Sports Junkies Rejoice : The Birth of ESPN - Hardcover

The concept of a total sports network operating around the clock defied imagination, yet it reached fruition in just 14 months. Naysayers abounded - especially among the broadcast giants of the day.

Today, ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in Sports, reaches more than 74 million U. S. homes and is delivered in 20 languages to 180 countries around the world.

The ESPN concept sprang from an irritable discussion between a father and his son Scott, while stalled in a Connecticut traffic jam in August 1978.

The following year became a non-stop effort to negotiate program rights with the NCAA, to secure interim and long term financing, to assemble a staff and to complete production facilities in time for the September 7th launch.

In their wildest dreams, the Rasmussen duo - or anyone else for that matter - could not have guessed the magnitude of the idea, the impact it would have on sports broadcasting, or the global acceptance that it has today as ESPN celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Sports Junkies Rejoice - The Birth of ESPN is the fast-paced, first-person story of that incredible year of birth. The reader will be fascinated by this behind-the-scenes look at the people, the plans, the emotions and events that led to the launch of the world's first around-the-clock all-sports network.

ESPN is now a multifaceted communications conglomerate offering four TV networks, a 24 hour radio network, twenty international networks, a magazine and entertainment venues. In a perspective that only history affords us, the concept that defied imagination is now the world standard for sports television.