A few years ago, we splurged on the slightly slicker version of the cable TV package. The one with all the Al Jazeera sports stations and, more important, the one with three ESPN stations. Yes, here in Abu Dhabi.

ESPN, ESPN America and ESPN Classic.

Those three were the primary lifeline, in the UAE, back to U.S. sports. The sports much of the rest of the world doesn’t much care about. ESPN had us American expats pretty much wrapped up, when we were watching anything that wasn’t soccer.

Each week, we were able to see a couple of college football games, a couple of NFL games, some baseball, a lot of college basketball, the regular SportsCenters.

And now they are gone.

This is, basically, a disaster for Yanks in the Middle East. And Europe. And Africa.

We do know this: ESPN America and ESPN Classic have been shut down by ESPN. Like, gone. Not showing anywhere. As the “thanks, and see-you-later” notes on those homepages indicate.

At the moment, the “worldwide leader” is absent from a big chunk of the world.

This is, of course, bad for Yanks overseas. We are now reduced to whatever Fox has (some NFL, some baseball) and the NBA station, which tends to show games no other network cares about.

So, we called the cable provider, complaining about what must certainly have been a screw-up on their part … and they said, “Hey, it’s not us.”

And it isn’t. It’s ESPN that is abandoning the market.

What could be the thinking behind this? Why does ESPN withdraw from a region covering two-plus continents?

Probably because of money. That’s the answer to nearly every TV question, after all.

A query sent to an ESPN official returned the following PR gobbledygook. (I mean, who speaks like this?)

In relation to your question about ESPN’s business in the EMEA region and the channel closures. You may be aware, back in February ESPN reached an agreement to sell our UK and Ireland TV channel business to BT. They will launch 2 BT Sports channels in August, and will continue to operate an ESPN channel, as well, under a brand licensing agreement. Following that, ESPN reviewed its wider regional business and made some strategic decisions to cease operations of our TV channels and shift our focus in the EMEA region to our leading digital business (mobile, online, broadband), content syndication, and our global X Games events (which expanded in 2013 to include 3 events in the EMEA region).

This obviously has an impact on the Middle East and Israel network. The channels affected are: ESPN America (pan-regional, American sports), ESPN Classic (pan-regional, archive sports) and also our ESPN channel in the Middle East and Israel (it is a single network). This will take place as of July 31 at midnight. 

I hope this helps.

Well, once I searched what EMEA might mean … it does become a bit clearer. ESPN is quitting Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Talk about retrenchment.

And all that other stuff that is available to us? Let’s just guess and say indulging in any of that “leading digital business” will cost us more than the couple bucks a month ESPN might have been getting from various overseas networks.

(And the X Games? Nobody over here watches that; even ESPN knows that.)

Some unhappy Yanks, over here. And no, we don’t get MTV, either.