It was 35 years ago today that ESPN came on the air with 24-hour sports. I learned the ins and outs of Australian Rules Football at 2 AM and discovered curling!
You get twice the prize I got for being close. đŸ™‚
pogosays
I forget the guy who founded it (I sure Wiki has that) but he was a (former?) sportscaster in Springfield ma who wanted to put CT college basketball games (UCONN I assume, but I’m telling this story by memory) and arranged satilite time for regional stations to pick up the games…then the light bulb went off and he realized that any station in the country with a satilite receiver could pick up the game and then the other light bulb went off…that any sporting event could be picked up by any satilite receiver and the rest is history.
Christophersays
I generally think of the network’s acronym as being pronounced E-Span!
…any guesses of what ESPN stands for?
Entertainment and SPorts Network, if I recall correctly.
Now I will check with DuckDuckGo (my preferred non-tracking alternative to Google). Close, but not exactly right…
IIRC, it’s the Elias Sports Network. No idea who Elias is.
Must have been somebody’s inside joke.
I believe it’s Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.
(checking wiki) …. I win (if the wiki is right).
You get twice the prize I got for being close. đŸ™‚
I forget the guy who founded it (I sure Wiki has that) but he was a (former?) sportscaster in Springfield ma who wanted to put CT college basketball games (UCONN I assume, but I’m telling this story by memory) and arranged satilite time for regional stations to pick up the games…then the light bulb went off and he realized that any station in the country with a satilite receiver could pick up the game and then the other light bulb went off…that any sporting event could be picked up by any satilite receiver and the rest is history.
I generally think of the network’s acronym as being pronounced E-Span!