ESPN

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Template:Infobox NetworkESPN (once an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American cable television network dedicated to broadcasting sports-related programming 24 hours a day. It was founded by Scott Rasmussen and his father Bill Rasmussen, and launched on September 7 1979 under the direction of Chet Simmons, who was the network's first President and CEO. The current president, since 1998, of both ESPN and ABC Sports is George Bodenheimer. Its signature telecast, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 25,000th episode on August 25 2002. ESPN broadcasts primarily out of its studios in Bristol, Connecticut; it also operates offices out of Charlotte, including its newest network ESPNU. ESPN is available in over 90 million homes in the United States and over 147 countries and territories via ESPN International. The name of the sport company was lengthened to "ESPN Inc." in February 1985.

--68.238.33.189 21:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[[Image:[[[[History== ESPN started as an alternative to standard television news broadcasts and the information found in "Sports" sections of newspapers. It began as a fairly small operation and often had to broadcast unorthodox sporting events, such as the World's Strongest Man Competition; international sports relatively unknown in the U.S., such as Australian Rules Football, as well as the short-lived United States Football League (USFL), to attract viewers. In 1987,ESPN landed a contract to show National Football League games on Sunday evenings, an event which marked as a turning point in its development from a smaller cable TV network to a marketing empire, a cornerstone to the enthusiastic "sports culture" it largely helped to create. ESPN will start showing Monday Night NFL games starting in 2006.

ESPN was originally owned by a joint venture between Getty Oil Company (which was purchased by Texaco) and Nabisco. Since 1984, the entire family of ESPN networks and franchises have been owned by ABC (the American Broadcasting Company) (80%) (which became part of The Walt Disney Company in 1996) and the Hearst Corporation (20%).

In 2004, ESPN opened its High Definition center in Bristol, Connecticut. Many shows, including Sportscenter, Baseball Tonight, NFL Live, College Gameday and others are broadcast in HD. Also, many of the games that ESPN televises are broadcast in HD. The first program ever broadcast in HD on ESPN was the Sunday Night Baseball openner in March 2003, featuring the Texas Rangers (baseball) and the (then) Anaheim Angels. The first broadcast from the Digital Center was the 11pm ET edition of SportsCenter with Linda Cohn and Rece Davis on June 7, 2004.]]]]]]

1 Music
2 ESPN in Popular Culture
3 ESPN Business Ventures
4 The ESPN Family of Networks
5 Shows
6 Reference
7 See also
8 External links

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Music

ESPN has had its own theme music for quite a few years , but early on it used source music. An early theme for its flagship "SportsCenter" program was "Pulstar", an energetic electronic instrumental piece by Vangelis from his 1976 album Albedo 0.39. It would play while computer animation of baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, etc. would fly out from the center of the TV screen in all directions.

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ESPN in Popular Culture

ESPN has become a part of popular culture since its inception. The name is constantly referenced throughout the media in movies and television. While the announcers may be actual personalities, in many films where there is a sporting event, the coverage is by ESPN. People who don't even watch sports are familiar with ESPN. Often times this comes in the form of a lampoon of the number of channels ESPN operates. A few examples:

In the movie Dodgeball, a major dodgeball tournament is broadcast by ESPN 8 ("The Ocho"): "If it's almost a sport, we've got it!" (There currently is no ESPN 8, of course).

In the DVD special features in the movie Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, there is a skit that contains the "interview" of fictional anchorman Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) to work at ESPN in 1979. This first appeared on ESPN.com.