Overview
- ESPN announced Tuesday that Bill Rasmussen died at age 93 at his Florida home from complications of Parkinson’s disease.
- In the late 1970s Rasmussen and his son Scott took personal financial risks to secure satellite capacity and on Sept. 7, 1979 launched the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network with a 30‑minute SportsCenter that reached about 1.4 million homes.
- Rasmussen served as ESPN’s first president and CEO but lost day‑to‑day control in 1980 after Getty Oil acquired a majority stake in the young company.
- He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2014, publicly disclosed the condition in 2019, advocated for awareness in later years, and was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2025.
- Rasmussen’s gamble made round‑the‑clock sports television commercially viable, helped secure early rights such as NCAA tournament coverage, reshaped how sports are covered on TV, and left a large family including two sons, a daughter, seven grandchildren and two great‑grandchildren.