Bill Rasmussen, who founded ESPN as the first 24/7 all-sports network, dies at 93

Bill Rasmussen, the founder of the world’s first 24-hour all-sports cable network ESPN, has died. He was 93. The sports media company announced his death in a news release on Tuesday and said the cause was from the effects of Parkinson’s disease. The entrepreneur was first diagnosed with the movement disorder in 2014. “Bill was a remarkable man — a visionary and an innovator who conceived the idea of a network entirely devoted to sports,” said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro in a statement. “Quite simply, none of us would be here today if it wasn’t for Bill’s passion and all the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit he put into building ESPN in the late 1970s.”Rasmussen’s creation — which began in the small industrial town of Bristol, Conn., — became an integral part of the new television landscape that emerged from cable and satellite technologies in the 1970s. Before the launch of ESPN, consumers had a limited number of sports viewing options through the handful of local TV stations in their markets. ESPN launched seven months before Ted Turner unveiled his 24-hour news channel CNN.