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History

Bill Rasmussen’s journey creating ESPN began on the memorial day weekend of 1978 when he was fired from his job with the World Hockey League team the New England Whalers. After this Bill and his son Scott, who had also been let go by the Whalers, decided to create ESPN. One of the first steps in this process was finding land to create the buildings and studios required to run a cable TV channel. In the beginning they rented offices in Plainville, Connecticut. However, this had to change because an ordinance in Plainville prohibited buildings from having satellite dishes on them. Available land was quickly found in Bristol, Connecticut and that is where the headquarters remain to this day. Funding for this land was provided by Getty Oil on February 22nd, 1979 when they purchased 85% of the company from Bill Rasmussen, in an attempt to diversify their holdings. This helped the credibility of the fledgling company but there were still many doubters. Another event that helped build the credibility of ESPN was securing an advertising agreement with Anheuser-Busch in the spring of 1979. "They recognized the potential and invested $1 million to be the exclusive beer advertised on the network.” ^[1]

September 7th, 1979, a little over a year after the journey began, marked the day of the first telecast of ESPN’s marquee product, Sports Center. It was taped in front of a small live audience in the Bristol studio, it was broadcast to 1.4 million cable subscribing homes in the United States. This marked the creation of the first 24/7 sports network and was just a glimpse into what the future would hold for ESPN and sports obsessed viewers. </ref name="A">

ESPN’s next big break came in the form of college basketball. ESPN saw the potential for a breakthrough with the coverage of the early rounds of the NCAA tournament. In March of 1980 ESPN began broadcasting the NCAA tournament, creating the modern day TV event that is now known as March Madness. They also launched the broadcasting career of Dick Vitale, who at the time had just been fired from the head coaching position with the Detroit Pistons.

In April of 1980 ESPN created another made for TV spectacle, this time it was the NFL Draft. They provided complete coverage of the event that allowed rookies to launch their brands in front of a national television audience in ways they were not able to before.

The next major stepping stone for ESPN came over the course of a couple of months in 1984. During this time period ABC purchased 100% of ESPN from the Rasmussen’s and Getty Oil.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). However, with the backing of ABC their ability to compete for big dollar contracts was greatly increased, and gave them credibility amongst their peers.

Later in 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that the NCAA could no longer monopolize the rights to negotiate the contracts for college football games. This allowed each individual school to make their own deals with channels. ESPN took full advantage and began to broadcast a large number of NCAA football games. Creating an opportunity for fans to see more than just one game per weekend. Which was the deal that the NCAA had previously negotiated with TBS. </ref name="B">

ESPN’s breakthrough moment was when they secured a contract with the NFL in 1987 to broadcast 8 NFL games during that season. ESPN broadcasted these games on Sunday nights, creating the first Sunday primetime NFL broadcasts. For the following 17 years the ESPN Sunday Night games were the most watched NFL telecast.^[2] ESPN choosing to broadcast their games on Sunday nights actually lowered the viewership of the daytime games that were broadcasted by the network stations. Marking the first time that ESPN had been legitimate competition to NBC and CBS which had long dominated the sports television market.

In 1992 ESPN launched ESPN radio, this is the current home of the several popular radio shows. This includes, Mike and Mike, and the Herd, amongst others. </ref name="A">

October 10th 1993 marked the date when ESPN unveiled its sister channel ESPN2 to 10 million cable subscribers. </ref name="A"> This channel was designed air niche sports that were popular with males 18-49 years old. This included Snowboarding, and the World Series of Poker as it’s headliners. Also it provided overflow coverage for ESPN. It was the fastest growing cable channel during the 90’s, and currently is broadcast to 75 million subscribers. </ref name="A">

^ Hill (Jan 3 1984). "ABC buys stake in ESPN". New York Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
^ Goodwin, Michael (10/28/1987). "ESPN Ends season in middle of pack". New York Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

[A-1] Hill (Jan 3 1984). "ABC buys stake in ESPN". New York Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)

[C-2] Goodwin, Michael (10/28/1987). "ESPN Ends season in middle of pack". New York Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)

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