who passed away on Tuesday at 93<\/a>, left a legacy that touched anyone who worked or watched the network.<\/p>\nOver its 47 years, ESPN has risen to all-time media heights. At one point, it branded itself the \u201cWorldwide Leader in Sports.\u201d It was as accurate as it was obnoxious.<\/p>\n
ESPN, as a billion-dollar cash cow, would fuel Disney\u2019s growth in the 2000s. It would become a lightning rod, a part of the political discussion, with opinions on it coming from every direction. It began without fanfare.<\/p>\n
In 1979, the world was in turmoil and in the midst of change. There would be peril with the Iranian Hostage Crisis and global energy tumult. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher would become the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Sony debuted a listening device called the Walkman.<\/p>\n
In sports, 1979 belonged to Pittsburgh, with Mean Joe Greene\u2019s Steelers winning their dynasty-completing fourth Super Bowl and the \u201cWe are Family\u201d Pirates coming back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n
The year would also end up belonging to Bristol, a small town in Connecticut that was between New York and Boston, but \u2013 big time media-wise \u2013 couldn\u2019t be any further from them.<\/p>\n
ESPN would go on to become a dynasty, like the Steelers, but it was beloved because Rasmussen set up something akin to Willie \u201cPops\u201d Stargell\u2019s Pirates.<\/p>\n
In its opening moments in September of 1979, ESPN correctly touted itself as \u201cheaven\u201d for sports fans. It was 24\/7, with folks on the air like Chris Berman, Dick Vitale and Bob Ley who loved the games as much as anyone on the other side of the screen. Rasmussen created a template after years of thought.<\/p>\n
Three years earlier, Rasmussen had bought time on a religious channel in Connecticut to air a half-hour show called \u201cSports Only.\u201d The program led to maybe the most iconic sports show in American history, \u201cSportsCenter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the digital age, SportsCenter is not as dominant as it once was for the YouTube\/TikTok generations. Maybe ESPN is a fading dynasty, but it is still a dynasty nonetheless.<\/p>\n
Over the next 12 months, ESPN may have the greatest event portfolio any television platform has had in history. The Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the College Football Championship and much more will be on the network. Banking billions is old hat in Bristol.<\/p>\n
As for Rasmussen, he never made a lot of money off ESPN. He sold 85 percent of the company to Getty Oil before the lights were officially turned on Sept. 7, 1979. According to longtime ESPN PR man and the network\u2019s historian, Mike Soltys, Rasmussen was never bitter about his missed fortune.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the beauty and the purity of Rasmussen\u2019s legacy. Ultimately, we don\u2019t want sports to be about the money.<\/p>\n
The year 1979 in sports was about family and dynasties. Rasmussen began one in Bristol when no one was looking. For so many of us, ESPN has been like family \u2013 Rasmussen was \u201cPops.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The essence of what ESPN has meant to so many viewers begins with the man who came up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,1767,1794,92],"class_list":["post-818807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-opinion","tag-sports-business","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}