ESPN Founder Bill Rasmussen Dies At 93

Bill Rasmussen, a visionary who founded ESPN in 1979 with his son Scott as the world’s first 24-hour sports television network, died Tuesday at 93 of the effects of Parkinson’s disease at his home in Florida.

Rasmussen revealed in 2019 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease, in 2014.

Shrugging off skeptics, the pioneering Rasmussen – after being fired as communications director of the New England Whalers — acquired space on a communications satellite using a personal credit card. He went door to door to all the major sports leagues, cable operators and potential investors, garnering enough support to launch the Entertainment and Sports Programming network on Sept. 7, 1979. He was the network’s first CEO.

“Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “Quite simply, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Bill’s passion and all the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into building ESPN in the late 1970s — key aspects of our company culture that still carry on to this day.”

The Rasmussens secured early financial backing from Getty Oil and a rights deal with the NCAA. The studio in Bristol, Connecticut was still under construction when ESPN went on the air, the AP reported. Sports commentator George Grande welcomed viewers to the first SportsCenter broadcast before the network’s first live event, a slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz.

Father and son stayed only a year at the network they founded, which was 85% owned by Getty Oil. Texaco, which acquired Getty sold the stake to ABC in 1984.

In 1999, network executives reconnected, inviting Rasmussen to the network’s 20^th anniversary festivities.

More to come