New video series to cover six countries on five continents,
Exploring the world’s most important and unusual sports and the people who play them
 
ESPN.com today launched Kenny Mayne’s Wider World of Sports, an homage to ABC’s classic Wide World of Sports, in which Mayne travels the globe to show sports fans a variety of strange and off-beat sporting events.
 
Covering six countries on five continents, the new video series will feature one country per week over the next six weeks with four to five segments exploring the sports most important and unique to the indigenous people of each country.
 
“I hope this is the start of something big,” said Mayne, a former SportsCenter anchor and star of ESPN.com’s Mayne Street video series. “I’m talking space travel. Other planets. I liked my crew that much.”
 
Throughout Wider World of Sports, Mayne makes stops in Brazil, England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and Thailand to capture a range of sports and the culture in each land. Segments include Mayne taking part in the King’s Cup elephant polo tournament in Thailand; playing extreme golf on the world’s longest par 3 on a mountain in South Africa; playing soccer with Brazilian star Ronaldinho and learning footvolley (aka “the other beautiful game”) on the beaches in Rio; and in Ireland, spending a day road bowling through the village of Clonakilty.
 
Kenny Mayne’s Wider World of Sports: www.espn.com/wwos