Bill Rasmussen Founded ESPN and Left a Year Later. It Was Long Enough to Change TV Forever

Bill Rasmussen set out to create a local sports channel in his home state of Connecticut. Instead, he changed the global television landscape.

Rasmussen, the founder of ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) died following a lengthy illness on Tuesday. He was 93. When asked about the legacy of his long-ago boss, Bob Ley, SportsCenter ‘s first full-time anchor, opened with a very recent anecdote to describe the last 47 years of sports media: “The Lakers wouldn’t be worth $12 billion rather for Bill Rasmussen,” Ley told The Hollywood Reporter .

Talk about a full-circle moment. Rasmussen was a pioneer of the satellite television delivery system when he launched ESPN in 1979 — it was just last week when the former CEO (twice!) of ESPN’s current parent company, Disney, purchased the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-shattering sum. (OK, so Bob Iger had some financial help.) It was Rasmussen and ESPN that brought the nation the “Showtime” Lakers, also born in ’79. There are very few coincidences. At the time, Iger was a low-level ABC Sports executive; Disney would not own ABC (much less ESPN) for another 16 years.

How early was Rasmussen’s big bet? ESPN went live nine months ahead of CNN, the first 24/7 news channel. Ted Turner was the Cable Cowboy , but Bill Rasmussen’s cart was before his horse.

On Sept. 7, 1979, ESPN went live with a total reach of 1.4 million U.S. homes. In 2010, the cable channel reached 111 million.

Ultimately, Rasmussen would not be with his baby all that long — he’d leave ESPN in 1980 — but boy did he bring it into this world through some serious labor. Rasmussen literally carried the earliest days of ESPN on his personal credits cards — fortunately, he was such a charmer that ESPN went from Rasmussen’s Visa to literal oil money.

Ley describes Rasmussen as “an ebullient guy,” a “positive thinker,” and a “salesman” who “owned the room.” It was Rasmussen’s idea that intrigued Getty Oil; his personality secured its crucial investment.

“He stood that company up,” Ley, who very much also stood the company up, said. Rasmussen “blew air into it like a campfire.”

Rasmussen, who would return to his entrepreneurial roots, lived the American Dream when there still was one. So it is fitting that in 2010, the lone flagpole on ESPN’s sprawling Bristol, Connecticut campus that flies the American flag was dedicated to its founder, which Rasmussen was “so, so proud of,” Ley said.

ESPN today does not look much like the ESPN of Rasmussen’s day. Hell, it barely resembles the ESPN of Ley’s day (Ley retired in 2019, the same year Rasmussen revealed a Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis). Today, satellite television barely exists — even cable is antiquated. You cannot stop progress, and the result is a $29.99-per-month ESPN streaming app. (Some might not call that “progress.”)

But look closely enough and you can still see Rasmussen’s fingerprints on all of it.

“His concept was an acorn, and now the forest of the sports culture is the flower of that,” Ley said.