Canzano: ESPNification of sports world is a somber study
Propaganda machine is off the rails.
If you’re looking for someone to blame (or maybe credit) for the ESPNification of the sports world, we should start with William Rasmussen.
He’s a former television news director and producer in Springfield, Mass. He was also the play-by-play announcer for the New England Whalers hockey team. He got fired, then went about trying to start a network that would deliver University of Connecticut sports and Whalers games to cable stations in the region.
He called RCA. The company owned Satcom I, which was one of the first communication satellites. It was hovering 23,000 miles above the planet, just south of the Hawaiian islands. For $1 million, RCA leased Rasmussen a transponder that was capable of reaching the entire country.
Rasmussen didn’t have that kind of money. But he sold 85 percent of his new company (ESPN) to Getty Oil to cover the costs. The other 15 percent was split among Rasmussen and some other investors.
The first-ever college football game televised on ESPN?
Oregon in Colorado in September of the 1979 season. The Ducks won the road game, 33-19. Rich Brooks was the head coach in Eugene. It was the first game with Chuck Fairbanks as the coach at CU.
David Plati, a sophomore student, was in charge of the Buffaloes’ stat crew. Plati would go on to become Colorado’s sports information director years later and spend 40 years working for the Denver Broncos, as well as 16 seasons as the official scorer of the Colorado Rockies.
I called Plati on Saturday morning. He remembers one little TV production truck in the lot for that first-ever ESPN football game.