30 Facts About ESPN

1. Contains 27 satellite dishes taking in more than 47,000 feeds per year, recording approximately 416 hours of highlights and program content each day and transmits 6,000 occasional feeds to remote locations and clients worldwide each year;
   • There are 10 control rooms, 48 edit suites and more than 5,000 television monitors on the Bristol campus;
   • ESPN’s Digital Center contains 4 television studios for a total of 9 on the Bristol campus;
   • The Digital Center can receive and record up to 120 simultaneous HD feeds at one time. (ESPN’s Los Angeles Production Facility can record up to 24 incoming sports events -- eventually this number will double);
   • ESPN’s tape library contains more than 1.6 million tapes;
   • Spans 116 acres and utilizes 736,000 square feet of building space;
   • Offers 2,094 parking spaces, including 45 handicap accessible spaces.
2. Why Bristol, Conn.?  ESPN was the idea of a local man, Bill Rasmussen, whose original thought was to create a Connecticut channel featuring University of Connecticut sports.  His idea grew to a national service when he learned a satellite signal could reach the whole country with new technology.  He needed property for his project.  He was informed of inexpensive land in Bristol, so he bought it, sight unseen.

3. ESPN, Inc. includes more than 50 business entities. The company began with only 70 employees in 1979 and now employees more than 5,700 worldwide.
4. ESPN became a 24-hour, 7 days-a-week service on September 1, 1980.
5. ESPN was the first network to televise every round of a PGA Tour event, the ESF&G from New Orleans, April 22-26, 1982.
6. In 1984 ESPN became the largest cable network in the country reaching 34 million homes. Today in an average week, 104 million Americans watch, listen read or log on to ESPN-branded media
7. ESPN’s coverage of the 1987-88 NCAA basketball open earned ESPN its first Sports Emmy Award in its first year of eligibility. It was also the first Emmy to be received by a cable network. ESPN and ESPN2 have since won 128 Emmy Awards and four Peabody Awards (does not include ESPN on ABC programming).
8. In January of 1998, ESPN International added service to Antarctica, making ESPN available on every continent. Today, beyond U.S. borders there are 45 ESPN networks reaching 190 million people on all seven continents.

9. On Sunday, April 27, 2003, ESPN was the first network to air live events from all four major sports in one day -- NFL Draft, NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs and MLB regular season.

10. ESPN HD, considered a “tipping point” in driving consumer demand of HD televisions, debuted as a 24/7 service on March 30, 2003.

11. On September 2, 2006, “ESPN on ABC” became the brand for all sports carried on the ABC Television Network.

12. ESPN and ESPN2 ranked first and second, respectively, in the key category of average perceived value in Beta Research Corp.’s 2008 Cable Operator and Local Ad Sales Studies, the ninth consecutive year that cable operators have ranked ESPN the most valuable network on their cable system.  ESPN2 has held the second most valuable spots for four consecutive years. ESPNU ranked 1st overall among all emerging networks in 2008.

13. ESPN’s Monday Night Football is the most-watched series in cable television history.  MNF set the all-time cable household viewership record for the third straight year with the Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys telecast (Sept. 15, 2008), which attracted an average of 12,953,000 million homes. In three seasons on ESPN, MNF has registered seven of the top 10 all-time biggest household audiences in cable history.
14. ESPN and ESPN2 combined to televise more than 22,141 hours of live/original hours of sports programming in 2008.

15. In 2008, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic & ESPNEWS combined to average a record 1,139,000 homes (24-hour basis)

16. As many as 16,000 fans turn out to watch College GameDay in person on any given Saturday

17. 2009 is the seventh consecutive year that ESPN has televised the entire 63-game NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.

18. X Games Nine – August 2003 - attracted the largest multi-day crowd in its Los Angeles event history, with 187,141 people in attendance over four days.

19. ESPN2 reached 50, 60, 70, 75, 80 and 90 million households faster than any other cable network previously, reaching 90 million in 150 months.

20. Since its 1998 launch, 292 ESPN The Magazine issues have been produced (as of May 4, 2009). By ESPN’s 30th anniversary date on September 7, 2009, 327 magazine issues will have been produced. Three athletes -- Michael Jordan, Lebron James and Barry Bonds -- have appeared on the cover seven times each, the most of any athlete.

21. ESPN The Magazine witnessed +471% growth in circulation in its first 10 years, going from a subscriber base of 350,000 at launch in March 1998 to 2.0 million (Jan. 2008).   ESPN The Magazine is a two-time winner (and seven-time nominee) of the prestigious American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) National Magazine Award for General Excellence. (Source: ABC Report, Jan. 2008)

22. ESPN Regional Television produces more than 1,000 sporting events and more than 2,200 live and/or original hours of programming per year.

23. ESPN Australia HD launched on May 5, 2008, ESPN’s first international HD service.

24. ESPN Films (established in 2009) presents scripted and documentary film projects for TV and theatrical release, including 30/30, a series of 30 films celebrating the last 30 years in sports, timed with ESPN’s 30th anniversary. The first film project in the series will debut October 2009.

25. ESPN opened its brand new Los Angeles Production Facility on April 6, 2009 and began live editions of the 1 a.m. ET/10 p.m. PT SportsCenter on the west coast. The 78,000-sq.-ft. facility serves as an extension of the Bristol campus as well as a “testing center” for new technologies.
26. A record 119.3 million people interacted with ESPN media – watching, listening, reading and logging on in an average week, Oct. 1, 2008 – Nov. 16, 2008 (Source: SRI/Knowledge Networks – ESPN All Day, Everyday Fall 2008).
27. ESPN Digital media launched ESPNChicago.com on April 13, 2009, the first online destination specifically designed for Chicago sports fans featuring exclusive local coverage including a daily ESPN Chicago SportsCenter.

28. In the four-plus years since ESPN’s 25th anniversary, ESPN.com has logged nearly 35 trillion total minutes (34,807,500,000), an average of nearly 683 million minutes per month. 2008 proved to be the site’s best year during that time period with more than 10 billion total minutes, a 128% growth compared to 2007. In the month of April 2009, ESPN.com saw unique visitors increase from 8.2 million to 9.2 million, averaging 9.1 million unique visitors a week in 2009. ESPN.com averaged 8.5 million unique visitors over the same time period in 2008.

29. ESPN360.com delivers more than 3,500 live, global sports events annually. Distribution of the live sports broadband network has grown to more than 25 million homes, more than triple its distribution just two years ago.

30. ESPN's industry-leading mobile Web site has averaged a 66% share of the entire mobile Web sports audience between January 2007 and present. It had its biggest month ever in January 2009 with 8.9 million unique users.

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