ESPN is a cable sports network founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen, who was formerly an employee of the New England Whalers (now known as the Carolina Hurricanes). ESPN began with the network’s most well-known program, “SportsCenter,” debuting with the network on September 7, 1979. ESPN is now a network known for its 24/7 coverage and games on sports like the MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA. However, not all came calling in for their games to be on the network, as one of ESPN’s earliest acquisitions was the College Basketball tournament known as “March Madness.” The network acquired the rights to air the opening rounds of the tournament. 1984 would be a huge year, as ESPN gained a significant boost when the NCAA versus Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma case, granting conferences like the Big 10 or the SEC to choose the rights for their football games.
ESPN took advantage of this new change in college football, securing the rights to broadcast college football games and helping it to establish itself as a major player in college sports broadcasting. Also, within that year, ESPN was purchased by ABC, and it was good enough for the NFL and MLB to lend them the rights to NFL and MLB games soon after ABC purchased ESPN.
Though under ABC’s charge, ESPN 2 and ESPN Radio were created in 1993 and 1992, respectively. ESPN 2 was where more obscure sports would be played, and ESPN Radio provided the latest sports news and analysis on the radio. Through the 2000s, ESPN had new threats like Fox Sports and TNT competing to be leaders for the #1 spot in cable sports broadcasting. In response, ESPN began to introduce new editions of its network. ESPNews, launching in 1996, went in-depth into sports news being 24/7. ESPN Classic, established in 1995, shows classic sports moments, events, and documentaries.
In 1996 ABC was bought by The Walt Disney Company, getting ABC’s subsidiaries including ESPN. ESPN Deportes, launching in 2001, gave a Spanish version of ESPN and broadened ESPN to be more of a company that owns channels with the ESPN branding on it. In addition, ESPN began broadcasting lesser-known college sports through ESPNU, launched in 2005. ESPNU, created before the existence of college sports conference networks, provided fans with access to a wide range of college sports programming and would later make ESPNU soon be obsolete.
College sports conferences prefer to have their channel with help from the SEC Network and the ACC Network, respectively, to broadcast the conference’s sports, and this was a direct response to Fox Sports launching the Big 10 Network. Before that, ESPN introduced ESPN HD, which provided high-definition sports programming.
However, after 2009, HD programming became much more widespread, making ESPN HD less useful. In recent years, ESPN partnered with Penn’s Sportsbook to enter the betting market with ESPN Bet. Recently, ESPN has teamed up with its former rival sports networks, Fox Sports and TNT Sports. (WB Discovery) A new sports streaming service. However, it wouldn’t change their plans to release a stand-alone streaming service with ESPN.
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- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN#
- https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1229682937/espn-fox-warner-bros-discovery-sports-streaming
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN2
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN_on_ABC
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Network
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