Who: Bill Rasmussen
What: Speaking to students about his experiences
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: Emens Auditorium
The founder of ESPN, Bill Rasmussen, was in the David Letterman Communication and Media Building this afternoon, speaking to students about his experiences creating the network and the difficulties it faced during its induction.
At 7:30 tonight, he will be at John R. Emens Auditorium to talk about how he created the biggest sports network in the country. His talk is through the Excellence in Leadership program.
“[We’re] always innovating,” Rasmussen said. “They want to create a better view of the game, whether it takes an extra one or two people, we always have to be innovating.”
He created ESPN out of necessity after being fired and faced criticism from ABC, CBS and NBC, which told him that he wouldn’t be able to cover sports as well as they did.
The desire to create a 24-hour sports network that provided equal coverage to all teams drove him to create ESPN. At the time, ABC, CBS and NBC covered a limited number of games and teams, leaving many fans unable to watch their favorite teams.
“We wanted people to get used to the idea of seeing sports all the time,” Rasmussen said.
Admission to his event tonight at Emens is free and open to the public.
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