After there is a success of a channel on television, the owners of the channel may have another idea that will either include some of the same things that they use on their current channel or they have a totally new idea and will do something that does not have to do with the topic of their current channel. Since they have the knowledge and experience and probably the money to fund another channel.
This is called the sister channels or sister stations. For ESPN, they have twelve sister channels. These include ESPN 2, ESPN 3, ESP News, ESPNU, ESPN on ABC, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic, Longhorn Network, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPN Goal Line and Bases Loaded and ESPN UK.