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The roots of ESPN can be traced to Bill Rasmussen, a television sports reporter for NBC affiliate Channel 22 in Springfield, MA. In the mid-[[1970s]], Rasmussen worked for the [[World Hockey Association]]'s [[New England Whalers]], selling commercial time for their broadcasts. His son Scott, a former high school goaltender, was the team's [[public address system|public-address announcer]]. Both were fired in [[1977]] and Rasmussen sought a new business venture. His original idea was a [[cable television]] network (then a fairly new medium) that focused on covering sports events in the state of [[Connecticut]] (for example, the Whalers and the [[Connecticut Huskies]]). When Rasmussen was told that buying a continuous 24-hour satellite feed was less expensive than buying several blocks of only a few hours a night, he expanded to a 24-hour nationwide network. The channel's original name was ESP, for Entertainment and Sports Programming, but it was changed prior to launch.<ref>''ESPN: An Uncensored History'', by [[Michael Freeman]]. Published in 2000</ref>
The roots of ESPN can be traced to Bill Rasmussen, a television sports reporter for NBC affiliate Channel 22 in Springfield, MA. In the mid-[[1970s]], Rasmussen worked for the [[World Hockey Association]]'s [[New England Whalers]], selling commercial time for their broadcasts. His son Scott, a former high school goaltender, was the team's [[public address system|public-address announcer]]. Both were fired in [[1977]] and Rasmussen sought a new business venture. His original idea was a [[cable television]] network (then a fairly new medium) that focused on covering sports events in the state of [[Connecticut]] (for example, the Whalers and the [[Connecticut Huskies]]). When Rasmussen was told that buying a continuous 24-hour satellite feed was less expensive than buying several blocks of only a few hours a night, he expanded to a 24-hour nationwide network. The channel's original name was ESP, for Entertainment and Sports Programming, but it was changed prior to launch.<ref>''ESPN: An Uncensored History'', by [[Michael Freeman]]. Published in 2000</ref>


The first show was a [[softball#Slow-pitch|slow-pitch softball]] game that aired on [[September 7]], [[1979]]. A few hours later came the first ''[[SportsCenter]]'', which had no [[highlights]] and audio difficulties during an attempted interview with [[University of Colorado]] head [[college football|football]] coach [[Akon]].
The first show was a [[softball#Slow-pitch|slow-pitch softball]] game that aired on [[September 7]], [[1979]]. A few hours later came the first ''[[SportsCenter]]'', which had no [[highlights]] and audio difficulties during an attempted interview with [[University of Colorado]] head [[college football|football]] coach [[Chuck Fairbanks]].


To help fill 24 hours a day of air time, ESPN aired a wide variety of sports events that broadcast networks did not show on weekends, including [[Australian Rules Football]], [[Davis Cup|Davis Cup tennis]], [[bowling]], [[professional wrestling]], [[boxing]], and additional [[college football]] and [[college basketball|basketball]] games. The [[U.S. Olympic Festival]], the now-defunct competition that was organized as a training tool by the [[United States Olympic Committee]], was also an ESPN staple during this time.
To help fill 24 hours a day of air time, ESPN aired a wide variety of sports events that broadcast networks did not show on weekends, including [[Australian Rules Football]], [[Davis Cup|Davis Cup tennis]], [[bowling]], [[professional wrestling]], [[boxing]], and additional [[college football]] and [[college basketball|basketball]] games. The [[U.S. Olympic Festival]], the now-defunct competition that was organized as a training tool by the [[United States Olympic Committee]], was also an ESPN staple during this time.

Revision as of 14:29, 14 February 2007

ESPN
TypeCable Television Network
Country
 United States
AvailabilityNational
OwnerThe Walt Disney Company (80%)
Hearst Corporation (20%)
Key people
George Bodenheimer, President, ESPN, Inc.
Launch date
September 7, 1979
Former names
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
ESP (never used on air)
Official website
www.espn.com

ESPN, formerly the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming 24 hours a day. It was founded by Scott Rasmussen and his father Bill Rasmussen, and launched on September 7 1979 under the direction of Chet Simmons, who was the network's first President and CEO. The current president, since November 19, 1998, of ESPN is George Bodenheimer. Bodenheimer is also the current head of ESPN on ABC, having been named to that position on March 3, 2003. Its signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 30,000th episode on Febuary 11 2007. ESPN broadcasts primarily out of its studios in Bristol, Connecticut; it also operates offices out of Charlotte, San Francisco, and Los Angeles which will open in 2009. ESPN is available in over 100 million homes in the United States and over 150 countries and territories via ESPN International. The name of the sport company was lengthened to "ESPN Inc." in February 1985.

ESPN unofficially refers to itself as "The Worldwide Leader in Sports"; the slogan appears on nearly all company media, though its origin is unknown.

History

Early years

File:ImageAgentProxyoldESPNLogo.gif
ESPN logo 1979-early 1985

The roots of ESPN can be traced to Bill Rasmussen, a television sports reporter for NBC affiliate Channel 22 in Springfield, MA. In the mid-1970s, Rasmussen worked for the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers, selling commercial time for their broadcasts. His son Scott, a former high school goaltender, was the team's public-address announcer. Both were fired in 1977 and Rasmussen sought a new business venture. His original idea was a cable television network (then a fairly new medium) that focused on covering sports events in the state of Connecticut (for example, the Whalers and the Connecticut Huskies). When Rasmussen was told that buying a continuous 24-hour satellite feed was less expensive than buying several blocks of only a few hours a night, he expanded to a 24-hour nationwide network. The channel's original name was ESP, for Entertainment and Sports Programming, but it was changed prior to launch.[1]

The first show was a slow-pitch softball game that aired on September 7, 1979. A few hours later came the first SportsCenter, which had no highlights and audio difficulties during an attempted interview with University of Colorado head football coach Chuck Fairbanks.

To help fill 24 hours a day of air time, ESPN aired a wide variety of sports events that broadcast networks did not show on weekends, including Australian Rules Football, Davis Cup tennis, bowling, professional wrestling, boxing, and additional college football and basketball games. The U.S. Olympic Festival, the now-defunct competition that was organized as a training tool by the United States Olympic Committee, was also an ESPN staple during this time.

Even before ESPN began telecasts, it convinced the NCAA to grant it rights to show early round games of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. The game broadcasts were extensive and helped college basketball gain a larger audience.

Big-time sports arrive

In 1987, ESPN stunned[citation needed] the sports world by gaining partial rights to the National Football League. The league agreed to the deal as long as ESPN agreed to simulcast the games on local television stations in the participating markets, which continues today. ESPN Sunday Night Football would last for 19 years and symbolize ESPN's rise from novelty network to TV institution. Today, ESPN's NFL games are on Monday nights, with NBC showing the Sunday night games.

In 1990, ESPN added Major League Baseball to its lineup. MLB games are still on ESPN today and are scheduled to continue through 2011. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were named as the broadcasters, and that team also continues to this day.

ESPN at one time has broadcast each of the four Major Professional Sports Leagues in North America until deciding not to renew the the deal with the NHL after the lockout, citing ratings for original programming was comparable to those of NHL broadcasts [2].

Expansion

The 1990s and early 2000s saw considerable growth within the company. In 1993, ESPN2 was founded, with Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber launching the network with SportsNite. Three years later, ESPNEWS was born, with Mike Tirico as the first anchor. (Today, Tirico is play-by-play announcer on Monday Night Football.) In 1997, ESPN purchased Classic Sports Network and renamed it ESPN Classic. The latest ESPN network in the U.S., ESPNU, began on March 4, 2005.

ESPN International began in the early 1990s to take advantage of the growing satellite markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Canada, ESPN, Inc. purchased a minority share of TSN and RDS (in fact, the current corporate logo of both looks similar to ESPN's). In 2004, ESPN finally entered the European market by launching a version of ESPN Classic, and in December 2006, it agreed to purchase North American Sports Network. SportsCenter's primary three broadcasts each day are at 1 a.m. ET (which re-airs usually until about noon ET), 6 p.m. ET, and 11 p.m. ET.

History of. As mentioned, William Rasmussen founded the network. Just before ESPN launched, Getty Oil Company (later purchased by Texaco, now ChevronTexaco) agreed to buy a majority stake in the network. Nabisco and Anheuser-Busch also bought minority stakes.[3]

High definition telecasts

File:Hdcset.jpg
Rece Davis and Linda Cohn on June 7, 2004 during the first ever SportsCenter in High Definition

In 2004, ESPN opened its High Definition center in Bristol, Connecticut. Many shows, including Sportscenter, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live and others are broadcast in HD. Also, many of the games that ESPN televises are broadcast in HD. The first program ever broadcast in HD on ESPN was an NCAA basketball game in 2002, at the University of Dayton Arena. The first broadcast from the Digital Center was the 11pm ET edition of SportsCenter with Linda Cohn and Rece Davis on June 7, 2004.

Executives

[citation needed]

Significant programming rights

FIFA

UEFA

The NFL on ESPN [1]

  • 1987–1989 (Exclusive Cable; Sunday Night; 2nd Half of Season Only)
  • 1990–1997 (2nd Half of Season Only; Sunday Night; TNT carries early season)
  • 1998–2005 (Exclusive Cable; Sunday Night)
  • 2006–2013 (Monday Night Football)

ESPN Major League Baseball [2]

  • 1990–2013

ESPN2 Major League Soccer (soon to be renamed ESPN Major League Soccer)

  • 1996–2014

The NBA on ESPN

  • 1982–1984
  • 2002–2008

The Arena Football League on ESPN

  • 1989–2002
  • 2007–2011

Little League World Series

  • 1963-2014

The WNBA on ESPN2(soon to be renamed WNBA on ESPN)

  • 1997-2008

PGA Tour on ESPN

  • 1980(?)–2006 (Contracts with individual tournaments)

PBA Tour presented by Denny's on ESPN

  • 2000-present

LPGA Tour on ESPN

  • 1979-2009

NASCAR on ESPN

  • 1981–2000 (Contracts with individual races)
  • 2007–2014 (Contract with NASCAR)

The IRL on ESPN

  • 1996–2009

The NHRA on ESPN

  • 2001-2013

Champ Car World Series on ESPN

  • 2007-

The NHL on ESPN

  • 1985–1988 (National television deal, agreements with individual clubs as early as 1979)
  • 1992–2004

ESPN College Football [3]

  • Bowl Games: 1982— (Contracts with individual bowl games)
  • ACC: 1998-2010
  • Big 10: 1979-2017
  • Big East: 1991-2013
  • C-USA: -2010
  • MAC: 2003-2007
  • Pac-10: Selected non-conference games from 2005-2011
  • SEC: (?)-2009
  • Sun Belt: (?)-2007
  • WAC: (?)-2009
  • NCAA Division 1 (formerly Division 1-AA), Division II, and Division III playoffs (selected games) and championship games.

ESPN College Basketball

Music

ESPN has had its own theme music for quite a few years, but early on it used source music.[citation needed] An early theme for its flagship SportsCenter program was "Pulstar", an energetic electronic instrumental piece by Vangelis from his 1976 album Albedo 0.39. It would play while computer animation of baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, etc., would fly out from the center of the TV screen in all directions.[citation needed]

Criticisms

ESPN has been criticized for having an East Coast bias, in that they devote a disproportionate amount of time to sports teams in the Northeastern United States[citation needed] ; teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, and the Philadelphia Eagles. Additionally, ESPN devotes much of their resources into the NFL. ESPN has also been criticized for making sports that they could spread more awareness of, like soccer and hockey, into laughingtocks by its hosts and journalists.[citation needed]

ESPN in popular culture

ESPN has become a part of popular culture since its inception. The name is constantly referenced throughout the media in movies and television. While the announcers may be actual personalities, in many films where there is a sporting event, the coverage is by ESPN. People who do not even watch sports are familiar with ESPN. Often this comes in the form of a lampoon of the number of channels ESPN operates. A few examples:

  • In the movie Zathura, Walter is watching SportCenter on ESPN while Danny is pestering him, and the TV ends up being destroyed during the first spin of the game by a meteor.
  • In the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, ESPN's growth and addition of new channels is parodied when a major dodgeball tournament is broadcast by ESPN 8 ("The Ocho"): "If it's almost a sport, we've got it!" (There currently is no ESPN 8).
  • In the movie The Waterboy, main character Bobby Boucher is featured on SportsCenter, and some of the SCLSU games are aired by ESPN.
  • In the movie Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger flips the channels on a futuristic TV, eventually stopping on ESPN. Since the movie takes place in the future the implication is that the network will be around for a long time.
  • In the Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard, ESPN2 broadcasts the football game between the criminals and the guards. Also Dan Patrick, ESPN personality, plays a cop who arrests Sandlers Character.
  • In the DVD special features in the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, there is a skit that contains the "interview" of fictional anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) to work at ESPN in 1979; he states that the idea of a twenty-four-hour sports network would be ludicrous. This first appeared on ESPN.com.
  • In one episode of King of the Hill, Hank mentions that the Gay Rodeo is a sport that he has seen on ESPN 3.
  • In one episode of The King of Queens, Doug asks Carrie after an embarrassing dancing moment, "You want to watch SportsCenter?".
  • ESPN is referenced in a Simpsons' episode: Homer flips through various channels and stops on a channel which clearly lampoons ESPN, except the network's initials are PENS (an anagram of ESPN).
  • A common joke is to mistake ESPN for ESP.
  • The film Days of Thunder features several segments of fictional ESPN reporting, along with several actual ESPN NASCAR commentators. Tom Cruise's character Cole Trickle claims to have learned much about NASCAR "by watching ESPN."
  • In The Sentinel, Michael Douglas' character Pete Garrison is seen watching SportsCenter as he is doing his early morning workout before reporting in to his job.
  • In one episode of Friends, Rachel Green, played by Jennifer Aniston, talks to Chandler Bing, played by Matthew Perry, about how he might improve his masculinity if he spent some time watching ESPN. (While growing up in Canada, Matthew Perry was a real-life top-ranked junior tennis player.)
  • There are at least four children named after the network. [4]

ESPN business ventures

Current

Former

The ESPN family of networks

Television

Internet

Radio

References

  • ESPN Mediakit (2006). [4] Retrieved Feb. 13, 2006.
  1. ^ ESPN: An Uncensored History, by Michael Freeman. Published in 2000
  2. ^ "ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer". ESPN. August 18, 2005.
  3. ^ ESPN: Building an Empire, by Stuart Evey. Published in 2005. (Evey is a former Getty executive.)
  4. ^ "Texas toddler at least third named ESPN". ESPN. June 16, 2006.

See also

File:TSN-2006-NHL-Draft.jpg
TSN is partially owned by ESPN. The appearance of the "BottomLine" ticker and logo are identical on both networks.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ESPN&oldid=108076430"