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ESPN, formerly an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day. It was founded by Scott Rasmussen and his father Bill Rasmussen and launched on September 7, 1979, under the direction of Chet Simmons, who was the network's first President and CEO (and later became the United States Football League's first commissioner). George Bodenheimer is ESPN's current president, a position he has held since November 19, 1998; since March 3, 2003, he has been the head of ABC Sports as well, which has since been rebranded as ESPN on ABC (though ABC Sports still legally has a separate existence). ESPN's signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 30,000th episode on February 11, 2007. ESPN broadcasts primarily out of its studios in Bristol, Connecticut; it also operates offices out of New York City, New York; Seattle, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina and Los Angeles, California; the Los Angeles office is scheduled to open at L.A. Live in 2009. The name of the sport company was lengthened to "ESPN Inc." in February 1985.

ESPN considers itself "The Worldwide Leader in Sports", a slogan that appears on nearly all company media but whose origin is unknown.

Most programming on ESPN and its affiliated networks is composed of live or tape-delayed sporting events and sports-related news programming (such as 'SportsCenter') with the remainder filled by sports-related talk shows (such as 'Around the Horn' and 'PTI') and sports-related documentaries.

History

Early years

The roots of ESPN can be traced to Bill Rasmussen, a television sports reporter for WWLP, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bill was hoping to create the first national sports network. In the mid-1970s, Rasmussen worked for the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers, selling commercial time for their broadcasts. His son Scott, a former high school goaltender, was the team's public-address announcer. Both were fired in 1977 and Rasmussen sought a new business venture. His original idea was a cable television network (then a fairly new medium) that focused on covering sports events in the state of Connecticut (for example, the Hartford Whalers and the Connecticut Huskies). When Rasmussen was told that buying a continuous 24-hour satellite feed was less expensive than buying several blocks of only a few hours a night, he expanded to a 24-hour nationwide network. The channel's original name was ESP, for Entertainment and Sports Programming, but it was changed prior to launch.

ESPN started with the debut of SportsCenter hosted by Lee Leonard and George Grande on September 7, 1979. Afterwards was a pro slow pitch softball game. The first score on SportsCenter was from women's tennis.

To help fill 24 hours a day of air time, ESPN aired a wide variety of sports events that broadcast networks did not show on weekends, including Australian Rules Football, Davis Cup tennis, professional wrestling, boxing, and additional college football and basketball games. The U.S. Olympic Festival, the now-defunct competition that was organized as a training tool by the United States Olympic Committee, was also an ESPN staple during this time.

Even before ESPN began telecasts, it convinced the NCAA to grant it rights to show early round games of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. The game broadcasts were extensive and helped college basketball gain a larger audience.

Professional sports arrive

ESPN (along with the USA Network) was among the earliest cable-based broadcast partners for the National Basketball Association (NBA). Lasting from 1982-84, the network's relationship with the association marked its initial foray into the American professional sports sector. After an eighteen-year hiatus, ESPN (by then, under the auspices of the ABC network), secured a $2.4 billion/six-year broadcast contract with the NBA, thereby revitalizing its historic compact with U.S. professional basketball.

In 1983, The United States Football League (USFL) made its debut on ESPN and ABC. The league (which lasted for three seasons) enjoyed ephemeral success, some portion of which was a byproduct of the exposure afforded through ESPN's coverage.

In 1987, ESPN gained partial rights to the National Football League. The league agreed to the deal as long as ESPN agreed to simulcast the games on local television stations in the participating markets, which continues today. ESPN Sunday Night Football would last for 19 years and symbolize ESPN's rise from novelty network to American pop culture institution. In the 2006 NFL season ABC's Monday Night Football, long considered the showcase game of the NFL's week, began to be broadcast on ESPN. This was done to increase viewership of the Sunday night game and make it the "showcase" game.

In 1990, ESPN added Major League Baseball to its lineup with a $400 million contract. MLB games are still on ESPN today and are scheduled to continue through 2011. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were named as the broadcasters, and that team also continues to this day.

ESPN at one time has broadcast each of the four major professional sports leagues in North America until deciding not to renew the deal with the National Hockey League after the 2004-2005 lockout, citing ratings for original programming was comparable to those of NHL broadcasts.

ESPN broadcasts 65 sports, 24 hours a day in 14 languages in more than 150 countries.

Expansion

The 1990s and early 2000s saw considerable growth within the company. In 1993, ESPN2 was founded, with Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber launching the network with SportsNite. Three years later, ESPNEWS was born, with Mike Tirico as the first anchor. In 1997, ESPN purchased Classic Sports Network and renamed it ESPN Classic. The latest ESPN network in the U.S., ESPNU, began on March 4, 2005.

ESPN International began in the early 1990s to take advantage of the growing satellite markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Canada, ESPN, Inc. purchased a minority share of TSN and RDS (in fact, the current corporate logo of both looks similar to that of ESPN). In 2004, ESPN finally entered the European market by launching a version of ESPN Classic, and in December 2006, it agreed to purchase North American Sports Network. SportsCenter's primary three broadcasts each day are at 1 a.m. ET (which re-airs usually until about noon ET), 6 p.m. ET, and 11 p.m. ET.

In 1994, ESPN set the standard for understanding the role of sports in America with the creation of The ESPN Sports Poll by Dr. Richard Luker. The Sports Poll was the first ongoing national daily study of sports fan activities and interests in the United States. Sporting News acknowledged the accomplishments of The ESPN Sports Poll and Dr. Luker in 1996.

With the increasing costs of live sports entertainment, such as the U.S.$8.8 billion costs for NFL football broadcasts rights for eight years, "scripted entertainment has become a luxury item for ESPN," said David Carter, director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California.

From 1996 onward, ESPN was closely integrated with ABC Sports. That year, Steve Bornstein, president of ESPN since 1990, was made president of ABC Sports as well. This integration culminated in the 2006 decision to merge ABC Sports' operations with ESPN. As a result, all of ABC's sports programming now uses ESPN on ABC. However, ABC Sports is still legally separate from ESPN (see below).

ESPN is currently building a full-fledged broadcast production facility in downtown Los Angeles, as a part of the L.A. Live complex across from the Staples Center. The five-story facility will house an ESPN Zone restaurant on the first two floors and two television production studios with digital control rooms on upper floors. It is scheduled to open in spring 2009. One of the studios will host late-night editions of SportsCenter.

As of January 15th, 2008, ESPN has signed a multi-million dollar contract with professional gaming circuit Major League Gaming or MLG for short. Although some have argued that professional gaming is not a physical sport, ESPN has gone ahead with this collaboration.

Controversy

At a roast for co-workers Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic in January 2008, an intoxicated Dana Jacobson cursed the University of Notre Dame, Touchdown Jesus, and Jesus Christ. She also made disparaging remarks about the University of Southern California. ESPN later released a statement apologizing for any offense given to the Notre Dame Football program while not specifically addressing the remarks that Jacobson made nor releasing any video or transcripts of her remarks.

Ownership history

As mentioned, William Rasmussen founded the network. Just before ESPN launched, Getty Oil Company (later purchased by Texaco, which in turn was acquired by Chevron) agreed to buy a majority stake in the network.

In 1984, ABC made a deal with Getty Oil to acquire ESPN. ABC retained an 80% share, and sold 20% to Nabisco. The Nabisco shares were later sold to Hearst Corporation, which still holds a 20% stake today. In 1986, ABC was purchased for $3.5 billion by Capital Cities Communications. In 1995, The Walt Disney Company purchased Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion and picked up an 80% stake in ESPN at that time. According to an analysis published by Barron's magazine in February 2008, ESPN "is probably worth more than 40% of Disney's entire value... based on prevailing cash-flow multiples in the industry."

Although ESPN has been operated as a Disney subsidiary since 1996, it is still technically a joint venture between Disney and Hearst.

High definition telecasts

In 2004, ESPN opened its High Definition center in Bristol, Connecticut. All Bristol based studio shows, including Sportscenter, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live, NFL PrimeTime, Sunday NFL Countdown, Outside the Lines, Kia NBA Shootaround, NBA Fastbreak, College GameNight and others are broadcast in HD. Also, many of the games that ESPN televises are broadcast in HD. The first program ever broadcast in HD on ESPN was an NCAA basketball game in 2002, at the University of Dayton Arena. The first broadcast from the Digital Center was the 11 p.m. ET edition of SportsCenter with Linda Cohn and Rece Davis on June 7, 2004.

Executives

Advertisement on ESPN

Advertising on ESPN is sold out for months in advance. With nearly three-quarters of ESPN's SportsCenter audience being male, ESPN is a great network to catch the male viewer's attention. Major advertisers such as Apple Inc., FedEx, and United Postal Service are continually buying advertisement to reach the 25-54 year old male audience. ESPN's ad revenue averages $441.8 million with an ad rate of $9,446 per 30 second slot.

ESPN significant programming rights

ESPN also broadcasts a range of horse racing and tennis events. It may sometimes acquire the rights to programming in other sports which airs only on ESPN 360, usually because another broadcaster holds the TV rights.

Music

ESPN has had its own theme music for quite a few years, but early on it used source music. An early theme for its flagship SportsCenter program was "Pulstar," an energetic electronic instrumental piece by Vangelis from his 1976 album Albedo 0.39. It would play while computer animation of baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, etc., would fly out from the center of the TV screen in all directions.

The current theme music on SportsCenter was composed by Annie Roboff, a composer who also co-wrote Faith Hill's 1998 hit "This Kiss."

ESPN in popular culture

ESPN has become a part of popular culture since its inception. Many movies with a general sports theme will include ESPN announcers and programming into their storylines (such as in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which gently lampoons the channel's multiple outlets by referencing the as-yet-nonexistent ESPN8, "The Ocho"); SportsCenter anchors appeared as themselves in music videos by Brad Paisley ("I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song)") and Hootie and the Blowfish ("Only Wanna Be With You"); and the short-lived 1998 TV series Sports Night (by West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin) was based around an ESPN-style network and its titular, SportsCenter-analogue flagship sports results program.

Many jokes have been made by comedians about fake obscure sports that are shown on ESPN. Dennis Miller mentioned watching "sumo rodeo," while George Carlin stated that ESPN showed "Australian dick wrestling". One of several Saturday Night Live skits poking fun at the network features ESPN 2 airing a show called Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly, which includes a fake advertisement for "Senior Women's Beach Lacrosse."

ESPN business ventures

Current

Former

The ESPN family of networks

Television

ESPN Now

ESPN Now posts around-the-clock sports news along with program scheduling information from ESPN and Go.com. It is only available on digital cable networks and does not feature any program-length original material.

Internet

Radio

Network-wide Preemption

Several times ESPN programing has been drastically altered because of coverage of world events.

Both ESPN and ESPN2 carried ABC News coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The only original program produced after the preemption was a shortened 6pm edition of Sportscenter which focused on covering the cancellations of sporting events in reaction to the terror attacks.

ESPN carried the first round of the 2003 NCAA Basketball Tournament due to CBS's coverage of the first few days of the Invasion of Iraq. The games were still produced by CBS. The only identifiers of ESPN was their bottomline graphic.

References

^ ESPN: An Uncensored History, by Michael Freeman. Published in 2000
^ ESPN, Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9002482/ESPN
^ "ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer", ESPN, August 18, 2005.
^ ESPN, Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9002482/ESPN
^ The Sporting News 12/30/96
^ "ESPN calls time out on scripted fare", Variety, vol. 407, No. 1, May 21-27, 2007, p. 22
^ Greg Johnson, ESPN is on schedule to land in L.A. in 2009, Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2007.
^ Roast of 'Mike and Mike' in Atlantic City runs from brilliant to terrible. Press of Atlantic City (2008-01-12). Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
^ Sports Blog. http://deadspin.com/sports/top/reynolds-confirms-firing-for-sexual-harassment-189928.php
^ The Walt Disney Company - George W. Bodenheimer Executive Biography. The Walt Disney Company. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ SEAN R. H. BRATCHES Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ CHRISTINE F. DRIESSEN Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ EDWIN M. DURSO Executive Vice President, Administration. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ CHUCK PAGANO Executive Vice President, Technology. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ JOHN SKIPPER Executive Vice President, Content. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ NORBY WILLIAMSON Executive Vice President, Studio and Remote Production. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ RUSSELL WOLFF Executive Vice President and Managing Director, ESPN International. media.espn.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-07.
^ ESPN, Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9002482/ESPN
^ Little League Chronology. Little League Online. Retrieved on 2007-04-07. ESPN2 broadcasts started in 1997.
^ Roboff, Annie. Official Annie Roboff Home Page. Retrieved on 2007-06-19.
^ NBC Sports, http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/15168029/, retrieved 4-8-2008
^ "Texas toddler at least third named ESPN", ESPN, 2006-06-16.
^ Hiestand, Michael (2006-02-07). Lampley nearing most-called Olympics. USA Today. Retrieved on 2008-05-09. “ESPN says it's heard of at least 22 babies named ESPN.”

ESPN

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Unselfish Service