ESPN2 was launched on October 1, 1993. It carried a broad mix of event coverage from conventional sports—including auto racing, college basketball and NHL hockey—to extreme sports—such as BMX, skateboarding and motocross. The "ESPN BottomLine", a ticker displaying sports news and scores during all programming that is now used by all of ESPN's networks, originated on ESPN2 in 1995. In the late 1990s, ESPN2 was gradually reformatted to serve as a secondary outlet for ESPN's mainstream sports programming.
