Topic summary
ESPN Inc.
Extracted from the Wikipedia article ESPN, LLC.
History
ESPN Inc. was founded by Bill Rasmussen, Scott Rasmussen, and Ed Egan initially as an attempt to broadcast sports in Connecticut over an "Entertainment and Sports Programming Network" (ESPN) cable channel, and soon became a nationwide cable sports network. Shortly after being terminated as the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers communications director in 1978, Rasmussen conceived of a plan to produce Connecticut sports events for Connecticut cable systems. With his son, Scott, they had moved beyond that, considering a national sports channel doable. RCA had an underused satellite and was pushing for customers. Finding it cheaper by the hour to rent a satellite transponder full-time, instead of 5 hours a day, the Rasmussens changed their plans from creating a Connecticut sports channel to creating a national cable network.