OPINIÃO. Bill Rasmussen, o pai da TV esportiva

Bill Rasmussen, the founder of ESPN, died on August 18, 2026, at age 93, according to Brazil Journal. USA Today had previously called him "the father of sports television" — a title earned by conceiving the idea of broadcasting sports 24 hours a day, every day.

The origin of that idea, per Brazil Journal, was necessity rather than strategy. In 1978, recently fired from the communications department of an American hockey team, Rasmussen and his son Scott were figuring out what to do with a block of satellite time they had purchased. The question that emerged from that conversation — why not a channel dedicated entirely to sports, running all the time? — became the business. Rasmussen would later distill it into a single line: "Sports don't stop at 6 o'clock."

To get the venture off the ground, Rasmussen pulled a $9,000 cash advance on his own credit card to secure satellite capacity. He then persuaded Anheuser-Busch, owner of the Budweiser brand and now part of AB InBev, to sign what was at the time a record advertising contract, on the argument that a loyal niche audience was worth more than a large but dispersed one. ESPN launched with SportsCenter as its opening program — a show that went beyond live game coverage to deliver scores, analysis, and sports news every day regardless of whether any games were being played, establishing the habit of following sports the way audiences follow daily news.

By 2026, Brazil Journal reports, ESPN operates in more than 60 countries across all continents and carries a value of approximately $30 billion — a figure that traces back to a maxed-out credit card and an idea no one initially wanted to fund. Rasmussen did not share in that financial outcome. He was pushed out of the company he founded by its new controlling shareholder less than a year after launch, leaving his operational role at ESPN in October 1980. He subsequently worked as a consultant for sports rights holders and media companies, participated in other sports and media ventures, and gave lectures recounting his story — which he also documented in his book Sports Junkies Rejoice: The Birth of ESPN.

Long-time ESPN anchor Chris Berman offered a character sketch cited by Brazil Journal: "He wasn't the type to see the glass half full. His was always full to overflowing with optimism." In an interview with Forbes that the piece also references, Rasmussen summarized his own philosophy without bitterness: "The harder you work, the luckier you get. That has been my mantra forever."

Rasmussen's legacy, as Brazil Journal frames it, is not a single network but a structural logic — the treatment of sport as constant content rather than episodic event — that now underpins all-sports radio stations, streaming platforms, and creator channels across every media format that followed him.