$30bn ESPN poised to take on streaming giants as insider shares rise from ‘crazy’ idea to Super Bowl
Legendary ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen passed away at the age of 93 on Tuesday.
Tributes flooded in for the father of 24/7 sports, who turned a “crazy” idea into the Worldwide Leader in Sports thanks to a can-do attitude and a little luck along the way.
Rasmussen hired Mike Soltys as an intern in 1980 and he went on to have a distinguished 45-year career with the network, before turning historian.
Soltys co-authored the book Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN, which released this year, and sat down with talkSPORT to discuss the company’s rise from plucky upstart to a global powerhouse.
“It was very revolutionary,” he explained of the company’s decision to broadcast sports 24/7. “And a lot of people thought he was crazy for the idea.
“And the established media companies could have done it. They could have done CNN, they could have done MTV. They didn’t. They just didn’t see the possibilities and Bill did.
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“I mean, as a sports fan growing up in America, you’ve got sports on Saturday and Sunday afternoon that three broadcast networks chose for you. And we got Monday Night Football. And that was mostly it.
“Occasionally, I grew up in New England, you got a few Red Sox games, a few University of Connecticut basketball games, but not a lot.
“And Bill understood that as a sports fan, he wanted it all the time. And it was the right timing because satellite technology had just emerged and he managed to get a deal for satellite while the competition really was sleeping through that era.”
Crazy idea turned into March Madness
Sports fans were starved of content in the 1970s — a far cry from the wall-to-wall coverage of today.
Rasmussen was desperate to get the NCAA on board and offered to shine a spotlight on sports and teams ABC, NBC and CBS weren’t going to touch.
The result? March Madness gripping the nation every year.
“There was great pride in all the things that happened around the NCAA tournament,” Soltys explained. “Because Bill went to the NCAA, again, when he doesn’t have money, he was the classic salesman telling the NCAA, ‘Oh, I’ve got Getty Oil and I’ve got Anheuser-Busch and I’ve got cable systems’, when he didn’t.
“And then he tells Anheuser-Busch, ‘I’ve got the NCAA, I’ve got Getty.’ He just played everybody off each other and pulled it off.
“But what was music to the NCAA’s ears was Bill was saying, ‘I will do every game in the college basketball March Madness that your broadcast partner doesn’t’, which was most of the tournament. ‘I’ll also do your soccer championship and I’ll do your baseball championship And I’ll give you that exposure that you want.’
“And that was music to the ears of the NCAA and to their constituents, the universities that weren’t getting on the limited broadcast windows. Because the broadcast networks were gonna do UCLA and Notre Dame and the kind of prominent colleges of the era, but they weren’t doing everybody else. And Bill says, ‘I’ll do everybody else.’
“ESPN launches in 1979, and so the first March Madness was in 1980, it quickly became clear that there was an appetite for it. And that was what really put ESPN on the map in ’80 and ’81, was televising March Madness.
“And it certainly was bittersweet 10 years later when it got taken out from under ESPN, all the rest of the NCAA championships remained, but it became so popular, there was a huge financial windfall for the NCAA, And ESPN hasn’t had the men’s tournament ever since.
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“We did a similar approach with the women’s tournament and nobody wanted it. And we were willing to do all that. And that now has grown to where the women’s tournament and the Caitlin Clark year outdrew the men’s tournament which nobody could have ever imagined happening. And that was ESPN building up the interest in doing all those games.”
ESPN lands first Super Bowl broadcast
ESPN, which was valued at around $30 billion after purchasing NFL Media, may not have the men’s NCAA Tournament, but it does have Super Bowl LXI — the first time it has ever had the honor.
Rasmussen did not live to see the historic broadcast, but was honored to see the contract awarded to the network he created, which will broadcast an alternative ManningCast.
Such innovations are part of the DNA of ESPN and will be needed as the underdog turned top dog looks to rise to the challenge of the new kids on the block — Amazon, Netflix and YouTube.
“I wrote the afterword in the book to cover that exact subject of what Bill laid the groundwork for in 1978 and 79 that still exists in 2026,” Soltys explained.
“And part of that is that innovative spirit, the employees being so dedicated, great work ethic. Bill chose of all places, Bristol, Connecticut, to headquarter us. I’m talking to you from Bristol, Connecticut, today. In 2026 that provides unique things for ESPN versus other media companies.
“We talked about the college sports, which were big right out of the box, but I think the biggest thing is the very first show was SportsCenter and that was revolutionary as well because all you would get in 1979 is your local news would give you two minutes of sports at 11 o’clock at night that focused on your local team. And that was about it.
“And in comes SportsCenter multiple times a day originally at a half an hour clip and move forward 47 years. and SportsCenter is still the backbone of ESPN and has thrived. It’s the most televised show in television history and continues to be such an important part of the sports fans world. And that all started with Bill.”
All of this would not be possible without Rasmussen, who bravely battled Parkinson’s disease in his later years.
Soltys will always remember his one-time boss and long-term friend’s positivity and spirit.
“That eternal optimism,” he said of the late businessman’s defining quality. “He could, you know, he’d call me and he’d tell me about a new business venture. This is long after ESPN. And I’d be like, ‘What happened to the other business venture?’ ‘Oh, that’s done with, I’m onto this. This is great. It’s futuristic. This is gonna flourish.’
“He just always was so positive. And then when I was visiting him in the last couple of years as he was really struggling with the effects of Parkinson’s, he kept saying, ‘I’m keeping it positive.’
“He kept trying to look ahead. He got inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in New York City last December. And he’s like, ‘I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go.’ I knew he wasn’t gonna go, but he was driven by keeping that positive attitude and working towards the goal of going to that.
“Ultimately he was able to watch it. They did a stream for him from his home in Florida.”
Long before Stephen A. Smith and Pat McAfee, one man lived the American Dream and made 24/7 sports a reality for fans all over the country.
Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN is available now on Amazon
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