Bill Rasmussen

William F. Rasmussen, also known as Bill Rasmussen (born 1932)[1] is an American sports director,[2] and one of the founders of ESPN, along with Scott Rasmussen and Ed Egan.[3] Rasmussen served as the first president and CEO of ESPN. ESPN was founded on July 14, 1978, and was launched on September 7, 1979.

Bill Rasmussen
Born
William F. Rasmussen

Chicago, Illinois
EducationDepauw University (BA)
Rutgers University (MBA)
Known forFounder and First President of ESPN.

Early life

Bill Rasmussen was born in Chicago, Illinois where he attended Gage Park High School. He received a scholarship to attend DePauw University in Indiana, where he met his future wife Mickey. After college, he was a supply officer in the US Air Force. He played baseball (as third baseman) with the hopes of going pro. Parts he procured for the Air Force were used in F-86 and F-89 fighter jets, as well as on Mercury space capsules. He then attended Rutgers University to get his MBA. His son Scott was born in 1956, the year he was discharged from the military.[4]

Early career

Rasmussen's career in the media began in western Massachusetts's Pioneer Valley, at radio station WTTT (1430 AM) in Amherst in 1963. In 1965, he moved south to Springfield, working for both of the city's television stations. First, he worked at WHYN (today's WGGB, channel 40), then WWLP (channel 22), where he spent eight years as a sports director, then two as a news director. In 1974 he moved south to Hartford, Connecticut to join the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association as their communications director. At the conclusion of the 1977–78 season, Rasmussen was fired by the Whalers. Thus began the pursuit of ESPN, incorporating the fledgling network on July 14, 1978.[5]

ESPN

ESPN, originally called Entertainment and Sports Programming, was incorporated on July 14, 1978. It began broadcasting fourteen months later, at 7 p.m. on September 7, 1979.[6] ESPN wound up being headquartered in Bristol, Connecticut. Rasmussen paid $18,000 for the first acre of ESPN's campus.[7]

Moving On

Getty Oil purchased 85% of ESPN and left 15% of the enterprise to be split.[8]

By July 18, 1979, before launch, the investors decided to remove Rasmussen from power.[6] His salary and responsibilities were cut.[9][10]

Just prior to the launch of ESPN, according to the book Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN [11] Stuart Evey claimed "I made Bill Chairman, but in no way did I want to give him any responsibility!"[11] "Having Bill Rasmussen play a significant role was just not part of the deal."[12] Rasmussen, the one who had the idea for ESPN, stepped back from day-to-day business, having less contact with ESPN until mid 1999.[7] Rasmussen and ESPN "made amends" in 1999 when then-president George Bodenheimer reached out to the founder for the network's 20th anniversary.[7][12]

On September 30, 1980, ESPN officials announced that Bill Rasmussen was leaving the company by agreement.[11]

The Sale

The New York Times reported in 1984[13] that ABC purchased controlling interest in ESPN by buying out Getty Oil's position. At the time of the Getty Oil buy out, ABC in turn bought out the Rasmussen Families 15% for $6,000,000.[6] Rasmussen had to split the $6,000,000 with numerous other investors and funders such as his brother Don Rasmussen, with Bill Rasmussen ending up with an estimated $1.2 million[6] and a little over $740,000 after taxes.[6]

George Bodenheimer, then president of ESPN, recognized Rasmussen in October 2005 and dedicated a plaque and flag pole in Rasmussen's honor.[10]

Post ESPN

Family Business

The all sports radio network Enterprise Radio Network was founded in January 1981 by Scott Rasmussen, the son of Bill Rasmussen, and was shuttered by September 1981. The network broadcast sports reports twice an hour and did live phone in sports talk from 6 pm to 8 am Eastern Time seven days a week. The project failed, with employees not getting paid all wages they were due. Bill Rasmussen was sued by the labor department along with Scott for allegedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.[14]

Other Business

Rasmussen became involved in plans to build a 12,000-seat golf stadium in Naples, Florida.[15] The project was rife with corruption, with the Naples Daily News describing it as the "biggest public corruption scandal in local history".[16] Rasmussen became a subject of the criminal investigations surrounding the project and pled guilty to two misdemeanor cases of fraud in a plea deal that reduced the charges against him in exchange for his cooperation in the corruption case against the public officials.[17][18]

In July 2019, Rasmussen disclosed that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.[19]

Honors and awards
  • A United States Air Force veteran, Rasmussen received his bachelor's degree in Economics from DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) and his MBA from Rutgers University.
  • CynopsisMedia – Sports Hall Of Fame[20]

References
  1. "ESPN Founder & 1954 Graduate Bill Rasmussen Returns to DePauw for Ubben Lecture, Nov. 8, During Monon Bell Week". Retrieved March 27, 2018.
  2. "Bill Rasmussen went from losing a job to creating ESPN". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  3. "The Arena: - Scott Rasmussen Bio". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  4. ESPN: The Uncensored History, by Michael Freeman
  5. "ESPN Founder - About Bill Rasmussen". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  6. Evey, Stuart (September 1, 2004). ESPN Creating an Empire: The No-Holds-Barred Story of Power, Ego, Money, and Vision That Transformed a Culture. Triumph Books. pp. 65–66. ISBN 978-1-62368-141-8.
  7. Glasspiegel, Ryan (May 12, 2016). "Legends Suite With a Legend: Attending Yankees-Red Sox With ESPN's Founding Father Bill Rasmussen". The Big Lead. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  8. Vogan, Travis. "Artifact: The "Quiet Founder" Of ESPN's $10 Million Stock Certificate". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  9. Freeman, Michael (2001). ESPN: The Uncensored History. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 65–. ISBN 978-0-87833-270-0.
  10. Faude, Wilson H. (June 18, 2013). Connecticut Miscellany: ESPN, The Age of the Reptiles, CowParade & More. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. pp. 6–. ISBN 978-1-61423-946-8.
  11. Miller, James Andrew; Shales, Tom (May 24, 2011). Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN. Little, Brown. pp. 15–65. ISBN 978-0-316-12576-5.
  12. "Champions: Bill Rasmussen, ESPN creator". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  13. Kleinfield, N. R. (May 1, 1984). "ABC to Acquire ESPN as Texaco Sells Its 72%". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  14. Birchard, John (November 29, 2010). JOCK AROUND THE CLOCK: The story of history's first all-sports radio network. Xlibris Corporation. pp. 9–84. ISBN 978-1-4568-2261-3.
  15. "State: Collier County growth bulged with corruption". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  16. "Lighthouse Project - History: Stadium Naples was biggest public corruption scandal in local history". Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  17. "Jacksonville.com: Former commissioner gets three years probation 6/21/03". Archived from the original on November 5, 2016. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
  18. "Rasmussen pleads guilty to fraud charges". AP. ESPN. August 28, 2002.
  19. Abdeldaiem, Alaa. "ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen diagnosed with Parkinson's". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved January 25, 2020.
  20. "Rasmussen talks media, critics and the crisis that could have derailed ESPN". Cynopsis Media. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
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