September 5, 2004 in Sports

Despite early hiccups, ESPN found niche, blossomed

Hal Bock Associated Press
 

Happy birthday, ESPN. You’ve come a long way, baby.

On Sept. 7, the all-sports-all-the-time network will be 25 years old, and it turns the milestone with a mainstream reputation that is miles removed from its offbeat roots.

ESPN specialized in the obscure for much of its programming in 1979, when it went on the air, a bold experiment that changed the viewing habits of a nation. In those early days, the network operated on the periphery of sports, a site for some strange stuff. The first night on the air, ESPN showed the American Professional Slo-Pitch Softball World Series between the Milwaukee Schlitz and Kentucky Bourbons. The sponsor was Anheuser Busch.

And, of course, there were always dart contests and truck races.

Chuckle all you want about that early programming, but ESPN found a niche.

Chris Berman said the network did what it had to do to build a base. He remembered how it went about that task in a world tiptoeing ever so tentatively into cable television.

“Remember what television was in 1979,” Berman said. “You had an antenna. There were maybe six or seven stations in New York, maybe three or four in other cities. No one knew what cable TV was.”

So what would ESPN do?

“We weren’t going to have the NFL,” Berman said. “We needed to put on stuff and we didn’t make jokes of it. Hey, it’s sports. It was a brave new world.”

Seven years into its existence, ESPN had no NFL, no NBA, no major league baseball. It was still in the business of convincing people there was a need for a 24-hour sports network. It looked for things to cover that the major commercial networks had overlooked. So the NFL draft, the College World Series and the Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremonies found a home there.

The network has grown well beyond sports highlights. There are now more than 40 business entities carrying the ESPN brand, everything from restaurants to magazines, digital games to original entertainment.

© Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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