ESPN founder and sports media mogul Bill Rasmussen

Bill Rasmussen, the founder of the world’s first 24-hour all-sports cable community ESPN, has died. He was 93.

The sports media company announced his death in a news release on Tuesday and said the trigger was from the consequences of Parkinson’s disease. The entrepreneur was first identified with the motion disorder in 2014.

“Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro in a assertion. “Quite simply, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Bill’s passion and all the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into building ESPN in the late 1970s.”

Rasmussen’s creation — which started in the small industrial city of Bristol, Conn., — grew to become an integral half of the new tv panorama that emerged from cable and satellite tv for pc applied sciences in the Seventies. Before the launch of ESPN, shoppers had a restricted quantity of sports viewing choices through the handful of local TV stations in their markets.

ESPN launched seven months before Ted Turner unveiled his 24-hour news channel GWN. The two channels grew to become the most priceless belongings in building the pay-TV business, as cable and satellite tv for pc suppliers expanded across the nation, eternally altering shopper viewing habits by offering a big selection of decisions. ESPN’s continued growth over the many years that adopted also confirmed that viewers have an insatiable urge for food for live sports programming.

William F. Rasmussen was born Oct. 15, 1932, in Chicago and raised in close by Columbus Manor, Ill. As a baby, he had a knack for sports and was thought-about an avid athlete. He attended DePauw University in Indiana and obtained his bachelor’s degree in economics. After he graduated, he served in the United States Air Force and later earned an MBA from Rutgers University in New Jersey.

He constructed an entrepreneurial enterprise in the promoting business and determined to pivot to a profession in media in 1962 with a radio place in Massachusetts. A few years later, he moved to WWLP-TV, a broadcast news channel, where he labored for eight years as sports director and two years as news director. After leaving the station, he labored as the communications director for the New England Whalers but was later fired from the position in 1978.

Rasmussen and his son Scott had been chasing the new business of satellite tv for pc tv through the summer season of 1978 and had secured space on an RCA transponder — Rasmussen financed the deposit on a credit card, utilizing a $9,000 advance, by his own account. What they lacked was programming. Stuck in visitors on Interstate 84 on a Friday afternoon in August, driving toward the New Jersey shore, Rasmussen floated the concept of filling the channel with nothing but sports.

Their thought soon developed from a local station exhibiting Connecticut sports to state residents to a bigger 24-hour national sports community. They obtained financial backing from the Getty Oil Company, a contract for programming with the NCAA and an promoting settlement with Anheuser-Busch — marking the most important sponsorship deal in cable historical past at the time. The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network was soon based in Bristol with around 80 workers.

ESPN formally launched to 1.4 million properties at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Sept. 7, 1979, with a short introduction adopted by the opening show, “SportsCenter” hosted by Lee Leonard and George Grande. To this day, “SportsCenter,” stays a very important half of the community’s programming and holds the file for the most episodes in tv historical past.

ABC acquired ESPN from Texaco, which had absorbed Getty for $237.5 million in 1984 after shopping for a small stake in the community earlier that 12 months. The entity grew to become half of the Walt Disney Co. after the media conglomerate bought Capital Cities/ABC in 1996. ESPN absorbed ABC’s sports division in 2006.

ESPN at present employs more than 5,900 people worldwide and operates eight U.S. cable channels, according to the company, in addition to programming sports on ABC and working one of the most-used sports apps in the nation. Rasmussen himself was gone from day-to-day operations roughly a 12 months after launch, displaced by the skilled managers and outdoors money his thought had attracted.

“Bill was our George Washington and a good friend,” said veteran ESPN anchor Chris Berman in a assertion. He joined the community only three weeks after the unique launch in 1979. “He was such a grateful person and every sports fan can be grateful for Bill.”

After leaving ESPN, Rasmussen continued to serve as a marketing consultant to sports rights holders and media corporations and also maintained his own startup ventures in sports.

He publicly disclosed his 2014 Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 2019 and grew to become an ambassador for Parkinson’s sufferers through both the American Parkinson Disease Assn. and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

“I’m a positive guy . . . I always look at the positive side of people, projects, ideas, etc. For some reason, Parkinson’s is kind of an orphaned malady — people don’t like to talk about it, as if it were taboo,” said Rasmussen in an essay he wrote for ESPN that 12 months. “Well, 40 years ago, people didn’t want to talk about a 24-hour sports network either as if competing with ‘The Big Three’ broadcast networks was taboo. We never stopped asking questions, solving problems and selling the dream. A lot of really good people did believe and we see the results of that effort today.”

Rasmussen’s spouse of 56 years, Lois, died in 2011. He is survived by his three youngsters, Scott, Glenn and Lynn Van Hollebeke, seven grandchildren, Andy, P.J., Wil, MaryAnn, Donna, Jessica and Sarah and two great-grandchildren, Otto and Adelaide.