ESPN

ESPN
ESPN wordmark.svg
The current ESPN logo, which has been used since 1985
Launched September 7, 1979
Owned by The Walt Disney Company (80%)
Hearst Corporation (20%)
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
720p (HDTV)
Slogan The Worldwide Leader in Sports
Country United States
Language English
Headquarters Bristol, Connecticut
Formerly called Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (never used on air)
Sister channel(s) ESPN2
ESPN3.com
ESPNU
ESPN America
ESPN Brasil
ESPN Classic
ESPN Deportes
ESPNews
ESPN Plus
ESPN on ABC
ESPN (UK)
TSN
Website ESPN.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV 206 (SD/HD)
210 Alternate feed
Dish Network 140 (SD/HD)
145 147 148 Alternate feeds
DSTV Channel 230
Cable
Available on most cable systems Check local listings for channels
Verizon Fios 70 (SD)
570 (HD)
IPTV
AT&T U-Verse 602 (SD)
1602 (HD)
Internet television
ESPN3 ESPN3.com

ESPN is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming 24 hours a day.

Founded by Bill Rasmussen[1] and his son Scott Rasmussen, it launched on September 7, 1979 under the direction of Chet Simmons, the network's President and CEO (and later the United States Football League's first commissioner). Getty Oil Company provided the funding to begin the new venture. Geoff Bray of New Britain, CT was chosen as the architect. George Bodenheimer is ESPN's current president, a position he has held since November 19, 1998. Bodenheimer has also headed ABC Sports, a separate legal entity now branded as ESPN on ABC, since March 3, 2003.

ESPN's signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 30,000th episode on February 11, 2007. ESPN broadcasts primarily from its studios in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices in New York City; Seattle, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles office, from which the late-night edition of SportsCenter is now broadcast, opened at L.A. Live in early 2009. The name of the sport company was lengthened to "ESPN Inc." in February 1985.

ESPN markets itself as "The Worldwide Leader in Sports." The slogan appears on nearly all company media, but its origin is unknown.

Most programming on ESPN and its affiliated networks consists of live or tape-delayed sets of events and sports-related news programming (such as SportsCenter). The remainder includes sports-related talk shows (such as Around the Horn, Jim Rome is Burning, Outside the Lines, "SportsNation", and PTI), sports-related documentaries, films (such as "3: The Dale Earnhardt Story"), and original series (such as "The Bronx Is Burning").

Contents

History

Early months

ESPN was originally conceived by Bill Rasmussen,[1] a television sports reporter for WWLP, the NBC affiliate in Springfield, Massachusetts.[2] 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, Bristol Red Sox, 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.[3]

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 on the final weekend of the US Open.

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, the Canadian Football League, 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 at the time. ESPN also aired business shows and exercise videos.

ESPN recruited Steve Powell, former Director of Sports Programming at HBO, to be its first head of Programming. Powell had been the youngest VP at HBO and its parent company (Time, Inc.), but left to attend Harvard Business School. He worked for ESPN while completing the MBA Program at Harvard.

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 to 1984, the network's relationship with the association marked its initial foray into American professional sports. After an 18 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 coverage.

On July 15, 1985, ESPN started airing the "ESPN Sports Update" (later known as "28/58"), a condensed run-down of scores and news that aired at 28 and 58 minutes past the hour, when SportsCenter was not airing.[4] This was changed to 18/58 on May 30, 2005.

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. ESPN Sunday Night Football would last for 19 years and spur ESPN's rise to legitimacy. In the 2006 NFL season, ESPN began airing Monday Night Football, formerly seen on its sister network ABC. (NBC took over the Sunday night game, which replaced the Monday night contest as the league's weekly centerpiece game) Former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue credits ESPN for revolutionizing the NFL, "ESPN was able to take the draft, the pregame and highlight shows, and other NFL programming to a new level."[5]

In 1990, ESPN added Major League Baseball to its lineup with a $400 million contract.[6] The contract has been renewed and will continue through 2011. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan are the longtime voices of the network's centerpiece Sunday Night Baseball. Steve Phillips joined the package in 2009, but Phillips was later dismissed by the network in October 2009.

ESPN broadcast each of the four major professional sports leagues in North America from 2002 until 2004, when it cut ties with the National Hockey League.[7] The network had aired NHL games from 1980–82, from 1986–89, and most recently from 1992-2004. ESPN has been broadcasting Major League Soccer games about once a week on ESPN2 since that league's inception in 1996. In most years, the annual All-Star Game and MLS Cup championship game, and in some years, the Opening Night game, are shown on ABC broadcast stations.

With the increasing cost of live sports entertainment, such as the USD$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.[8]

ESPN broadcasts 65 sports, 24 hours a day in 15 languages in more than 150 countries.[9]

Expansion

ESPN set itself apart from its competition by using the top reporters for each of their respective sports by the early 1990s. Some examples included: Peter Gammons (baseball), Chris Mortensen (football), Al Morganti (hockey), David Aldridge (basketball), and Mel Kiper, Jr. (NFL Draft). Other well-known reporters include Andrea Kremer, Ed Werder, Mark Schwartz, and Greg Garber.

The 1990s and early 2000s saw a considerable growth within the company. ESPN Radio launched on New Years Day, 1992.[10] ESPN2 was founded in 1993, launched by Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber 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 youngest ESPN network in the USA, ESPNU, began broadcasting on March 4, 2005.

ESPN International was started 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 (the corporate logos of both networks were redesigned to match the look of ESPN's logo). In 2004, ESPN entered the European market by launching a version of ESPN Classic. Then in December 2006 it agreed to purchase North American Sports Network, and on February 1, 2009 NASN was re-branded as ESPN America. SportsCenter's primary three broadcasts on ESPN America each day are at 1am ET (which re-airs usually until 9am ET), 6pm ET, and 11pm ET.

In 1994, ESPN launched the The ESPN Sports Poll, created 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.[11]

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 due to ESPN's joint ownership arrangement with Disney and Hearst.

In 1998, ESPN began using "Skycam" for their broadcasts of the NHL. The system was later put to use in baseball, basketball, and football games.[4]

In April 2009, ESPN opened a broadcast production facility in downtown Los Angeles as a part of the L.A. Live complex across from Staples Center. The five-story facility houses an ESPN Zone restaurant on the first two floors and two television production studios with digital control rooms on the upper floors. One of the studios hosts late-night editions of SportsCenter.[12]

In 2007, ESPN signed an agreement with the Arena Football League to broadcast at least one game every week, usually on Monday nights.

In January 2008, ESPN signed a multi-million dollar contract with professional gaming circuit, Major League Gaming (MLG).

On August 3, 2009, ESPN began broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland for the first time, having been awarded the domestic rights to 46 Barclays English Premier League matches for the forthcoming season, and 23 matches each for the following three seasons, due to the cancellation of the Premier League's contract with Setanta Sports over a missed payment. The deal only affected television rights within the U.K.; international rights (held in the U.S. at the time by Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports North America) were not initially affected, but Setanta would later shutter its U.S. operations. Also in the US, ESPN now has rights to at least one Premier League and one La Liga game a week.[13]

On January 5, 2010, ESPN announced plans for a new network, ESPN 3D, to premiere on June 11, 2010. The new network will broadcast 85 sporting events in 3D during its first year, including the FIFA World Cup match between South Africa and Mexico and the 2011 BCS National Championship Game. ESPN has been testing 3D broadcasting for more than two years. Additional broadcasts may include up to 25 World Cup matches and the Summer X Games.[14]

Controversy

Ownership history

As mentioned, William Rasmussen founded the channel. 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.

ESPNHD

Logo of ESPNHD

ESPNHD, launched on March 30, 2003, is a 720p high-definition simulcast of ESPN. ESPNHD (along with sister networks ESPN2 HD, ESPNU HD, ABC HD, Disney Channel HD, ABC Family HD, and Disney XD HD) uses the 720p HD line standard because the ABC executives proposed a progressive 'p' signal that resolves fluid and high speed motion in sports better, particularly during slow motion replays.[15]

All Bristol and L.A. Live studio shows, along with most live events on ESPN, are produced in high definition. ESPN is one of the few networks with an all-digital infrastructure. Shows that are recorded elsewhere − such as Jim Rome Is Burning (Los Angeles); Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn (Washington, D.C.) are presented in a standard definition, 4:3 format with stylized pillarboxes. ESPN, however, maintains a policy that any video that originates in high definition must remain in HD when aired on ESPNHD.

More recently, the network has come under considerable scrutiny from industry technicians and early adopters of HD due to a perceived degradation in picture quality, specifically during live events.[16]

In Latin America, the 720p high-definition version of ESPN was launched as "ESPN HD" on April 28, 2009 (only Brazil) and on December 1, 2009 in other countries.[17]

ESPN 3D

On June 11, 2010, ESPN launched ESPN 3D, United States' first 3DTV channel. The first programming in the format was the 2010 World Cup. ESPN states another 100 live events will be in 3D in the first year.[18]

Executives

Advertising on ESPN

Advertising on ESPN is sold out for months in advance. Major advertisers such as Apple, FedEx, and United Parcel Service are continually buying advertisements to reach the 15-35 year old male audience. ESPN's ad revenue averages $441.8 million with an ad rate of $9,446 per 30 second slot.[9]

ESPN significant programming rights

ESPN and its family of networks (ESPN on ABC, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN Plus and to a lesser extent ESPN Classic) have rights to the following sports and events (note: this list doesn't represent ESPN America since that division of ESPN broadcasts outside of the USA):

NFL

ESPN College Football

ESPN Major League Soccer

FIFA

ESPN Major League Baseball

Little League World Series

NBA on ESPN

WNBA on ESPN

College basketball on ESPN

Tennis Grand Slams: As of 2009 ESPN co-owns the cable rights to all four of tennis' grand slams with The Tennis Channel. ESPN also televises other tennis events.

PGA Tour on ESPN

LPGA Tour on ESPN

Champions Tour on ESPN

PBA Tour

NASCAR on ESPN

NHRA

German Bundesliga

La Liga

English Premier League

Australian Football League

Thoroughbred Racing on ESPN

ESPN may sometimes acquire the rights to programming in other sports which airs only via Internet streaming on ESPN3, usually because another broadcaster holds the TV rights.

Former rights

Indy Racing League

Champ Car World Series on ESPN

ESPN National Hockey Night

Major Indoor Soccer League

UEFA Champions League

The Arena Football League on ESPN

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,"[29] a reference to a nickname formerly used for ESPN2, "the Deuce"). In the film The Waterboy, Adam Sandler's character Bobby Boucher has his college football accomplishments tracked through several fictional "SportsCenter" newscasts including the "Bourbon Bowl." Also, ESPN.com Page 2 columnist Bill Simmons often jokes that he is looking forward to running a future network; 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 1998 TV series Sports Night was based on 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 before the network was able to land major sports programming packages. Dennis Miller mentioned watching "sumo rodeo," while George Carlin stated that ESPN showed "Australian dick wrestling." One of several Saturday Night Live sketches poking fun at the network features ESPN2 airing a show called Scottish Soccer Hooligan Weekly, which includes a fake advertisement for "Senior Women's Beach Lacrosse." SNL also parodies ESPN Classic with fake archived obscure women's sportscasts from the 1980s such as bowling, weight lifting and curling, with announcers who know nothing about the sport, and instead focus on the sponsors which are always women's hygiene products. In the early years of ESPN, Late Night with David Letterman even featured a "Top Ten List" poking fun at some of the obscure sports seen on ESPN at the time. One of the more memorable sports on the list was "Amish Rake Fighting."

A common joke in comedic television and film involves people getting ESP (an abbreviation for Extrasensory Perception, and an irony considering ESPN was initially supposed to be named "ESP") confused with ESPN, often including someone saying something along the lines of "I know these kind of things, I've got ESPN". Electronic Arts in the early 1990s used to have a faux sports network logo on their sports games called EASN (Electronic Arts Sports Network), but soon changed to EA Sports after ESPN requested that they stop using it. There are at least 22 children named after the network.[30][31][32]

ESPN business ventures

Current

The ESPN family of networks

Television

ESPN Now

ESPN Now
Owned by The Walt Disney Company (80%)
Hearst Corporation (20%)
Picture format 480i (SDTV)
Country United States
Language English

ESPN Now was a former rolling digital cable barker channel which aired from 2001–2004 and featured a scoring ticker, along with ESPN and Go.com promotional advertising. It mainly was used to promote ESPN's college sports pay per view packages to viewers. The channel was eventually discontinued with the rise of video on demand.

Internet

Radio

Network-wide preemption

Several times ESPN programming 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 most of the first round of the 2003 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament due to CBS News's coverage of the invasion of Iraq. The games were still produced by CBS and distributed to the correct markets through cable companies. The only ESPN identifier was the bottomline graphic, which ran throughout the entire telecast.

See also

  • List of programs broadcast by ESPN
  • List of ESPN personalities
  • SportsCenter
  • ESPN GamePlan
  • ESPN Full Court
  • ESPN Australia
  • ESPN Full Circle
  • ESPN Major League Baseball
  • ESPN2 Major League Soccer
  • NASCAR on ESPN
  • WNBA on ESPN
  • The NBA on ESPN
  • ESPN College Basketball Broadcast Teams
  • ESPN College Football Broadcast Teams
  • ESPN MLB Broadcast Teams
  • ESPN NBA Broadcast Teams
  • ESPN MLS/Soccer Broadcast Teams (FIFA World Cup Included)
  • List of assets owned by Disney
  • List of assets owned by Hearst Corporation
  • Réseau des sports
  • The Sports Network (Canadian counterpart of ESPN)
  • Dish Network Channel Grid
  • List of DirecTV channels
  • Wieden+Kennedy

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Bill Rasmussen, the Father of Cable Sports." ESPNFounder.com
  2. ↑ Sports Junkies Rejoice! The Birth of ESPN, by Bill Rasmussen. Published in paperback in 2010.
  3. ↑ ESPN: An Uncensored History, by Michael Freeman. Published in 2000
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 ESPN's 30th Anniversary - 30 ESPN Firsts & Innovations ESPN MediaZone
  5. ↑ ESPN: The Uncensored History
  6. ↑ ESPN, Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9002482/ESPN
  7. ↑ "ESPN decides not to match Comcast's offer". ESPN. August 18, 2005. http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2137098. 
  8. ↑ "ESPN calls time out on scripted fare", Variety, vol. 407, No. 1, May 21–27, 2007, p. 22
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 ESPN Inc Encyclopedia Britannica
  10. ↑ ESPN's 30th Anniversary - Milestones ESPN MediaZone
  11. ↑ , The Sporting News, December 30, 1996 
  12. ↑ Greg Johnson, ESPN is on schedule to land in L.A. in 2009, Los Angeles Times, December 18, 2007.
  13. ↑ ESPN snaps up Premier League TV packages, ESPN.com, 22 June 2009
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 ESPN 3D to show soccer, football, more ESPN, January 5, 2010
  15. ↑ ESPN HD
  16. ↑ What's Up With ESPN HD?
  17. ↑ Espn HD en latinoamerica a partir 1 de diciembre OMBUDS CABLE - Comunidad de TV para abonados
  18. ↑ 3DTV 2010 Event: Bratches Bullish on ESPN 3D Uptake
  19. ↑ "The Walt Disney Company - George W. Bodenheimer Executive Biography". The Walt Disney Company. http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/bios/george_bodenheimer.html. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  20. ↑ "SEAN R. H. BRATCHES Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/BratchesSean.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  21. ↑ "CHRISTINE F. DRIESSEN Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/DriessenChris.html. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  22. ↑ "EDWIN M. DURSO Executive Vice President, Administration". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/DursoEdwin.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  23. ↑ "CHUCK PAGANO Executive Vice President, Technology". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/PaganoChuck.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  24. ↑ "JOHN SKIPPER Executive Vice President, Content". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/SkipperJohn.html. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  25. ↑ "NORBY WILLIAMSON Executive Vice President, Studio and Remote Production". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/WilliamsonNorby.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  26. ↑ "RUSSELL WOLFF Executive Vice President and Managing Director, ESPN International". ESPN. http://media.espn.com/MediaZone/bios/executives/WolffRussell.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007. 
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 ESPN, ACC Connect On $1.9 Billion Rights Deal Multichannel News July 8, 2010
  28. ↑ "Little League Chronology". Little League Online. http://www.littleleague.org/media/newsarchive/05_2004/04emmyaward.htm. Retrieved April 7, 2007.  ESPN2 broadcasts started in 1997.
  29. ↑ "Movie Preview: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story". Entertainment Weekly. April 21, 2004. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,613698,00.html. Retrieved July 30, 2008. 
  30. ↑ Parents name baby after ESPN, Joe Montana, NBC Sports, October 9, 2006
  31. ↑ "Texas toddler at least third named ESPN". ESPN. June 16, 2006. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=1829996. 
  32. ↑ Hiestand, Michael (February 7, 2006). "Lampley nearing most-called Olympics". USA Today. http://usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2006-02-07-hiestand-lampley_x.htm. Retrieved June 9, 2008. "ESPN says it's heard of at least 22 babies named ESPN" 
  33. ↑ ESPNStar.com

External links