ESPN's Birth: A Sports Revolution

0:00On April 5th, tonight, a new documentary called Sports Heaven, the birth of ESPN drops at 8.30pm, Eastern Daylight Time. It airs right alongside the NCAA Tournament Championship game, the kind of event that helped rocket the network to fame, back in the day with its early coverage. At the heart of it all, are Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott, who dreamed up the world's first Round the Clock Sports Channel. What started as Bill's pitch for a local Connecticut sports station faced pushback from cable folks so they pivoted to satellite for a national reach. On the same day, they locked in funding from Getty Oil and a key rights deal with the NCAA. They even threw together a studio in Bristol, Connecticut that was still half built when ESPN flipped the switch on September 7th, 1979. Insiders from the early days swear by the Rasmussen as the true founders, no question. The debut kicked off with the first sports center hosted by George Grande, followed by a live slow pitch softball match-up.

1:03Everyone knew it felt huge, even if they weren't sure it stick around past a few weeks. Growth exploded way beyond what Scott predicted. He figured 30 million cable homes by the end of the 1980s, but it hit nearly 60. Million. The Rasmussen's got pushed out in 1980 when Getty owned most of the network, leaving things tense for years. Fast forward, an ESPN welcome Bill back for the 20th anniversary in 1999, celebrating his vision ever since. For maxed out credit cards to a sports empire, it's pure American grit that changed how we watch games forever.