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Bill Rasmussen, the founder of the world’s first 24-hour all-sports cable network ESPN, has died. He was 93.
The sports media company announced his death in a press release on Tuesday and said the cause was from the effects of Parkinson’s disease. The entrepreneur was first diagnosed with the movement disorder in 2014.
“Bill was a remarkable man – a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro 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.”
William F. Rasmussen was born October 15, 1932, in Chicago and raised in nearby Columbus Manor, Illinois. As a child, he had a knack for sports and was considered an avid athlete. He attended DePauw University in Indiana and received his bachelor’s degree in economics. After he graduated, he served in the United States Air Force and later earned an MBA from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
He built an entrepreneurial venture in the advertising business and decided to pivot to a career in media in 1962 with a radio position in Massachusetts. A few years later, he moved to WWLP-TV, a broadcast news channel, where he worked for eight years as sports director and two years as news director. He also worked as the communications director for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association until the end of the 1977-78 season.
In 1978, Rasmussen and his son Scott struck up an interest in the then-emerging technology of satellite television. One day, while stuck in traffic on Connecticut’s Interstate 84, the pair had the idea of creating a new network solely dedicated to sports.
Their idea soon developed from a local station showing Connecticut sports to state residents to a larger 24-hour national sports network. They received financial backing from the Getty Oil Company, a contract for programming with the NCAA and an advertising agreement with Anheuser-Busch — marking the largest sponsorship deal in cable history at the time. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network was soon founded in Bristol, Connecticut with around 80 employees.
ESPN officially launched to 1.4 million homes at 7 p.m. eastern time on September 7, 1979 with a short introduction followed by the opening show, SportsCenter hosted by Lee Leonard and George Grande. To this day, SportsCenter remains a vital part of the network’s programming and holds the record for the most episodes in television history.
“Bill was our George Washington and a good friend,” said veteran ESPN anchor Chris Berman in a statement. He joined the network only three weeks after the original launch in 1979. “He was such a grateful person and every sports fan can be grateful for Bill.”
The company currently has over 5,900 employees globally and eight U.S. television networks. It also programs all the sports on ABC and maintains one of the leading sports apps.
Rasmussen left an active role at ESPN in October 1980. He continued to serve as a consultant to sports rights holders and media companies and also maintained his own start-up ventures in sports.
He publicly disclosed his 2014 Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis in 2019 and became an ambassador for Parkinson’s patients through both the American Parkinson Disease Association and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
“I’m a positive guy . . . I always look at the positive side of people, projects, ideas, etc. For some reason, Parkinson’s is kind of an orphaned malady – people don’t like to talk about it, as if it were taboo,” said Rasmussen in an essay he wrote for ESPN in 2019. “Well, 40 years ago, people didn’t want to talk about a 24-hour sports network either as if competing with “The Big Three” broadcast networks was taboo. We never stopped asking questions, solving problems and selling the dream. A lot of really good people did believe and we see the results of that effort today.”
