The Start Of ESPN…A Hometown Newspaper Article From The Birstol Press
Today there are only seventeen of the original staffers that started with ESPN in 1979, and this story is told by three of them. Thanks to ESPN cameraman Ryan Balton for sending this along. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee
By the way…Bristol, Connecticut is where ESPN is located. Until a few years back, I didn’t know where their HQ was either.
The evolution of ESPN: 35 years in the making
BRISTOL — When ESPN went on the air 35 years ago, it had one building, a trailer full of production equipment and lots of mud everywhere.
I remember going to ESPN’s Connecticut facility circa 1981 to shoot a segment for a documentary about the future of television. At the time, the cable channel known as the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network aired more than sports material.
Funny, I went to College with Jeff Israel. And he’s still there!
And Ted Phillips who liked this picture… Almost worked there at startup… but declined.
Scotty Connal’s son, Bruce, was a classmate of mine at Ithaca College. In the fall of 1978 he told me he was going to work for his dad at a new company he was starting: a 24-hour cable channel for sports. I was a budding sportscaster, so he asked me if I was interested in going with him. I told him, “hell no! Who’d want to live in Bristol!” My bad. But, a lot of my IC buddies wound up working there, which is why you often see the Syracuse mascot getting assaulted in the “This is Sportscenter” promos.
SportsCenter . . . The death nail of CNN Sports Illustrated.
I sure do remember running those Hitachi SK-70’s on ESPN’s first remote trucks. Was always good to have a “tweaker” on you.
Hitachi?
I know Bob Ley (on-air) staff goes back to day 1. Not sure about Chris Berman.
A good part of my graduation class, the last one at Grahm Jr. College, went to ESPN and C-Span.
Hitachi SK 70
I worked numerous sports events in New York as a freelancer for the then “budding” ESPN. Saint Bonaventure, Syracuse, Cornell, and various skiing events in the Catskills and a even a NBA Tennis Tournament that was capped off with an evening basketball game. It really was a great time and a chance for a young broadcast engineer to learn quite a bit about the industry. The extra money wasn’t too bad either! I’ll also mention I’ve worked at a local New York station with two of the ESPN veterans Bill Pido and Karl Ravich.
I always think of the American Basketball Association when I see ESPN went on the air in the late 70s. The ABA collapsed in the summer of ’76. If ESPN had been around, desperate for sports programming, the ABA might have survived.
The freelancers in the field used to call it the Extra Slow Paying Network.
There’s a really good book from the early-2000s called “ESPN: The Uncensored History” that profiles the network’s origins and how it gained credibility in the early-80s. Has a bunch of interviews with current and former personalities and personnel as well.
Yes, Tom. I have worked a lot of ESPN Sports Center shows and the pay seemed to be slow in coming.
Hitachi SK-70 these were alsways needing love by there engineers
Chris Berman is to ESPN as howard cosell was to ABC
I remember when ESPN = 1 person on the third bench with a Sure Mixer and a router to get off the home feed by way of a locked off shot.