Real-time sports scores, fantasy sports management, scoring alerts, up to the minute information on everything sports, and lots more. It's a sports fanatics dream, and ESPN is bringing it to your fingertips through your cell phone. Well, not really your cell phone, unless you buy it first and subscribe to a new phone plan and service provider.

Earlier this year, ESPN launched a new service called Mobile ESPN. Being a huge sports fan myself, I was extremely excited. I said was because I'm not anymore based on my understanding of the service. Let me explain.

ESPN has partnered with Sprint and uses their network to deliver their sports service to the cell phone. However, you don't actually become a Sprint customer, you become a Mobile ESPN customer for your cell phone plan. This requires you to cancel your plan with your current provider before enrolling in Mobile ESPN (unless of course you wanted to carry two cell phones around with you and have two cell phone plans). Mobile ESPN calling plans currently start at around $39.99 per month for 400 minutes of talk time and unlimited use of the ESPN service. Want 6,000 minutes? That will cost you around $200.

As I mentioned earlier, you must purchase a new cell phone to use the Mobile ESPN service. There are currently two phones available to choose from, one of which is free with a mail-in rebate. The phones are reasonable for what you get and are custom programmed to enable you to access tons of sports information including tracking up to 5 favorite teams and 15 favorite players. However, since there are only two to choose from, you'll be disappointed if you want a phone with some power, a good email client, etc.

Then there's the cost of any upgrades that you might want with the phone.

Do you want to access the Internet outside of ESPN? They block many sites, but for those that are available, you will have to pay extra to access them based on how much you download to your phone. Or, you can purchase an unlimited monthly plan for an extra $10/month.

What about watching ESPN on your phone? That would be cool. Unfortunately, you can only watch pre-recorded and pre-selected video and audio clips on the phone after they have been downloaded. No live TV. And, you have to pay about $15 a month for that privilege.

Oh, almost forgot. You want to text message too? Yep, more money. The cost really starts to add up quickly.

I am a sports nut and love ESPN. I watch it almost every day. Although I have yet to actually spend much time using Mobile ESPN, I just don't think that the service is worth it for what you get and the inconvenience of changing phones, carriers, and plans.

I can do most things that this service can do with my current phone, and on top of that, I can watch games LIVE on my phone for free. With my cell phone, I can already go to ESPN's page (or anyone else's for that matter) to check scores because I have unlimited use of Sprint's Internet service. Thanks to Steve Jones, I already have sports alerts on my phone for free. And, thanks to Sling Media, I can watch live football games on my cell phone. All of this without having to change my phone or my cell phone service provider.

For these reasons, I won't become a Mobile ESPN user anytime soon. If you're a sports nut, I can see how it might be worth checking out if you have some disposable income, but even then, I would consider my suggestions above as better alternatives for getting sports info on your phone.