Bill Rasmussen, the entrepreneur who co-founded ESPN in 1979, died on Tuesday at his home in Land O’ Lakes, Florida. He was 93. Rasmussen died from the effects of Parkinson’s disease, according to ESPN historian Mike Soltys. He had disclosed his diagnosis in 2019, having learned of the condition in 2014.
Rasmussen conceived the network alongside his son Scott after being fired from a public relations job in the World Hockey Association. His original plan was modest: a cable channel covering only Connecticut sports. Cable operators in the state were skeptical, and someone suggested buying satellite time to reach a national audience instead.
That pivot reshaped the idea into a 24-hour sports network. ESPN launched on Sept. 7, 1979. George Grande welcomed viewers to the first “SportsCenter” broadcast, which preceded the network’s first live event, a slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz.
The Rasmussens did not stay long. Both father and son were forced out after roughly a year by majority owner Getty Oil. The network they started went on to change how Americans watched television and became a central property in the wider battles over sports broadcasting rights that continue today.
“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.”
Grande, who anchored the inaugural broadcast, recalled the uncertainty of the early days. “In those days, we didn’t know if we’d last four weeks, four years, let alone 40-some, but we knew it was special,” he said.
Decades on, the round-the-clock model Rasmussen built underpins an industry where broadcasters and streamers compete fiercely for live sports content, from marquee leagues to the disputes that periodically threaten access to major games for millions of viewers. Rasmussen is survived by his family.