Case Espn

BACKGROUND:
ESPN
ESPN inc. was founded by Bill Rasmussen a sport announcer, that he was fired by the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association as its communications director and play-by-play announcer. He looked for a way to broadcast University of Connecticut basketball games through cable television operators in the state. At this time it was a new way by transmitting this kind ofgames. Then, he realized that it was cheaper to rent satellite time from RCA for 24 hours rather than rather than for a few hours. So Rasmussen started to offer 24-hour sports programming on a national basis. He used his credit card to lease space. In 1978, he gave the name for his organization as Entertainment Sports Programming Network, Inc., or ESP Network. The Entertainment and SportsProgramming Network debuted on cable television on September 7, 1979. ESPN's first sponsor was Anheuser-Busch, which purchased $1.4 million worth of advertising--a record for cable television. Through a deal with the NCAA, ESPN broadcast college football games as well as other sports. According to this, they have a lot of time off, so he decided to transmit more than once the games in order to fillcomplete his schedule. at the year of 1980 ESPN began broadcasting in full, 24 hours and also it included boxing programs.
Getty Oil financed at the beginning to ESPN, he hired several important people, Chet Simmons and Roger Werner and proposed charging cable operators, who had been receiving ESPN programming for free and for the viewers this services cost around six cents per subscriber. Because ofthis a few months later they have a lot of customers receiving their services. Later they noticed that they need help from other companies and Werner convinced major cable companies that ESPN could not survive without subscriber fees. About half of the major cable companies agreed to ESPN's rates. In 1983 was recognized as the cable’s largest network.
1984- and mid of 1895 ABC, Inc. bought a 15percent stake in the company, then acquired control of the company six months later. An everyday it company increased the number of viewers ESPN and recognized then this organization announced it would cover the 1986-87 America's Cup competition. Following its acquisition by ABC, which was acquired by Capital Cities Communications, Inc. at the beginning of 1986 to form Capital Cities/ABC Inc.ESPN signed to leagues of Basketball, football, baseball and other to transmit its games. In 1988 it formally created ESPN International to launch networks in other countries.
The brand expansion began in 1991 with the launch of ESPN Radio Network in conjunction with the ABC Radio Network. ESPN Radio began with 16 hours of programming per week and was offered to 200 radio stations . After this,was launched the second channel ESPN2. Then ESPN acquired the sports programming division of Ohlmeyer Communications inc. another acquisition was in SportsTicker from Dow Jones that ESPN took the 80 percent of this company.
In 1995 Walt Disney acquired ESPN’s parent company. Giving Disney 80 percent interest in ESPN and full control of its operations.then, Disney announced plans to combine ESPNand ABC Sports into a single operating unit, and after this, Disney also purchase of the Classic Sports Network (CSN), an independently owned cable service that broadcast classic sporting events from the past. In 1998 was launched ESPN: The Magazine with a big ranked of circulation. At this time ESPN continue to enjoy a high position in the cable TV ratings.

UPDATING:
2009- ESPN (Disney groupcompany) launched its high definition signal in Latin America in 2009, which this year includes the Grand Slam tournaments in tennis, the major European football leagues and the NBA, among other content. His competition, Fox Sports HD will fight with the Copa Libertadores and the UEFA Champions League.
-In July 0f 2009, ESPN Insider reportedly had about 350,000 paying subscribers. Since then,...