ESPN Logo — ESPN, Inc. (which comes from the abbreviation in English of Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, now in disuse), is a company of cable television and satellite (inter alia) based in the United States dedicated to the issue of programming related to the sport. The current owner is the ESPN television network in the United States ABC, in turn controlled by The Walt Disney Company. Its headquarters and digital center is located in Bristol, Connecticut in United States.

ESPN was conceived by Bill Scott, and Rasmussen supported by Ed Eagan. Bill was passionate about the sport during his life, was fired from his job as communications manager for the Hartford Whalers in 1978. During his stay with the team Rasmussen met with Eagan, showing great interest in riding a race on television. Bill Eagan approached with the idea of a monthly cable program covering sports in Connecticut and was curious to see if the Hartford Whalers were interested in being the protagonists of the series.

Although discouraged by his dismissal, Rasmussen, with Eagan began arguing again, the original idea of Rasmussen was the creation of a cable television network focused on covering all sporting events in the state of Connecticut and not just a team like Eagan proposed. Rasmussen, knew very little about cable television, plus the households receiving cable television were few back then, so I do seem to be discouraging.

In the summer of 1978, with Eagan Rasmussens Beyus Bob and his partner, who owns a video production company, began looking for support from cable TV operators and investors to the sports channel that had come to appoint ESPN by its English acronym for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. Then they began to throw their idea on June 26, twelve representatives inviting local cable TV operators, but only five accepted the offer, courtesy of Bill. The representatives argued that it would be impractical and costly.

Despite initial difficulties, ESPN was incorporated on July 14, 1978. In May 1979, Getty had 15 million dollars to the company and Anheuser-Busch reached an agreement with ESPN for the largest advertising contract in the history of cable television at the time, worth $ 1,380,000. On September 7, 1979 at 7:00 PM, it is estimated that 30,000 viewers tuned in to witness the launch of ESPN. 4 At the same time, ESPN premiered its segment of SportsCenter.

Entertainment Logo ⋅ Entertainment Logo, ESPN Logo ⋅