#569: ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then I'll see you through some questions. No se cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoscellary Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world class performers to tease out the routines, habits, etc. that you can apply to your own life. You will get plenty of all of that in this special episode, which features an interview from my 2017 TV show, Fearless. The less is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less.

Not to be fearless. Fearless features in-depth long form conversations with top performers focusing on how they've overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big along the way. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free. My dear listeners, so thank you, Wild West. You can find the video of this episode, which is gorgeous. I think they did an incredible job on youtube.com slash Tim Ferris. Remember two R's two S, YouTube.com slash Tim Ferris, and eventually you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash Tim Ferris. So You can swing over there and see what is currently up. Before we get started, just a little bit more on Wild West. Spearheaded by actor, producer, and past podcast guest Vin Vaughn, Wild West has produced a string of hit movies, including the internship, Couple's retreat, four Christmases, and the breakup. In twenty twenty, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act. Starring Jimmy O'Yang and Cedric the Entertainer. In addition to Fearless, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN's thirty for thirty episode about the eighty-five Bears, and the Netflix animated show F Is for Family. Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers.

Subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon and Wild West Comedy Show. And now, without further ado. Please enjoy. This wide ranging conversation from fearless. I'm Tim Ferris, author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and now TV host.

I've spent my entire adult life asking questions, then scouring the globe to find the answers. On this show, I'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears. We'll dig into the hard times, big mistakes, tough decisions and how they got through it all. The goal isn't to be fearless, the goal is to learn to fear less. Welcome to Fearless.

I'm your host, Tim Harris, and on this stage, we will be deconstructing world class performers of all types. to uncover the specific tactics and strategies they've used to overcome doubt. tackle hard decisions, and ultimately succeed. By show of hands, how many people here wait for, say, the morning paper to get their sports scores? It's Big Fat Zero.

How many of you can remember when television wasn't available 24 hours a day? Anyone? Alright. of my generation are a little bit older. Got a few hands. And when I say Bristol, Connecticut. What do you think of

After meeting my guest tonight, you'll associate it with one thing, and that is Sports. Against all odds, he set out to change the course of television and the status quo as we know it. And in the process, he created one of the most iconic and recognizable brands in the world. Please welcome. The founder of ESPN, Bill Rasmus.

Bill, we have so much to talk. I have so many questions for you. I hope you don't have dinner plans. Is that an invitation? I think that might be an invitation, but before we get to all the questions I'd love to ask, we have a video. That I wanna roll and then I'd love for you to describe for people what it actually is. Okay. So let's take a look.

Yea, verily a sampler of wonders. Hi. I'm Lee Leonard welcoming you to Bristol, Connecticut, 110 miles from New York City. Why Bristol? because here in Bristol is where all the sports action is As of right now.

Now here's another in innovation. on ESPN. And it's going to be a big part of our future. The sports center With George Grant.

He'll have the latest on what's happening all around. George. Thanks, Lee, and welcome everyone to the ESPN Sports Center. On this very desk in the coming weeks and months. We'll be filling you in on the pulse of sporting activity not only around the country. But around the world as well.

It takes an interview. We'll do it. It takes play by play. We'll do it. If it takes commentary

We'll do that too. That's the way we'll function from the ESPN Sports Center. We'll be filling you in on further updates as the broadcast progresses. We're gonna delve into, of course, the path that led you to that point, but what was the video that we just saw?

Uh we do have that. So we may I can give it to you right verbatim if you want. I'm ready, I'm ready. Because we were pretty involved that night, as you might imagine. If you're a fan, if you're a fan, what you'll see in the next minutes, hours and days to follow may convince you you've gone to sports seven. Beyond that blue horizon is a limitless world of sports, and right now You're standing on the edge of tomorrow. Sports twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. From ESPN, the Total Sports Cable Network.

That was it. So this this I guess leads me to one of my very first questions. I've read that you were obsessed with sports as a kid. Now did you have an impeccable memory for different aspects of sports, but what what type of obsession was it? Well it all started This is a very appropriate time to be talking about this.

But since the Cubs have finally won. Are there any Cub fans around? I have to have Cub fans. My grandfather actually saw all six games of the nineteen oh six world series when the White Sox beat the Cubs, the only all Chicago World Series ever. And he talked to me about baseball And and the White Sox, because I was living on the South Side.

From a very young age. And before I knew it I had a glove in my hand and a ball in my hand and and by the time I was in the fifth grade I was playing in organized games and it just I've always been obsessed with it. And for some reason I have a memory for statistics. And I can you know.

Can talk about the Cubs or the White Sox or whatever, and names stick in my head. From Days when I was living in Chicago And the Cubs didn't have Chris Bryan at third base, they had Stan Hack at third base. And they didn't have Rizzo at first base, they had Phil Cabaretta at first base.

I mean it's the and it's just always been there. I don't know why. And Do you remember your first baseball game that you saw on television or your first

On uh television or otherwise? It was nineteen forty seven. The Yankees were playing the White Sox. And My father I had played a game somewhere. My father said, Let's stop and I want to show you something because one of the local establishments Quote unquote.

had a T V and they were gonna that was nineteen forty seven. Must have been WGN probably uh doing the the game. Picture was about this big. And it was in a cabinet about as big as the dresser in your bedroom. So it'd be like if you took your smartphone and just put it on your wall. That's sort of basically what the TV looked like. Yeah.

Yeah. That's about it. Sizewise. Tell me a little bit more about Your father. He was always encouraging. He encouraged all of us. We were all going to get a college education. I was the first one in the entire family. He was the eleventh of eleven children. I was the first one to get

graduate from college. And always a hundred percent supportive. But I'll tell you he was a real taskmaster and The deal was my Two brothers and sister used to come with me if I we'd pile in the car if I was playing game because it was we're all gonna support Bill, you know, and that was great. And if I got a hit we would all get a soft ice cream. Cone on the way home.

So I had a lot of real supporters on the side there on the you know, on the sideline, my sure two brothers and sister. And if I didn't get a hit, my father would drive the same route and he wouldn't even take his foot off the gas, he'd drive right by. And my brothers and sister would just be all over me. What did you do? Why didn't you you know you should have run faster for this, you should have done that. Why did you swing and miss? Why did you strike? Yeah, for us. This is the one. So that's a very I mean maybe I'm just projecting here, but uh fourteen, fifteen, sixteen now is a very I didn't hadn't found my footing in the world that that type of pressure would be

a real thing to consider. Did you How did you did that affect how you played or did you say anything to yourself before you just I just always want to get it hit, you know, and everybody wants to get a hit. Yeah, everybody wants to bet a thousand yet, nobody can. It's just the way it is. And Some days you go four for four and some days you go all for four.

And if we would jump to college. What did you think you were going to be? You know, w when we were in college, the only thing we all knew was we were gonna go on active duty in the service. We had no There was no thought about what was gonna happen next. We uh and that was literal. Our choices were

Unlike Many years later. We had we did have choices, four choices. Do you want to be called to active dutember fifteenth, november fifteenth, january fifteenth, or march fifteenth? That was it.

Turns out they didn't they didn't really mean that. They just took you when they wanted and my name came up in November and Do you know how hard it is you've Graduated from college, you want to go to f six. Gamefully somewhere.

And they say, Well what about sir Well, yeah, actually I have to go on active duty on November fifteenth. No jobs. I mean, I graduated on June sixth. And I ended up Uh actually

Being a I'm not even sure what you call it, but I was Unloading trucks of produce at night at the local grocery store. That was all you couldn't get a job. Uh but nobody minded because that was what we had to do. That was during the Korean War, of course.

Now if if you hadn't been in during war time Had you thought of or was baseball even a prospect? Oh yeah. Oh I was gonna play third base for the White Sox. Man, look out. I was gonna do it. But but you don't mean that as say you know, a a third grader saying Some day I'm gonna be a professional baseball player. You actually had the chops. Oh no, I was I was gonna play. That's all there was to it. I

I could run and feel and one summer we were playing a summer league. And an unknown. Then and now. Could have been record was I never got caught steaming the whole season.

And so we were in the last game of the season. I thought if I steal one more I didn't have to run, I hadn't been caught all season. If I get one you know, always want to get one more. That's gonna be pretty cool. End the game, end the season. Nobody's ever done that. Man, I had second base stolen. I said, I've done it. I let up for one second. What happened?

Paul was there and I was a caught and I was out. From that moment and I can feel that moment right now sitting here talking to you, Tim. I let myself down and I've never done that. I wanna go all the way through the finish line. Every time and I and I l I think of that lesson.

I thought about that in business. I thought about that when I was in the air force. And sitting here today talking to you. Just keeping your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball, keep focused. Never, never let up until you're

And that's the difference, right? I mean it's the last that last two percent. Which separates. Maybe it's last maybe it's the last two tenths or two one hundredth, whatever it is. How did that translate to after college? I mean you have a very long resume, you did a lot of different jobs, but How did that say translate to whether it's the air force or the business world?

Well When I started I got out of the air force in uh November nineteen fifty six and went to work for Westinghouse right after the first of the year. And was it at Westinghouse that you started to learn about advertising, television, things like that. Yep, it was. And I was working in the advertising department. And one of the things to answer your preceding question was

The sales department would go out and they the sales manager would have all of these This was a national company, obviously. I don't know that. say fourteen, twelve or fourteen districts across the country or regions. And they would go out and set up this great program.

Get all of the materials printed. Get all the um The corrugated Displays printed, get everything in ready. And the problem was that the

Uh program would be introduced and it'd be fourteen weeks later before they got the material for the program. So I went to the advertising manager and I said, I have a great idea. I said we've got to improve this and I'll I Did y are you familiar with carbon interleaved forms? Does that ever ring does that even carbon interleave forms.

They leave an impression? I'm just guessing here. That's exactly what it was. And so I said let's make one and we'll color code them one for this the the large lamp division, the automotive division, the photo. Photo division, so on. Different colors for each one. So if you're a guy who's selling photo lamps You send in the right color.

We've got three copies. Yeah, Still didn't improve things. Tell you what, I'll quit and start a business and we'll do that. And business was Ad Eight Inc started in nineteen fifty nine.

It lasted. It may still be there, but I know in that fifty years later it was still functioning in Carney, New Jersey. So you identified the need within a business while you were still getting paid and then offered to solve it by By quitting and starting my own business. We did your business. And we made a did you talk about making decisions about business? Course.

you know, we stepped out and we had Westinghouse and we said, Well we'll see who else can do it. We went down the street, you know and Small business here, small business here, small. Because small businesses are more The pain in the neck to take care of. And try to collect your money.

Really tough. Whereas Westinghouse The end of the month, check arrived automatically. So we decided we would stop talking to little businesses and we went to uh Well we went to General Electric, we went to SH Green Stamps, which was a big company at the time, General Foods.

All the big companies I said, great idea. You know what? Never had it. Never had a Default after that. So we learned another lesson. Do business with people who are good business people.

And actually have the funds and the budget. This became a gigantic operation. I mean it seems like it was an immediate hit. And how did you segue then from this? Broadcasting.

This was pretty repetitive every day. You go in and you have a big order and you fill it and they pay you and so on and And I was getting old, I was approaching thirty. I didn't Ha. I didn't want my life to go by w something.

Well when I found out I couldn't play baseball, I decided that I could become a broadcaster. I had no radio experience obviously because all I've been is in the air force and Westinghouse in this I'm not sure if you've if you've seen a magazine called Broadcasting. And they used to run little two line ads like little one ads. There was one for sportscaster in Westerly, Rhode Island. And I can remember just as we're sitting here now walking in. Hi, how are you? And so on.

Did you bring a tape? Oh. Didn't bring a tape. No. Well what station do you work for? I've never worked for a radio station.

Yeah, well You wrote you you answered this thing for a sportscaster, you said. Why do you think you can be s be a sports guest? I said, Because I know I can do it. He said, You're kidding me. You don't have a tape, you've never done it, but you know you can do it. I said, Yep.

He said, You know what? Based on based on this approach, I'm putting a new station on the air in Amherst, Massachusetts. And if you'll help me put it on the air, you're my sportscaster. So pause for a second. So Mm-hmm.

So the the force of will sort of Shit spa, right? That that that that just Will that into existence. There's gotta be a little bit more to it. Did you just stare him down? Or was it you you let the silence do the work? I mean what what else was it?

Well no, I just told my story and I guess it was just the silence and he pondered not very long. Yeah. And What I didn't realize is this station was going on the air. This is now October.

He said I'll start you January first. Because they were going to have to do Field strength testing of the signal and so on. What I didn't realize it was Amherst, Massachusetts, in January. The snow was about hip deep and you had to go out into the farm fields and hold up this little

You know. Can you hear me now? One of those kind of things. And so we did that. And uh We went on the air on April first. Wait, did you have to do that? Yeah, that's that that was my that's what I had. So I had to go do that. And uh we went on the air April first, and then I

University of Massachusetts was located still is in Amherst, Massachusetts. There was a small school then of about ten thousand students. I mean great great school. So I said, Why don't we do m U mass football? He didn't care. He wasn't a sports fan. He said, You know, I hired you as a sports guy. So I went up I met the uh introduced myself the athletic director. Hi. Warren McGurk was his name. I am Bill Rasmussen, local radio station.

We'd really like to talk to you about doing your football games. He said, Do you want to do the games? Go ahead. I said. I didn't say it to him, I said w to myself, What did you say? Go ahead. No requirement for uh discussion, no requirement for a contract, and especially no rights fee. So off we went and got the rights to do

U masked football, but of course I had never done a football game'cause I had never done any radio before I got there. So how'd that go? What about what was your first First game. Like. It was fun. Okay.

It was it was the University of Massachusetts that University of Maine in Orno, Maine. We didn't have anybody else at the station, so I I've been talking to their sports information people and the direct sports information director. Well, veteran who'd been there for some twenty years.

Said he would be my color guy. So all the way from Ma from Amherst to Orno, Maine, I was thinking Should I tell him I've never done a football game before? Worse yet, should I tell him I've never even seen a college football game live before? I said nah.

Extraneous. Yeah, let's still figure that out on his own. Let's just go for it. That's what we did. We just went in and started talking. Not a problem, never heard a word. Uh Massachusetts one fourteen to nothing. We drove all the way back and he never said a word and

About I didn't know you hadn't done this or didn't nothing. I never said anything. He never tells. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. We did the whole season. It was it was great. I mean if you if you don't try huh you never get anywhere. No, I agree. I you have to try. W when I do something new, I like to try a lot of new things. I'm a novelty seeker and uh very frequently unqualified for whatever it is that I'm trying to do. A very good friend of mine, uh said once, uh very successful investor, he said if I always did what I was qualified to do, I'd be

pushing a broom somewhere. And I really believe that at the same time. I

Get a little nervous, maybe. before doing something especially publicly that I haven't done before. Did you have any type of What is your self talk like? If anything.

And what is that I I just warm up with. It's kinda like a movie in my head. I know it's gonna work. I've already seen it up here before it happens. You're visualizing it work. Yeah. You have to prepare. And I do that to this day if I'm going someplace to to do something that requires Specifics. I'll know all the specifics frontwards, backwards, and

And all of the specifics around it. Before we get started. And as you mentioned earlier. For some reason I've been blessed with a really good memory. Well it's a powerful asset to have also. I mean just as in terms of types of memory.

For your chosen field. It was a very nice movie. It was a very good one. Yeah. And You have I mean you've winged it a fair amount, which I th I mean as a compliment. Uh with preparation. A lot. A lot. A lot. Okay.

I won't hedge. I think a lot of people who are watching Might think. My God, this guy is just exuding more confidence than I've seen. in every extended member of my family combined. So they might say, Well, this guy has no weaknesses, he's never had any self doubt. What is one of those things that that wasn't

Well, getting fired is always kind of a traumatic moment. Well the one that the one that's most particular to me was getting fired at I I was uh with the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association. For four years and the

Mid seventies. They uh the World Hockey Association had been around for four years and they'd been in the playoffs, won the championship one year and were in the playoffs. And a nineteen. Seventy seven, seventy eight, they missed the playoffs. And you know when a team misses the playoffs after all that success, they have to have some changes. They fired everybody in the front office, me included. None of us had, by the way, skated one stride for the team that lost all of it.

All those games and miss the playoffs. That was Memorial Day weekend. Following week I was supposed to do a T V show to talk about the Whalers past and the Whalers future with a guy in in Hartford. And I called him and said, You know, Ed, you probably don't want to talk to me because and he said Yeah, yeah. We're gonna do the show, I said no, I don't think so because I was just fired. Well you gotta come down and talk to me. I don't have anybody else to talk to. So So come on down.

So I went down and saw him that first week in June. We began to talk about uh Maybe doing some Connecticut basketball, or maybe Maybe why not the whole state of Connecticut? Why not add Wesley and then Yale and Fairfield and so on? And that was that was a really great idea. I mean There was no big east then. So we said okay.

So right away I said, Okay, we gotta figure out how to ho hook them together. I knew how to put a tel uh a network together because telco I'd done it with Radio in Massachusetts and with the Wailers and so on. So I call uh SNEPCO, Southern New England telephone company. And the guy's name was Bill something, I remember that. I can't remember his last name now.

I told him what I wanted to do. Connecticut had all of five cable systems operating. That's all. Five. I said I wanted to hook'em all together so we could do A broadcast. Point from one point to all of them at the same time. How much it's gonna cost? Simple question.

Put them together. Tell me how much it's gonna cost the more. Well you're getting no Card ahead of the horse here, he said. Should take us some time to put together and we have to go through and do a

evaluation or something. I said, Well how long is it? I think it's gonna be You know. Forty eight hours I'll have an answer. I said it takes what? He said eighteen months. So I

Went back and said to This thing gonna work, it's gonna take eighteen months. He was officing at the Pineville, Connecticut. branch of United Cable was headquartered in Denver, and the general manager heard us talking one day and he said, You know what?

Yeah, should I I don't know about that idea of yours hooking all the cables together, he said, but here's something you might look into. R CA has got this thing called a satellite. Nobody seems to know much about it. But I've got the phone number for R C A American New York. I'll just give it to you. You call'em and you figure it out.

So I said I like to speak with someone about NC America I'm about. Satellites. Oh yes, sir. Wait a minute.

I'll get you somebody then. I came on and said. Helper and all may I help you? Said yeah, just I briefly describe what I want to do and he said, Where are you in Connecticut?

I thought wow, this is pretty good. Told him and he said, I'll be up there tomorrow morning. And we didn't have an office. Where'd you gonna come up to? This is one of another one of those what do you mean you don't have a tape situations I So I just so we went down and I talked to the vice president give me the number. He got me into it. So

I said, can we use your conference room? Very nicely appointed conference room. They spent a lot of money putting together you said You have a company policy, I have to charge you for it. I thought, Oh boy. He said, Well twenty bucks be too much. So he gave him a twenty dollar bill and we had the conference room and he came up and he explained everything and at the end of his whole presentation he said there's one thing That we used to offer, but we don't anymore.

Because nobody has ever been interested in it. Twenty four hours a day. Seven days a week. And it's a five year contract. Thirty four thousand one hundred and sixty seven dollars a month. Okay, and so he went off and my son Scott and I started talking about that overnight. We call him the next morning and

And it was really a funny conversation the next morning. I didn't know the difference between satellite You know. Jargon.

So I just called and I said to him, Al, we'll take one of those. Yeah. He said one of what? The thing you were talking about. Transponder that satellite thing we were talking about. Yeah, that's what I mean.

And that started it. So he said, You've got it. We'll we'll paper it over, obviously. So that was all we needed. We went down into uh Hartford, the capital of the

Connecticut. Incorporated ESPN on Bastille Day, july fourteenth, nineteen seventy eight. Off we went. So we've talked a lot about Satellites, transponders, everything in between.

I'll take one of those. So I thought it would be fun to bring up a video that explains how some of this works. Years ago, tales of Julne and Buck Rogers were made of dreams and wild bits of imagination. Today modern technology has taken those dreams and that imagination and turned it into a reality. It allows us to bring a television picture into your home via satellite.

The picture you're watching right now has been taken by a camera sent through some sophisticated equipment to this Earth transmitting station. Which in turn feeds a satellite Located 22,300 miles above the equator, just south of Hawaii. Our cameraman takes a picture at a football stadium, for example. That picture is fed into our ESPN remote truck. out of the remote truck to an earth transmitting station, up to the satellite over the equator, back down to an earth receiving station.

Over a cable in your home town into your television set. In your living room. Alright. Technology that is best. So

Everybody got it? That was like virtual reality back in the day. Alright. One take too, by the way. That was the only take because it was six thirty and we were going on the air in thirty minutes. They said don't mess it up. Don't mess it up. It's an ESPN.

Uh What was the original incarnation? You said you incorporated it. Mm-hmm. Uh when you incorporated it. What in your mind was the SPN and how did you choose how did you choose the name? We knew we were gonna do twenty four hour sports at that point. We had we had made that decision.

And a uh colleague I there's a partner in an advertising firm, one of their clients was the Connecticut Natural Gas Company, who was running a Promote for an energy Saving program.

Recognize letters? E. S Hey. To do animation in those days was very, very expensive. And we had no money. We started this whole thing with a nine thousand dollar credit card cash advance. So you know, you h you d you have to husband your dollars. They had this great graphic and there was uh

Something circling the globe and here was the you know, clouds and all this motion and they had done it. It said ESP, ESP going around and And so he called and he said, You know, I think you guys have a great idea, I'd like to come to work for you and I said. You know, we couldn't hire anybody. I said, Well I'll tell you what

Yeah. That Connecticut natural gas thing, if you can bring that Graphic. Minus the you know, no audio. Just bring that graphic and we can put our own

Words to it. You're hired. He called me the next morning, he said, When do I start? I nearly fell over. I couldn't believe he'd pull it off. He got permission from Connecticut Natural Gas to take the stuff that they had paid for. The the graphic, the visual.

And so we had the ESP. Well That wasn't gonna work. Yeah. S P and sports programming network, but somebody already had a satellite programming network, so we couldn't use it.

So he had the E on the front end and we figured we could add the N on the back end and And we'll see. That the original version of V SPN was the E period, S period. P period. Network. And it was a kooky looking logo, I have to tell you.

And uh it sounds a lot like registering These days, you know, website domains, you're like, Oh well, that one's taken, this is one's taken. Well if you add a letter here, subtract one here, add another one there. Yeah. So now it's time to move ahead and we're looking for funds. You got a nice chunk of change. We can talk about I think it was nine thousand, thirty thousand kind of family and friends, correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, that's right. And then Getty.

No quite. There was an interim step in. There's an interim step. We had some appointments with some very, very Big and powerful companies. Uh The Pittsburgh play class people, um The uh Campbell Soup Foundation. We I mean there were

Big companies and Yeah, was staff broadcasting, do you remember that? They went out of business. I don't know at what point along the way. Anyway. We went out there. I visited with them.

I actually met with the board and the chairman hosted me. We had a delightful lunch. We talked a little bit and then he walked me to the front door and out into the parking lot for my rental car and he said We really appreciate your coming and figuratively just you know, patting me on the head and saying. You're delightful young man. Thank you for coming today. But I have to tell you your idea simply will not work. Oh and one other thing.

There will be no cable television three years from today. Tef broadcasting went out of business. I just don't remember when. Cable television's live and well. How did How did you feel? When he

He said that to you and dismissed you in the parking lot. I thought he made a mistake. He was a nice man. I wasn't gonna say anything nasty to him. I wasn't uh I had no negative reaction to him. I just No, he was wrong. I just thought he made a mistake. He had a great opportunity and they might still be around today if he had made the right decision. That sounds happy, I don't mean it, that's it. Yeah. But that was the sixth company we've been to, and then we ended up

coming out to get the oil. Met with a vice president and explained the whole thing and he was very skeptical and so on. But what I didn't know is that he was a gentleman who Really liked. The idea. Because it was putting him close to television and he lived in Hollywood and all this kinda stuff.

And many many years later this finance manager told me he said you don't know this. But his office was on the eighteenth floor and he called me when you left his office and he said, I swear before you got The elevator got to the bottom floor. He had called me and said, George, we're going in the television business. Because he wanted to be in the television business. Was this a chicken and the egg issue? Were you basically saying we've

Getty family's totally behind us. We got this nailed down, so you should really give us the programming and then just those two, it was You see the jugglers can throw five of them in the air at the same time? Yeah. Here's and this literally happened. If we were talking to Getty We were doing very well with RCA and the satellite, although we hadn't signed a contract yet.

Well yeah. But they were contractly obligated to do you because they put the paper down, right? Yeah. Nice. Good move. We uh are making a lot of progress with the cable operators. We have well how many they never asked how many we had signed early on, but we were making a lot of progress with them. uh and program with the N CA. It's natural for the NCA. Now if we're talking to the NCAA they say, Well how are you gonna finance this? Oh We're talking to Getty Oil.

They are one hundred percent behind this. As a matter of fact, their finance managers coming in the next meeting so we can explain all the And it just went like that. And of course when we were talking to the cable operators, it was we've got the financing with Ketty, we've got the programming with The N C A and all we need is you to let your your subscribers know. And they will be fans of ours and customers of yours and increase your Yeah.

So the so the programming though but I mean that's the the lifeblood in a lot of ways. I mean you need the capital, but you also need the programming. So this is a good point to talk about something we have here that I'm not gonna open up and we're gonna get to you have broken arm if you open that one. Yeah, I can't open this. This is a shrink wrapped copy of the original ESPN pitch deck. to the N C double A. A why is this shrink wrapped? Well if you're and then B, can you describe it? If you hand it to me, I'll show you what we did. This is really easy.

We had a very creative printer and he was very much on our side helping us get things done. I don't know if you can see what this says. He said, I'm gonna design this for you'cause you don't know what you're doing. I said, Okay. And I said well w we've got to get these copies out to the NCA and they said no no no I'm not uh sh you cannot do that. He printed six copies, shrink wrapped all of them, and s and I said, Why are we shrink wrapping him?

He said because if you put an open book in front of somebody in a meeting, they will begin to flip through it before you finish saying what you have to say. If you put a shrink wrap book in front of'em. They won't they'll be looking right and left until somebody else starts to open it. They won't touch theirs. And you get to finish your story and then you cue them and say now Open your

Presentation then and then we walk very smart. And I've used this as an example I can't tell you how many times. It's a very, very effective tool. Amazing. That is that that's because I've seen so many pitches. I mean w in my other life I do a lot of uh investing in early tech mostly and I've seen so many dozens of pitches fail. Because what happens is exactly what you said. People start flipping ahead.

They're busy, they're distracted, and they're not listening at all to what the person is saying. And and and before that person can get two sentences in, they've already found an objection and it's game over. So what then tell us more about the pitch meeting with the N C double A. So what were what were other keys of the pitch? Well, at first the first meeting was in October when we presented this book. So he said, Well I'll have to talk to Walter about this. But he said the best thing you can do is keep working through the T V committee. So we went to a T V committe meeting in October, we went to another one in December.

We went to another one in January and I'm getting tired of going to T V meetings. We don't seem to I've never seen Walter Byers at this point. I still haven't seen him. On January twenty fifth, we're at the Kansas City Marriott Airport. doing yet another T V committee meeting and the back door of the uh meeting room opens and it's Walter Byers comes in and sits sits down. Right in the middle of a sentence doesn't say excuse me, doesn't say And he does have a question. He just comes in and says he'll see us here. There he is. Yeah, where he is. He's there. So we I kept talking.

I I mean literally I kept talking and he stood up and he said, How do I right in the middle, no introduction I mean everybody knew who he was. How do I know that you're not just on a fishing exposition, you're just looking to use our name to go out and raise some money? I and

To this minute, sitting here talking to you, Tim, I don't know why I said it. You give us the name of your bank and on July first we'll Deposit fifty percent of whatever amount we come to an agreement. Uh

Set back down. Two guys next to me, J B Dougherty. From K S Suite and George Connor, the financial guy from Getty, turned about as white as this table. And

Worse than that. Waller gets up, walks out the back door and slams the door and leaves. I was sure it was all over. Uh Copage adjourned the meeting. Tom Hansen came up and said Walter wondered if you could

Stay over another night and come out to the office and meet with us. And that started that was January twenty fifth. By March first we had a written contract signed. Yeah. So let's

Let's About Um The launch itself.

So you get these pieces of the puzzle arranged. Uh you managed to juggle successfully. And you have these incredible commitments. And by the way, I want to just underscore something for folks. It seems like And

You can get really, really far in life, further than you than you would expect just by asking why not. I've noticed you brought that up a couple of times, but Why not? What's worse that could happen. And uh The launch though I really want to dig into so between signing all of these folks. Getting all these commitments.

And your first air date. How much time? Colapsed. Uh, we signed the NCA on March one. Mm-hmm. We hired Chet Simmons from NBC. He came on board July thirty first.

We were s ass signing subscribers, cable subs subscribers, multiple system operators all through that period. Chet came on board on uh July thirty first and we said we're going out of the year September seventh and he said no we're not because the building hadn't even topped they hadn't even finished the walls of the building to the point where they could put the tree on top and say Well this is high as we're going, you know. Chet was convinced we couldn't go on, but the contractor said we'll have it ready for you. And they did.

There's that's kind of a picture of what it looked like. Now that looks like the same tie that we saw in that video earlier. Was that the same day? No. Well yeah, we finished the building by six thirty. No, that wasn't the same day, but it probably was the same time. So we have a photo of you guys in the control room behind the scenes. You could see how positive we all were. So what is the conversation happening in this room?

But in general, I mean were there uh what was paint a picture for us of the that day. picture at six thirty at night and we're going on the air at seven. We hadn't recorded some of these things by that time. So there was a little bit of Angst. building among people.

And we still had the contractor outside cleaning windows'cause we had all glass windows so people could see into the Control room into here and there. And speaking of the master control room next to the studio to run the show. It didn't work. Yes, being actually one in the air from a remote truck out behind the building.

We were on the air with the SBN for about a month from the remote truck out back. Which is kinda funny. But that's that's the way it was. What were some of the with the E S PN of the the best And worst. Decisions.

That you made. I think the best decision was Sports Center. I mean You have to understand the context of the day, ABC, NBC, and CBS they uh commanded ninety three percent of the audience at six thirty. That I mean three percent. Ninety three percent. America tuned in to Evening news.

And we said we were gonna put Sports Center on at six thirty. What what do you think the first reaction was from everybody Outside of our Enthusiastic little bunch. You're crazy. You're crazy. They have ninety three percent, I said, but the other seven percent will watch us.

What do you mean the other seven but Maybe they're sports fans. Fast forward many, many years, and I don't know what it is today, but I know it's under fifteen percent. Watch the big three networks, and of course there are a lot more channels and so on. I don't know what the I know there are many nights that sports center has and the depending on what's happening in the sports world They produce some pretty big numbers.

So you have a lot of hours to fill. Twenty four hours. A lot of hours. And so you had to In some cases.

Really slot in a wide spectrum of different sports. So I thought it would be fun to take a look at Just a handful of those sports. From Penn State University, ESPN brings you the NCAA Championship Fencing. So

We go into a Vid Number three of the day, Bruno the Sabre. And this one's kind of a throwback to uh the old movies of the squash buckling pirates and the three musketeers. Next Division Three Cross Country Championships enjoy. NCAA Championship Cross Country on ESPN.

Today from the Duran Eastman Golf Course in Rochester, New York, it's the Division III Championship. And you had some very Esoteric. I was gonna use the word esoteric. It's hard to believe we turned anything down, right? We had a group from New York City come to us and ask us what rights fee we would pay them. To televised their New York City rooftop.

Platform Tennis League. So you were receiving the pitch in this case. Yes. And we said uh don't think so. We had a lot of People.

presented serious pr uh proposals. But that one was probably the farthest out in That was not in left field, that was in deep left field and farther. It was gone. Perhaps this is a good place.

Just for people who are wondering. Uh When did you leave? Yes, Pierre. That was sold.

So I can tell you exactly when I left. It was two oh five PM Friday afternoon, June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four. Bill Rats must done. Reason. They had a that's a big check.

Yeah, so from from Memorial Day, nineteen seventy eight to uh june twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four was my Active tenure. With uh With the SBN. Do you ever regret having left?

Do you wish you could have stayed longer? Not for a second. And I think of all of the things that have happened. The uh Creation of literally hundreds of thousands of jobs for freelance people, for network people, for all the teams have their own networks now.

And basically ESPN spawned all of that. And um and I'm really proud of that. I Please. If somebody wanted to get good at negotiating or just pitching like this, do you have any particular recommendations for them? I know I have a few books that had a huge impact on me. I'll share what those are. But do you have any any recommendations? I think one you have to know as much as you can possibly know about your subject.

The other thing is I don't have to know all the details about your business. I ha what what are your goals and what's your general business? I don't have to know all the details about my business. Where do we want to go and where do we want to take it? I'm not a I'm not an engineer. I'm not a mathematician, I'm not an accountant, I'm none of those things. But I

Put the idea together and have a general knowledge and Make some sense. Well you have a really good combination of a number of things. And I remember at one point reading an article by a gentleman named Mark Andreessen. So Mark Andreessen is a billionaire. He was co-author of the Mosaic Web Browser, so the first really popular graphic web browser.

And he noted that most CEOs We're kind of in the top twenty percent. In two or three. Fields. But they're very rarely the Michael Jordan of just one thing.

You have to have a few overlapping skills, and the good news is it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier to plan that. And engineer that in your life than it is. try to aim to be that one Michael Jordan. So the the books I was going to mention for you guys, if you're interested, I found very helpful. Getting past no, a little more realistic than getting to yes, in my opinion, and then Secret of Power Negotiating.

I would get the audio if you can because you can tell with the cadence of Bill's voice and the delivery. There's a lot. Of nuance. Uh let's see if we can pull up some some audience questions. This is from Lex. Uh how does it feel to have captured the attention of so many people and our boyfriends and uh bring them together through sports? Well it wasn't always that way. In our early days Some of the men in the audience

Got so enamored with the SPN. That we were on the air barely a year and we were named in a divorce. Action. A lady in Texas included us because her husband was pay more attention to ESPN than he was to her. And when it arrived in Bristol our general counsel

And our whole legal department was only one person, so our general counsel went, Oh my, we're dead, what's gonna happen? And our PR lady said, We want to spell her name right and she put out a press release. And And that turned out to be the first of many times. E S Pen has been frequently named in divorce suits. Or alienation of whatever. I I don't get it, but

Асайф family members when you hear the word successful who is the first person who comes to mind? Successful. Mm-hmm. Success is described in so many different ways when I think back to my father surviving The depression.

Getting four kids through college. Coming through World War Two that yeah it was a success. What is success to you? Getting a good night's sleep, I guess. You know,

So this Seriously. When you get older you'll find it. No, no, no. I I do take it seriously because I've always had onset insomnia. A and by the way, Jody Foster, I think, has said success is sleeping well. Like it's It's a good indicator of what you're doing right. Well what you're doing wrong. Well and you have so much more energy the next day to do More things. Do you feel like a success?

Not really. You know, I'm just a guy from the south side of Chicago. I I am I've been blessed to be involved in a lot of really good things that turned out well. But I don't uh You know, I don't walk down the street in my ESPN jacket across the back or anything like that. If you had to give

High priority. Profile talk, twenty minute talk on Something that is not something you're known for, like ESPN. What I mean. Avid, avid reader, and I'm a a serious advocate and uh serious uh student of American history.

Mm-hmm. all the way back to the civil war, but particularly in World War Two and Just because I lived through it. I mean I lived through the military part of it. I was in the high schools in Chicago were all military. Uh they all had R O T C units. We had The uh various and sundry parades were all

No. And it it just Especially living in the World War Two period, you got such a sense of country and patriotism. Mm-hmm. If somebody wanted to immerse themselves in that. If you had

Friend, student, doesn't really matter. Someone who really wanted to immerse themselves in that history. What books would you recommend they start with? The first one I would and I I I'm now reading it for the second time. So um And it's a little book, it's seven hundred and eighty nine pages. You have to immerse. I mean you have to really get into it. It's called nineteen forty one.

And if you read that book you'll find out so much about Politics, war, America, and the resiliency of this country. It's just it's an amazing, amazing book. What are what are your current challenges or if you had to pick one of your current challenges

the problems that you're facing. We're starting a new business. It's called Home Town Networks. And what we're gonna do is we we have been I have been an advisor to a gr company that has come up with a Incredible.

I don't know how they do this stuff. It's one single four K camera, one microphone, and a little black box. You can produce any baseball game, football game, hockey game, whatever you want, soccer game. And he wants to do it for high schools all across America, or secondary schools, or town rec uh recreational areas and so on. I think it's a great idea.

So I've agreed to help them. So if I were to a if I were to ask you then what's next for Bill Rasperson, that would be A big component of it. Yeah, that's what I'm doing now. You talk about four hour work weeks? Well I

You you're pushing the envelope there. Getting aggressive. Getting extreme. Yeah. Well no. But I but I really I I don't I don't want to work at it for and I don't work for it. I don't work full time in the sense that people think of going to work. Right.

Work up here as you're thinking about things. But I think It's a great opportunity for Not only youngsters playing, but for Parents, for grandparents, for relatives, anywhere.

Streaming goes anywhere in the world now. If I have a I have a kid playing in uh Florida and you're living in California. And you say it what's you know Sam up to today. Twin tonight, dude. You can find him. You'll watch.

Make sure that all those people who are gonna benefit from this Learn all about it. And that's what we're doing. So I only have I only have two questions left. If there's anything you would like to Say is parting comments, recommendation, suggestion. Thoughts for people who are going out on their own adventures, careers. Maybe they're just

Getting started. So I think it's really simple. In my view, when I look at a new business It doesn't get very complicated. It's a short business statement, hopefully um bus mission statement. Hopefully no more than six words. And then follow the facts. Five facts. You need financing, advertising.

Content, technology, and customers, subscribers, customers. That's we used in ESPN. I think it's the same thing works to this very day. You keep it that simple. No way. One of the patterns it seems

has come up a number of times here that is is worth mentioning is that It seems like for the most important decisions for doing the big things. The timing's never really good. Like the timing's never perfect. There's always something not ready. There's always someone who's walking out the door. There's always a partner who's leaving. There's always something. So if you wait until the timing is perfect or when it feels really good, you're never gonna be ready. You're never gonna be ready. You just have to be re You have to move when you're ready to go and

Everybody else has to catch up or walk alongside you, one or the other. Or as Ted Turner says, lead follower, get out of the way. That's that's he's right he's right to the point. So you guys are both to the point and you like six words a lot. I don't know if this will end up being six words, but if you had a gigantic billboard and can put anything on it. And of course what I'm asking is really if you could get a short message out to A huge audience. What would you put?

A B C N B C. A B C N B C So yeah, back to six words again. Yeah. And back to the two networks I work for. Always be curious, never be complacent. Oh that's a good one. Okay.

That's right. ABC, NBC, Bill Rasmussen, everybody. He's not done. Hey guys, this is Tim again, just one more thing before you take off, and that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out. every Friday to share the coolest things I've found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading.

albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests, and these strange esoteric things end up in my field and then I test them and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to Tim.blog slash Friday. Type that into your browser, Tim.blog slash. Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for listening.

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