ESPN co-founder Bill Rasmussen has died at the age of 93.
According to reports from the broadcasting giant he created, Rasmussen died Tuesday in his Florida home from the effects of Parkinson’s disease.
“Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement, via ESPN. “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 — key aspects of our company culture that still carry on to this day.”
Rasmussen and his son Scott hatched the idea for a 24-hour sports network based in Connecticut — the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, known as ESPN. While the idea was not popular, Rasmussen bought space on a communications satellite that was set to launch, and the rest is history.
ESPN officially launched on Sept. 7, 1979 with Bill as the network’s first president and CEO. Soon after, ESPN majority owner Getty Oil removed Rasmussen from power. Rasmussen left the network by agreement in 1980.
Rasmussen was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2025.
Ethan Stone is a Saturday Down South News Editor and an advocate for the return of the Seattle Supersonics.
