ESPN’s (NYSE: DIS) George Bodenheimer kicked off his presentation at the UBS Global Media Conference with a real crowd pleaser: a few of his network’s latest (still hilarious) “This is Sportscenter” clips. He then tossed a t-shirt to the person in the crowd who could guess the number of these clips that have been produced over the past decade (answer: around 300). His opening message: “The ESPN brand and the business is absolutely thriving… we are sports fans.” This was the gist of his entire presentation, that ESPN, one of the top performers for The Walt Disney Company, represents sports fans and that it knows how to sell to them better than anyone else in sports media.

-- Key growth drivers: Core business: network has the best distribution and strong sports rights—“far beyond negotiating for TV rights.” It’s now a leader in multimedia rights. Network can derive more value from its rights than any other company (similar to parent Disney):  NBA International will be distributed across 17 different ESPN platforms.  Company remains the most valuable network on cable TV, which allows it to garner industry leading ad rates. Furthermore, the company is somewhat DVR immune, since it focuses on a live product. Integrated sales: “Yes, I know, every media company comes in here and says they’re interested in integrated sales.” ESPN has been walking the walk for eight years. Online: “We have always achieved premium CPMs.” Network is seeing a 50 percent premium on CPMs via geotargeting of online ads. Also the company is increasingly international, with several acquisitions over the last year: Scrum.com (rugby), Cricinfo.com (cricket): “We’ll pay as much attention to rugby, cricket and team handball as we do football and baseball.” ESPN now has 34 TV networks worldwide in about 200 countries. Lots more after the jump…

-- New digital opportunities: Growth areas include wireless, gaming, e-commerce. At any one time, there are 500-1,000 video clips available at ESPN.com. In Octobers, the company had 132 million video starts on ESPN.com. ESPN 360 will have 2,500 events programmed this year—going to be in over 20 million homes by February. “I’m not sure of any other media company that has a similar model as we do with ESPN 360… this feels a lot like ESPN in the beginning.” Programming won’t garner huge ratings, but will serve fans. Fans will ask their ISP for it. (ESPN360 is only available through ISPs.)

-- Wireless: 10 million unique users for ESPN. WAP site. Most utilized application, second only to email and weather. Post-Mobile ESPN, ESPN MVP has “been a seamless transition… licensing it to Verizon.” Originally planned to be on five models, now on 17 models. ESPN Mobile TV: Currently on Verizon, (NYSE: VZ) will be available on other carriers within the next few months.

-- Videogames: Videogames now integrated with ESPN content. Gamers can get live news and data updates from ESPN as they’re playing games.

-- New products: Scorecenter: comprehensive score site coming in Jan 2008. Any sport, anywhere, anytime. Goal is to be #1 sports content aggregator around the world.