August 16, 2019: Forty-one years ago today, on August 16, 1977, Scott Rasmussen and his father Bill had an argument that led to the creation of ESPN.
They had learned of a then-new technology of satellite broadcasting that dramatically reduced the cost of delivering a broadcast signal around the country. They had kicked around a number of ideas to capitalize on this innovation, but none were quite right.
On that August day, they drove from Connecticut to Ocean Grove, New Jersey, to celebrate the 16th birthday of Scott’s sister, Lynn. Stuck in traffic on I-84 near Waterbury, the programming frustrations led to heated words until Scott said “I don’t care what you do with it, show football all weekend.” Rather than yelling back, Bill said “That’s it, not football but sports, all weekend long.”
It took another hour or so before they realized the answer was not just sports all weekend long, but all sports all day every day.
Over the next twelve-and-a-half months, they secured funding from Getty Oil, programming from the NCAA, and an anchor sponsorship from Anheuser-Busch to launch the network on September 7, 1979.
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