Bill Rasmussen's Enduring Legacy Lives On Bill Rasmussen, a onetime sportscaster for a Massachusetts TV station who borrowed $9,000 on his credit card on the way to launching the sports behemoth ESPN, died Tuesday at the age of 93. He died of complications from Parkinson's disease at his home in Land O' Lakes, Florida, where he had been living since his diagnosis in July 2019. Rasmussen's vision for a 24-hour sports network was met with skepticism, but he remained undeterred.
"Everyone said, 'Who's going to watch sports 24 hours a day?' Well, no one obviously," he recalled in a 2012 interview. With the help of a $9,000 credit card advance, Rasmussen incorporated ESPN on July 14, 1978.