depending on schedule of play) throughout the early rounds, and a total of nearly 650 hours of live coverage between opening day and the semi-finals – nearly doubling the total hours delivered last year. ESPN360.com will also simulcast ESPN2's nearly 100 hours of coverage and will have the Wimbledon Finals events on-demand the morning following competition.

In the U.S. in 2009, ESPN360.com will become the first broadband network to deliver live online coverage of all four Grand Slam tennis events – delivering nearly 1300 total hours of combined coverage this year. ESPN360.com’s Wimbledon coverage adds to more than 275 hours of live French Open coverage in May, at least 260 hours of US Open coverage in August and more than 100 hours of Australian Open coverage each year to cement ESPN360.com as the home for live broadband coverage of Grand Slam tennis.

ESPN360 in Mexico and Chile will also deliver all the live coverage delivered in the United States.

In addition, ESPN’s agreement with The All England Club includes:

ESPN.com & ESPNdeportes.com: The leading sports site will deliver expanded highlights of Wimbledon at ESPN.com/tennis and ESPN.com/video, as well as Spanish-language highlights on ESPNdeportes.com.

ESPN Mobile TV: ESPN’s 24/7 mobile video network will expand its live mobile streaming coverage, delivering more than 80 hours throughout the tournament.

Wimbledon Central: ESPN.com will again feature Wimbledon Central, a dynamic content application that will feature the official live scoring for all matches throughout the tournament. Additionally, Wimbledon Central will be available for the first time on the ESPN Mobile Web site.

ESPN Mobile Web and ESPN MVP: Fans will again be able to follow all the action throughout the championship via ESPN’s industry leading mobile Web site and through the signature ESPN MVP application on Verizon wireless.

Interactive Television: for the second year, ESPN will offer U.S. tennis fans a six-screen mosaic presentation that can be seen in 18 million homes served by DIRECTV, now extending through the first Saturday of play.

Wimbledon Archives: in the days leading up to Wimbledon past Wimbledon matches (full and condensed) will be available on-demand through ESPN.com and ESPN360.com.