But the Disney-owned sports channel spent most of Tuesday hyping — and shooting down rumors about — new digital initiatives.

Notably, an ESPN spokesperson denied a Bloomberg report that earlier stated that ESPN and Apple executives are in talks to make the authenticated TV Everywhere app WatchESPN available on Apple TV.

That’s not to say a deal is never going to happen.

Bloomberg quoted Sean Bratches, ESPN executive VP of affiliate and advertising sales, as saying his company would be open to a deal with Apple that would allow subscribers of select multichannel TV services password-protected access to ESPN programming on the over-the-top Apple TV platform.

ESPN already has a deal in place with Apple to let subscribers of select multichannel services, including No. 1 provider Comcast, stream its sports news on iOS mobile devices the iPad and iPhone. And in the living room, Comcast Xfinity subscribers can also stream ESPN programming on Microsoft’s Xbox gaming consoles.

“To the extent that in the future there’s an opportunity with Apple to authenticate through the pay-TV food chain as we’re doing with Microsoft, that’s something that we will participate in,” Bratches told Bloomberg.

Just don’t get your hopes up for anything to happen soon.

“We’re not having conversations with Apple about authenticating WatchESPN,” ESPN spokeswoman Amy Phillips re-iterated to paidContent.

Double-teaming brands with Twitter

At its upfront presentation earlier in the day, ESPN unveiled an advertising partnership with Twitter that will allow the social media giant to monetize all those tweets that occur around big-ticket sports events. (During the final three minutes of February’s Super Bowl, for example, Twitter reported that 10,000 tweets per second were being transacted on its network.)

The collaboration will kick off with next month’s NBA Finals coverage. Studio analysts for ESPN’s NBA Tonight highlights/analysis show will encourage viewers to tweet their painted “game faces” with the hashtag #gameface, with the most telegenic of the lot presented on the linear broadcast.

Twitter and ESPN will be co-sell the campaign through promoted tweets and trends, as well as product plugs on Disney’s ABC, ESPN and ESPN.com channels. The cross-platform offering will be sold to sponsors as a single package.

Going live with Comcast doubles the number of households with access to WatchESPN to 40 million.

WatchESPN is part of a multi-year deal Comcast and Disney reached earlier this year that combined traditional carriage agreements with multi-platform access. Other channels due to get the “watch” treatment include Disney Channel, DisneyXD and Disney Junior.

Choices

Instead of forcing users to go through XfinityTV.com or the Xfinity TV app, access through WatchESPN lets sports fans zero on programming from across the ESPN network and to take advantage of the ESPN user experience.

But integrating it with Xfinity TV apps also makes it easier for Comcast viewers looking for a way to manage their portable or off-TV viewing experience through a single gateway. That’s also how users will be able to setup remote recording. WatchESPN is a network experience; XfnityTV is programming plus program management.

How does it work

Make sure you’re using the current WatchESPN app update dated May 8. Click on settings and go to “choose provider. Until today, the only options were Verizon FiOS TV and Broadband, Bright House Networks, and Time Warner Cable. Now Comcast is in the list. Select Comcast and you get a white splash screen that explains the requirements — must subscribe to Xfinity TV with access to VOD and must subscribe to the network you are trying to watch. If you don’t get ESPN in your Xfinity package, you can’t watch it through the app or online. That splash screen, which is bigger than those of other MSOs, also includes something unusual — ads from Comcast.

Enter your Xfinity user name and password, and you’re in. I don’t live in a Comcast area but I do tech support for parents who do and tested it with one of their logins. In a matter of seconds, I had access to live streams from ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, plus replays on broadband channel ESPN3 (nothing live at the moment), ESPN Radio and more.

Comcast Ventures head Amy Banse, one of the architects of Comcast’s multi-platform strategy, will be speaking at paidContent 2012: At The Crossroads, May 23 in New York. Here’s how you can join us for the conversation.