Bill Rasmussen

Bill Rasmussen’s entrepreneurial daring led to the world’s first 24-hour cable television network, ESPN, where he pioneered such innovations as “SportsCenter,” wall-to-wall coverage of NCAA regular season and “March Madness” basketball, and NFL draft coverage. He broke the advertising barrier to cable television by signing Anheuser Busch to the largest cable TV advertising contract ever. Rasmussen founded “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” in 1979. He has been called “The Father of Cable Sports” by USA Today (September 1994).

Rasmussen’s latest innovation, College Fanz, is changing the way college sports news and information is delivered to fans worldwide, just as his earlier creation, ESPN, changed the way people watched television. Rasmussen and his team launched College Fanz Sports Network 28 years to the day after launching his most famous earlier creation, ESPN.

On September 7, 2007, College Fanz Sports Network went live, and has become the world’s largest online college sports community, with students, alumni, and other fans of college sports. College Fanz Sports Network boasts over 21,000 web pages devoted to more than 1,400 colleges and universities throughout the United States competing in over 225,000 NCAA and NAIA athletic events.

Rasmussen has served as a consultant to the Big Ten Conference, and several of the conference’s individual member institutions, on television matters. He has also been a consultant with numerous other startup media and Internet companies. His Internet ventures include serving as Chairman of the Attitude Network, home of the highly successful Happy Puppy and Games Domain sites; and as Chairman of SportsatHome, a sports-themed game site that offered an array of virtual sports stadiums and games to play online within each of the stadiums.

After an earlier successful entrepreneurial venture in the advertising business, Rasmussen’s career in the media began at WTTT radio in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1962. In 1965, he moved to WWLP-TV, Springfield, where he spent eight years as Sports Director and two years as News Director. During these years, he handled numerous football, basketball, baseball and hockey play-by-play assignments on both radio and television.

In 1974, he left Springfield to join hockey’s New England Whalers as Communications Director. At the conclusion of the 1977-78 World Hockey Association season, Rasmussen was fired by the Whalers. Thus began the pursuit of the ESPN dream, incorporating the fledgling network on July 14, 1978. Fourteen months later, at 7 p.m. on September 7, 1979, Rasmussen’s dream, ESPN, became reality.

Rasmussen has been active in numerous charity events, including nine years with the highly-acclaimed Winged Foot Scholarship Program, and five years with a Senior PGA Tour event, and is a frequent participant in celebrity charity golf events throughout the country.

Among his honors and awards, Rasmussen received the Bill Conners Communication Aware from the Jim Thorpe Association in 2004. He was named to Rutgers University’s Wall of Fame in 2002, and in 2001 received the prestigious Order of Achievement from Lambda Chi Alpha. In 1999 he was inducted into the Enfield, Connecticut Athletic Hall of Fame and in 1997 into the Connecticut Sports Museum and Hall of Fame. Rasmussen was named to The Sports 100, honoring the 100 most important people in American Sports History. His place in sports history was recognized by Sports Illustrated in 1994 when he was honored as one of the “Forty for the Ages,” one of forty individuals who has significantly altered and elevated the world of sport during the second half of the 20th century.

A United States Air Force veteran, Rasmussen received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from DePauw University (Greencastle, Indiana) and his MBA from Rutgers University.

Notable honors include:
1994: Sports Illustrated - "Forty for the Ages"
1996: The Sports 100 - The One Hundred Most Important People in American Sports History (# 57)
1997: Induction into the Connecticut Sports Museum and Hall of Fame.
1999: Induction into the Hall of Fame in Enfield, CT.
2001: The Order of Achievement from Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.
2002: The Wall of Fame - Rutgers University.
2004: Jim Thorpe Association - Bill Conners Communications Award