ESPN Inc.

Company Information

• Date founded: 1979
• Industry: television; sports entertainment
• Corporate headquarters: Bristol, Connecticut
• Type: Public

Overview

ESPN Inc. is an American sports media corporation headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. ESPN Inc. is jointly owned, with the Walt Disney Company holding an 80 percent stake and Hearst Communications holding 20 percent. The corporation's flagship property is its namesake cable sports network, ESPN. It also operates several spin-off broadcasting networks, a sports radio enterprise, a magazine, and numerous digital platforms.

The company was formed in 1979 as the world's first twenty-four-hour, all-sports cable network. During the 1980s and early 1990s, ESPN gained momentum by acquiring the broadcast rights to most professional and major college sports. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the network had established itself as the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports." ESPN's cable subscriber base topped 100 million in 2011; three years later, the network was rated as the third most valuable media property in the world. By the mid-2010s, however, the high cost of paying for broadcast rights coupled with a sharp drop in viewership began chipping away at ESPN's dominance.

History

The cable and satellite television industry was in its infancy in 1978 when the idea that would become ESPN was developed. It began as the brainchild of Bill Rasmussen, who had been recently fired from his communications job with a minor league hockey team in Hartford, Connecticut. Rasmussen and his son, Scott, had envisioned a twenty-four-hour cable television network that focused on broadcasting New England sports. The Rasmussens and several business partners created the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, then referred to as ESP, and began trying to find financial backing and a means to broadcast their programming. They discovered that if they purchased time on a satellite transponder, they would be able to transmit across the country for less money than it would cost to broadcast locally via cable lines. 

The entrepreneurs revised their programming goals to appeal to a nationwide audience and purchased land for the fledgling network's headquarters near Bristol, Connecticut. They received $15 million in financial backing from the Getty Oil company and signed a $1.3 million sponsorship deal with Anheuser-Busch. Having the Getty corporation as a financial partner helped the group strike a deal with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to broadcast events in eighteen sports—including highly popular NCAA men's basketball games. Just a few months before launch, Bill Rasmussen decided to change the network acronym to ESPN-TV, as a way to stand out from the common three-letter networks such as ABC, CBS, and NBC. The "TV" was later dropped, and the network became ESPN. 

ESPN went on the air at 7:00 p.m. on September 7, 1979, with the broadcast of the first SportsCenter, a then half-hour show that featured videotaped highlights of the day's sporting events. SportsCenter would eventually expand to an hour-long format and become the network's signature program. ESPN's debut broadcast was watched by an estimated audience of about 30,000 people. It was followed by a slow-pitch softball game. Early programming at ESPN often featured more obscure sports such as kickboxing, racquetball, Australian football, and hurling, an Irish sport similar to field hockey. 

The network began to overcome its early struggles when its coverage of the NCAA men's basketball tournament started to attract viewers. In 1980, ESPN signed a deal with the National Football League (NFL) to televise its annual players' draft. By 1982, the network was broadcasting some National Basketball Association (NBA) and Canadian Football League (CFL) games, its first attempt at highlighting professional sports. In 1984, ESPN was purchased by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), which later sold a 20 percent share to Hearst Communications. 

In 1987, ESPN scored a major victory when it acquired the rights to broadcast eight regular-season NFL games. Two years later, the network reached an agreement with Major League Baseball (MLB) to begin televising its games in 1990. By this time, ESPN was the most popular cable network in the United States with more than 50 million subscribers. The company began to expand its media holdings by launching ESPN Radio in 1992 and a sister network, ESPN2, a year later. In 1995, ABC and ESPN were purchased by the Walt Disney Company for $19 billion. 

ESPN Inc. continued its expansion in the next decades, launching an online presence—ESPN.com—in 1995, adding ESPNEWS in 1996, ESPN Classic in 1997, and ESPN the Magazine in 1998. By the first years of the twenty-first century, ESPN had signed agreements to cover all four major professional sports leagues, the NFL, MLB, NBA, and National Hockey League (NHL). The network had also inked broadcast deals with NASCAR, the NCAA's Big Ten Conference, and college football's Bowl Championship Series. In 2005, ESPN took over broadcasting rights for ABC's long-running Monday Night Football, the top-rated sports program on television at the time. ESPN Inc.'s cable networks posted record ratings in 2009 and reached a combined audience of around 220 million homes. In 2011, ESPN itself topped 100 million subscribers, and in 2014, the network was valued at $50.8 billion. 

After reaching peak viewership numbers in 2011, ESPN began to show signs of financial maturity as subscriber numbers started to dwindle. By December 2016, viewership at ESPN had dropped to 88.4 million, with a drop of more than 3 million from the previous year. At the same time, ESPN was paying more than $3 billion a year to televise NFL and NBA games. The losses prompted the Walt Disney Company to issue a call for cost-cutting measures, including letting go several high-profile network personalities. 

ESPN also faced a range of criticisms over the years. Many sports fans have at times accused the network of bias toward certain sports at the expense of others, such as ice hockey, soccer, and extreme sports. Critics also frequently noted the heavy coverage of men's sports compared to women's sports. On various occasions ESPN has also been accused of poor journalistic integrity, potential racism or sexism in broadcasts or corporate culture, or political bias. 

Despite such challenges, ESPN remained a pillar of sports media into the 2020s. Significantly, it pushed into the direct-to-consumer media market with the launch of a streaming platform known as ESPN+ in 2018. The paid subscription service offered certain live game broadcasts as well as original content and analysis. 

In 2024, ESPN was implicated in a fraudulent scheme where its employees had submitted fake names to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) to generate Emmy television awards. This had been a standard practice at ESPN dating back to at least 1997. The scheme involved ESPN producers who submitted false names to NATAS for various award categories. The producers who submitted these fraudulent nominations appeared to be mostly connected with ESPN’s popular show College Game Day. On at least 37 occasions, Emmys were won by non-existent people, typically described as holding job titles of “Associate Producers.” Trophies awarded to College Game Day were later re-engraved and given to ESPN on-air personalities who were not eligible for consideration. As examples, nominations were submitted for “Dirk Howard,” “Erik Andrews,” and “Kirk Henry.” The real ESPN personalities were Desmond Howard, Erin Andrews, and Kirk Herbstreit. These individuals were apparently unaware that their names had been submitted in a dishonest fashion. Nonetheless, ESPN was compelled to return 37 Emmy awards and several company vice-presidents and producers received lifetime disqualifications from future Emmy submissions.

Impact

Following its launch in 1979, ESPN grew into a multibillion-dollar business and revolutionized sports television. Its coverage of major sporting events became the industry standard, with live action followed by round-the-clock highlights, commentary, and entertainment-themed analysis. The network airs select NBA and NFL playoff games and is the exclusive home for the four-team College Football Playoff. Many of ESPN's on-air personalities have become household names and even the SportsCenter theme song has reached iconic pop culture status. The company also found highly visible success with location-based businesses such as the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida. 

In addition to its major presence in the US sports media market, ESPN developed a global audience through its various television, radio, and online content. It also had a significant general economic impact as a large company with more than fifty business enterprises. By 2021 ESPN employed around six thousand people around the world. 

Bibliography

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