Bill Rasmussen

William F. "Bill" Rasmussen (1932-10-15 to 2026-08-18) was the American sports broadcaster and entrepreneur who co-founded ESPN, the world's first 24-hour sports cable network, with his son Scott Rasmussen and early partners including Ed Eagan. Born in Chicago and raised in nearby Columbus Manor, he played baseball as a third baseman at Gage Park High School and earned an invitation to a Detroit Tigers minor-league affiliate, then chose DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, on scholarship. He graduated in 1954 with a bachelor's degree in economics, served as a United States Air Force supply officer near the end of the Korean War era, and earned an MBA from Rutgers University in 1960. He married Lois ("Mickey"), whom he met at DePauw; they were married 56 years until her death in 2011. Their children are Scott, Glenn, and Lynn Van Hollebeke.

After an advertising-services venture, Rasmussen entered broadcasting at WTTT radio in Amherst, Massachusetts (about 1962-1963; sources differ slightly on the start year), then worked in Springfield television at WHYN and for a decade at WWLP as sports director and later news director, calling football, basketball, baseball and hockey. In 1974 he became communications director for the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers in Hartford. Fired after the 1977-78 season, he and Scott began exploring satellite television. On Friday 1978-08-16, stuck in traffic on Interstate 84 near Waterbury while driving toward the New Jersey Shore for Lynn's sixteenth birthday, they expanded a Connecticut sports idea into a national around-the-clock sports network. They secured an RCA satellite transponder (Rasmussen later said a roughly $9,000 credit-card advance helped early financing), incorporated the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network in July 1978, bought Bristol, Connecticut land (about $18,000 for the first acre), and won Getty Oil majority backing, an NCAA rights deal, and a landmark Anheuser-Busch cable sponsorship.

ESPN launched at 7 p.m. ET on 1979-09-07 to about 1.4 million homes from a still-unfinished Bristol facility, opening with SportsCenter hosted by Lee Leonard and George Grande, then a slow-pitch softball game. Rasmussen was first president and CEO; in July 1979 he became chairman as Chet Simmons took the presidency. Before and soon after launch, Getty-aligned investors curtailed his operating power. He left active ESPN leadership by agreement around September-October 1980. When ABC bought out Getty/Texaco's stake in 1984, the Rasmussen family's remaining interest was bought out. Estranged for years, he was invited back for the 20th anniversary in 1999 by George Bodenheimer and later celebrated campus plaques, the 40th anniversary (including a Fenway Park ceremonial first pitch with Jimmy Pitaro on 2019-09-08), and the 2026 documentary Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN.

After ESPN he consulted, pursued media startups (including the short-lived Enterprise Radio Network with Scott in 1981, which led to a U.S. Department of Labor Fair Labor Standards Act suit per Wikipedia), and in the early 2000s pled guilty to two misdemeanor fraud counts tied to the Stadium Naples / Collier County golf-stadium corruption investigation in a cooperation deal (ESPN.com/AP 2002; Wikipedia). Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2014 and publicly disclosing it on 2019-07-15, he became an ambassador with the American Parkinson Disease Association and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Honors included Connecticut Sports Museum and Hall of Fame (1997), Sports Illustrated's "Forty for the Ages" (1994), USA Today's "Father of Sports Television" label (1994), Rutgers Wall of Fame (2002), DePauw Media Wall of Fame (2012), and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Class of 2025. He died at his Land O' Lakes, Florida home on 2026-08-18 at 93 from the effects of Parkinson's disease. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and colleagues including Chris Berman paid tribute; Scott Rasmussen posted a public remembrance of the 1978 car ride and a quiet moment before the 1979 launch. In lieu of flowers, the company pointed donors to APDA.