espn.com

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 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 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 an NCAA basketball game in 2002, at the University of Dayton Arena. The first broadcast from the Digital Center was the 11pm ET edition of SportsCenter with Linda Cohn and Rece Davis on June 7, 2004.

Executives

• George Bodenheimer: President, ESPN, Inc.
• Sean Bratches: Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing
• Christine Driessen: Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
• Edwin Durso: Executive Vice President, Administration
• Chuck Pagano: Executive Vice President, Technology
• John Skipper: Executive Vice President, Content
• Norby Williamson: Executive Vice President, Studio and Remote Production
• Russell Wolff: Executive Vice President and Managing Director, ESPN International

Significant programming rights

The NFL on ESPN [1]

• 1987–1989 (Exclusive Cable; Sunday Night; 2nd Half of Season Only)
• 1990–1997 (2nd Half of Season Only; Sunday Night; TNT carries early season)
• 1998–2005 (Exclusive Cable; Sunday Night)
• 2006–2013 (Monday Night Football)

ESPN Major League Baseball [2]

• 1990–2013

ESPN Major League Soccer

• 1996–2014

The NBA on ESPN

• 1982–1984
• 2002–2008

The WNBA on ESPN2

• 2006-

PGA Tour on ESPN

• 1980^(?)–2006 (Contracts with individual tournaments)

LPGA Tour on ESPN

• 1979-2009

NASCAR on ESPN

• 1981–2000 (Contracts with individual races)
• 2007–2014 (Contract with NASCAR)

The IRL on ESPN

• 1996–2009

The NHRA on ESPN

• -2013

The Busch Series on ESPN2

• 2007-2013

The NHL on ESPN

• 1985–1988 (National television deal, agreements with individual clubs as early as 1979)
• 1992–2004

ESPN College Football [3]

• Bowl Games: 1982— (Contracts with individual bowl games)
• ACC: 1998-2010
• Big 10: 1979-2017
• Big East: 1991-2013
• C-USA: (?)-2010
• MAC: (?)-2007
• Pac-10: Selected non-conference games from 2005-2011
• SEC: (?)-2009
• Sun Belt: (?)-2007
• WAC: (?)-2009
• NCAA D1-AA, II, and III playoffs (selected games) and championship games.

ESPN College Basketball

• NCAA Tournament: 1980–1990 (Contract with NCAA)
• ACC:
• Big 10: 1979-2017
• Big 12:
• Big East: 1979-2013

FIFA

• FIFA World Cup: 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014

UEFA

• UEFA Champions League:

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.

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 do not even watch sports are familiar with ESPN. Oftentimes this comes in the form of a lampoon of the number of channels ESPN operates. A few examples:

• In the movie Zathura, Walter is watching Sportcenter on ESPN while Danny is pestering him, and the TV ends up being destroyed during the first spin of the game by a meteor.

• In the 2004 movie Fever Pitch, Ben Wrightmen is interviewed by Steve Levy at Boston Red Sox Spring Training.

• In the movie Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, 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).

• In the movie The Waterboy, main character Bobby Boucher is featured on SportsCenter, and some of the SCLSU games are aired by ESPN.

• In the Adam Sandler remake of The Longest Yard, ESPN 2 broadcasts the football game between the criminals and the guards.

• In the Farrelly Brothers comedy There's Something About Mary, the character Mary—played by Cameron Diaz—invites her date inside, saying "You want to watch Sportscenter?".

• 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; he states that the idea of a twenty-four-hour sports network would be ludicrous. This first appeared on ESPN.com.

• In one episode of King of the Hill, Hank mentions that the Gay Rodeo is a sport that he has seen on ESPN 3.

• The short-lived 1998 TV series Sports Night (by "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin) was based on an ESPN-style network, with the same witty banter between anchors.

• ESPN is referenced in a Simpsons' episode: Homer flips through various channels and stops on a channel which clearly lampoons ESPN, except the network's initials are PENS (an anagram of ESPN).

• In the film Mean Girls, a dumb blonde claims to have ESPN, when she intended to say ESP. (That joke has been used in many different shows and movies.)

• Many jokes have been made by comedians about fake obscure sports that are shown on ESPN. Dennis Miller mentioned watching "sumo rodeo", while George Carlin stated that ESPN showed "Australian dick wrestling".

• There are at least four children named after the network. By going to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15168029/?GT1=8618#storyContinued you can see that a recently born child has also been named ESPN.^[1]

ESPN business ventures

ESPN maintains the ESPN forums, message boards which can be located on www.espn.com. It consists of various sports such as baseball, basketball, football, NCAA sports, etc. It also is popular for its fantasy sports forums, which allows people to converse about trade ideas and get feedback on whether or not they should pull the trigger on certain trades in their fantasy leagues. It has individual forums for each team but also contains general forums where fans of all teams can gather and speak with each other. Other ESPN ventures include:

Current

• ESPN.com (1995–present)
• ESPNU.com (2006-present)
• ESPN The Magazine (1998–present)
• ESPN Deportes La Revista (2005–present)
• ESPN Original Entertainment (2001–present)
• ESPN Books (2004–present)
• ESPN Zone (1998–present)
• ESPY Awards (1993–present)
• ESPN Integration (2006–present)
• EXPN.com (–present)
• ESPN Online Games (2006–present)
• ESPN Broadband (2002–present)

Former

• Mobile ESPN (2006)

The ESPN family of networks

Television

• ESPN (1979–present)
• ESPN on ABC (2006-present, replacing ABC Sports)
• ESPN International (1989–present)
• ESPN2 (1993–present)
• ESPNEWS (1996–present)
• ESPN Classic (1997–present)
• ESPNU (2005–present)
• ESPN Deportes (2004–present)
• ESPNHD (2003–present)
• ESPN2HD (2005–present)
• ESPN Plus (–present)
• ESPN PPV (–present)

Internet

• ESPN Motion (2003–present)
• ESPN 360 (2005–present)

Radio

• ESPN Radio (1992–present)
• ESPN Deportes Radio (2005–present)

Reference

• ESPN Mediakit (2006). [4] Retrieved Feb. 13, 2006.

ESPN Classic Canada

See also

• List of programs broadcast by ESPN
• List of ESPN personalities
• Annual sporting events broadcast on ESPN
• ESPN Full Circle
• ESPN Major League Baseball
• NASCAR on ESPN
• The WNBA on ESPN2
• The NBA on ESPN
• ESPN auto racing broadcast teams
• ESPN College Basketball Broadcast Teams
• ESPN College Football Broadcast Teams
• ESPN MLB Broadcast Teams
• ESPN NBA Broadcast Teams
• ESPN NFL Broadcast Teams
• ESPN MLS/Soccer Broadcast Teams (FIFA World Cup Included)
• ESPN2 WNBA Broadcast Teams
• List of assets owned by Disney
• TSN
• Dish Network Channel Grid
• List of DirecTV channels

External links

• Official Site
• ESPN HD
• ESPN TV
• ESPN International
• ESPN/Star Sports(Asia)
• ESPN Forums