Be a part of Youth Entrepreneurs Business Breakfast Series with it's final stops in Wichita and Kansas City next week. The founder of ESPN, Bill Rasmussen, will be speaking on Thursday, November 17 and Friday, November 18. For more information and tickets visit yeks.org. Read below to hear a snipit of what Mr. Rasmussen will share with audiences during Global Entrepreneurship Week.
11.11.11
Ever wonder about how big companies got started? Corporate lore talks of Microsoft, Apple, Ford, HP, ESPN and countless others being hatched in a garage or basement or in some obscure lab. While the physical locations vary, the fact is that all companies - big and small - were hatched in the mind of their founder - the entrepreneurs who, against all odds, pursued their dream and passion until their vision became reality.
ESPN is one of those companies. Starting with just three people in June 1978, The Worldwide Leader in Sports has grown into the largest media conglomerate in the world.
Today it's a no-brainer! Let's go back to August 1978 when my son, Scott, and I laid out plans for sports around the clock - 24 hours a day / 7 days a week . . . the skeptics were legion. "Who's going to watch? . . . It will never work . . . There will never be enough interesting sports events . . . There is no advertising on cable . . ." And so it went. Skeptics were everywhere. There were very few believers.
I must admit that we had a few things to learn and many questions to ask, but that's what entrepreneurs do - every day! You don't have to know everything about everything to move forward with your idea. You do have to believe in your idea with all your heart and every fiber of your being . . . in other words sell your idea with passion and perseverance.
We reduced our quest to these simple facts:
F - financing
A - advertising
C - content
T - technology
S - subscribers
We devoted all of our energy and passion to learning and then implementing action in each of these five critical areas.
From November 1978 through January 1979, we added five more people to our team and by March 1, 1979, the entire framework for ESPN was in place:
- Getty Oil had agreed to finance the project;
- Anheuser-Busch agreed to the largest advertising contract in cable TV history at the time;
- the NCAA had agreed to provide programming content;
- RCA Americom had agreed to provide satellite distribution throughout the United States;
- several major cable systems had agreed to deliver our programming to their subscribers across the country.
ESPN was born and shaped with the efforts and determination of just 8 people - AND it all happened in 9 months. Six months later, on September 7, 1979, ESPN exploded upon the world with 80 people on board. Today, 6,000 full time employees and thousands of contractors and free-lancers deliver ESPN's 52 networks to all seven continents.
It is an amazing story, born from adversity. I attribute our success to a dedicated team that believed in my vision with passion and pursued it with a determination that was unparalleled.
Bill Rasmussen
ESPN Founder
Nov. 11, 2011
