Paul Rouse: How ESPN went from hurling highlights to conquering the world

The broadcast of hurling — unfortunately — was not what ESPN needed to make itself a viable commercial proposition. 

There's a story told about ESPN, the American cable TV network that transformed the broadcast of modern sports. It comes from 1979. Bill Rasmussen has decided that his new station will broadcast all day and all night, every day and every night. That means trying to fill 8,760 hours of television with sporting events.

But he has only a limited budget. So in those first months of ESPN — known as the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network —Rasmussen buys the TV rights for recordings of Australian Rules football and for niche sports such as slow-pitch softball and hydroplane boat races.