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Invoice Rasmussen, who co-founded ESPN in 1979 after being dismissed from a public relations place with the World Hockey Affiliation, died Tuesday at 93.
ESPN historian Mike Soltys mentioned Rasmussen handed away at his Florida dwelling from issues of Parkinson’s illness. Rasmussen introduced in 2019 that he had been recognized with the degenerative situation in 2014.
“Invoice was a outstanding man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the thought of a community completely dedicated to sports activities,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro mentioned in an announcement. “Fairly merely, none of us can be right here right this moment if it wasn’t for Invoice’s ardour and all of the laborious work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into constructing ESPN within the late Seventies — key elements of our firm tradition that also keep on to this present day.”
Rasmussen and his son Scott got here up with the thought of a community carrying sports activities across the clock, and it will revolutionize Individuals’ TV-watching habits. However the pair didn’t stick round lengthy. They had been pressured out after solely a 12 months by ESPN majority proprietor Getty Oil.
Invoice Rasmussen’s authentic concept was a cable channel overlaying solely Connecticut sports activities. Many cable operators within the state had been skeptical, however somebody urged shopping for satellite tv for pc time to achieve a nationwide viewers.
ESPN was launched on Sept. 7, 1979. George Grande welcomed viewers to the primary “SportsCenter” broadcast earlier than the community’s first reside occasion, a slow-pitch softball sport between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz.
“In these days, we didn’t know if we’d final 4 weeks, 4 years, not to mention 40-some, however we knew it was particular,” Grande mentioned. “Backside line was Invoice Rasmussen was the true pervader of the unique American dream, and he gave us all one thing very particular that we nonetheless have right this moment.”
The Rasmussens secured monetary backing from Getty Oil and a rights cope with the NCAA, and constructed a studio in Bristol, Connecticut, nonetheless below development when ESPN went on the air.
The Getty funding and the cope with the NCAA occurred on the identical day.
“When somebody tells you you’ll be able to’t do one thing, you wish to show them improper,” Invoice Rasmussen mentioned. “Many, many individuals informed us there wasn’t sufficient sports activities to do a 24-hour channel. I didn’t argue with anyone. I simply thought they had been improper and I used to be proper.”
When the Rasmussens had been pressured out of ESPN in 1980, Getty owned 85% of the community. Texaco, which had acquired Getty, bought its curiosity in ESPN to ABC in 1984.
Invoice Rasmussen and ESPN had been estranged till 1999, when firm executives invited him to the twentieth anniversary celebration. Since then, he has been embraced and acknowledged for his imaginative and prescient of making an all-sports community. He toured the nation in 2019 for the fortieth anniversary and gave speeches at Walt Disney Co. and ESPN occasions.
“Invoice was our George Washington and a superb buddy,” mentioned veteran anchor Chris Berman, who joined ESPN three weeks after the community launched in 1979. “He was such a grateful individual and each sports activities fan can be glad about Invoice. He wasn’t a glass half-full man; his glass was at all times overflowing with optimism. He greeted everybody with a smile and we are able to all smile figuring out Invoice’s legacy.”
Born in Chicago, Rasmussen earned levels from DePauw College in Indiana and Rutgers College and served within the Air Power. He began an promoting companies enterprise, then labored in radio and tv as a broadcaster through the Nineteen Sixties.
He was employed in 1974 as public relations director for the WHA’s New England Whalers in Hartford, Connecticut. The staff’s whole entrance workplace was fired in 1978, and Rasmussen quickly turned his consideration to brainstorming together with his son on the creation of sports activities on cable TV with the assistance of a $9,000 bank card advance.
“There was an entire lot of chutzpah and an entire lot of imaginative and prescient, they usually’re maxed out on their bank cards. It’s the American dream,” mentioned Bob Ley, one of many community’s authentic anchors.
Rasmussen was inducted into the Sports activities Broadcasting Corridor of Fame in 2025.
Rasmussen was predeceased by his spouse of 56 years, Lois, in 2011 and is survived by two sons, Scott Rasmussen and his spouse, Laura, and Glenn Rasmussen, daughter Lynn Van Hollebeke and her husband, Louie, seven grandchildren, one great-grandson and one great-granddaughter. Along with his spouse, Invoice was predeceased by his brothers Robert and Donald Rasmussen, sister Vivien and a grandson.
