ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen Dies at 93 After Parkinson's Battle

Bill Rasmussen died Tuesday, August 18, 2026, at his home in Land O' Lakes, Florida. He was 93. ESPN confirmed he died from the effects of Parkinson's disease, a condition he'd been diagnosed with in 2014 and went public about in 2019, according to ESPN historian Mike Soltys and the network's own press release.

Rasmussen only built ESPN because he got fired first. He was communications director for the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. He got canned. Three months later, stuck in traffic on Interstate 84 with his son Scott, he started throwing out ideas for what to do with a satellite transponder he'd just bought from RCA, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Scott, half asleep, snapped back something like "play football all day for all I care" and put his head down. Rasmussen took it seriously. No boardroom, no consultants, no market research. A fired PR guy and his groggy kid in traffic.

He borrowed $9,000 on a credit card to make it real

ESPN was incorporated on July 14, 1978, according to the Hollywood Reporter, funded partly by a $9,000 credit card advance Rasmussen took out himself. He bought an 18,000-dollar parcel of land in Bristol, Connecticut, to house a satellite dish and studio.

Investors thought the whole thing was insane. "Everyone said, 'Who's going to watch sports 24 hours a day?'" Rasmussen said in a 2012 interview cited by the Hollywood Reporter. "Well, no one, obviously. They didn't get the idea because all TV stations signed off at 1 o'clock or midnight."

He wasn't trying to build a national network at first. The original plan was just Connecticut sports for Connecticut cable subscribers, according to the Independent. Somebody suggested buying national satellite time instead. That pivot is the whole reason ESPN exists.

Getty Oil put in an initial $15 million for 85 percent of the company, and Anheuser-Busch signed what was then the largest advertising sponsorship deal in cable history, worth nearly $1.4 million, according to the Hollywood Reporter and ESPN's own press materials. The Getty investment and a rights deal with the NCAA closed on the same day, a combination that gave the fledgling network the money and the live inventory it needed to survive its first year.

Launch night: a softball game and a promise

ESPN went on the air at 7 p.m. Eastern on September 7, 1979, reaching 1.4 million homes with a staff of about 80 people, according to Variety. Anchor Lee Leonard opened the first SportsCenter broadcast by telling viewers "if you're a fan... what you'll see in the next minutes, hours and days to follow may convince you you've gone to sports heaven," per the Hollywood Reporter. George Grande co-anchored.

The network's first live event wasn't the NFL or college football. It was a slow-pitch softball game between the Kentucky Bourbons and the Milwaukee Schlitz, according to the Independent. Grande later called Rasmussen "the true pervader of the original American dream."

Pushed out of his own company

Getty's 85 percent stake meant Rasmussen never really controlled what he built. He and Scott were forced out in 1980, roughly a year after launch, once Getty flexed its majority ownership, according to the Independent and NYT. ABC eventually bought out Getty's stake and the Rasmussen family's shares in 1984, per Variety.

Disney now controls ESPN, with Hearst and the NFL as minority investors. The company employs more than 5,900 people worldwide and runs eight U.S. television networks, a direct-to-consumer streaming service, and shows like Monday Night Football and First Take, according to Variety.

Rasmussen reconnected with the network in 1999 for its 20th anniversary, according to the Independent and NYT, and was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2025.