The Tim Ferriss Show - #569: ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers, and it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers,

Starting point is 00:00:30 have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time. Because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free. And you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast. Some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with. And little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday.

Starting point is 00:01:03 So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. and thanks for checking it out. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss

Starting point is 00:02:11 Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the routines, habits, etc. that you can apply to your own life. You will get plenty of all of that in this special episode, which features an interview from my 2017 TV show, Fearless. The less is in parentheses because the objective is to teach you to fear less, not to be fearless. Fearless features in-depth, long-form conversations with top performers, focusing on how they've overcome fears and made hard decisions, embracing discomfort and thinking big along the way. It was produced by Wild West Productions, and I worked with them to make both the video and audio available to you for free, my dear listeners. So thank you, Wild West. You can find the video of this episode, which is gorgeous. I think they did an incredible

Starting point is 00:02:55 job on youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. Remember, two R's, two S's, youtube.com slash Tim Ferriss. And eventually, you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash timferris. And eventually you'll be able to see all of the episodes for free at youtube.com slash timferris. So you can swing over there and see what is currently up. Before we get started, just a little bit more on Wild West. Spearheaded by actor, producer, and past podcast guest Vince Vaughn, Wild West has produced a string of hit movies, including The Internship, Couples Retreat, Four Christmases, and The Breakup. In 2020, Wild West produced the comedy The Opening Act, starring Jimmy O. Yang and Cedric the Entertainer. In addition to Fearless, their television credits include Undeniable with Joe Buck, ESPN's 30 for 30 episode about the 85

Starting point is 00:03:36 bears, and the Netflix animated show F is for Family. Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers, subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon, and Wild West has also produced the documentaries Give Us This Day, Game Changers, subtitle Dreams of BlizzCon, and Wild West Comedy Show. And now, without further ado, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation from Fearless. I'm Tim Ferriss, author, entrepreneur, angel investor, and now TV host. I've spent my entire adult life asking questions, then scouring the globe to find the answers. On this show, I'll share the secrets of pioneers who have faced their own fears.

Starting point is 00:04:12 We'll dig into the hard times, big mistakes, tough decisions, and how they got through it all. The goal isn't to be fearless. The goal is to learn to fear less. Welcome to Fearless. I'm your host, Tim Ferriss. And on this stage, we will be deconstructing world-class performers of all types to uncover the specific tactics and strategies they've used to overcome doubt,

Starting point is 00:04:36 tackle hard decisions, and ultimately succeed. By show of hands, how many people here wait for, say, the morning paper to get their sports scores? It's a big fat zero. How many of you can remember when television wasn't available 24 hours a day? Anyone? All right. Of my generation or a little bit older. Got a few hands. And when I say Bristol, Connecticut, what do you think of?

Starting point is 00:05:00 After meeting my guest tonight, you'll associate it with one thing, and that is sports. Against all odds, he set out to change the course of television and the status quo as we know it. And in the process, he created one of the most iconic and recognizable brands in the world. Please welcome the founder of ESPN, Bill Rasmussen. Bill, we have so much to talk about. I have so many questions for you. I hope you don't have dinner plans. Is that an invitation? I think that might be an invitation.

Starting point is 00:05:40 But before we get to all the questions I'd love to ask, we have a video that I want to roll, and then I'd love for you to describe for people what it actually is. Okay. So, let's take a look. Yay, verily, a sampler of wonders. Hi, I'm Lee Leonard welcoming you to Bristol, Connecticut, 110 miles from New York City. Why Bristol? Because here in Bristol is where all the sports action is as of right now. Now, here's another innovation on ESPN, and it's going to be a big part of our future. The Sports Center with George Grand. He'll have the latest on what's happening all around. George?

Starting point is 00:06:18 Thanks, Lee, and welcome, everyone, to the ESPN Sports Center. From this very desk in the coming weeks and months, we'll be filling you in on the pulse of sporting activity, not only around the country, but around the world as well. If it takes an interview, we'll do it. If it takes play-by-play, we'll do it. If it takes commentary, we'll do that too. That's the way we'll function from the ESPN Sports Center, and we'll be filling you in on further updates as the broadcast progresses.

Starting point is 00:06:52 So we're going to delve into, of course, the path that led you to that point, but what was the video that we just saw? That was opening night, and the first words that were not there were about if you're a fan. We do have that.

Starting point is 00:07:06 I can give it to you right verbatim if you want. Let's hear it verbatim. Are you ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. Because we were pretty involved that night, as you might imagine. If you're a fan, if you're a fan, what you'll see in the next minutes, hours, and days to follow may convince you you've gone to sports heaven. Beyond that blue horizon is a limitless world of sports, and right now, you're standing on the edge of tomorrow. Sports, 24 hours a day,

Starting point is 00:07:28 seven days a week, from ESPN, the Total Sports Cable Network. That's better than tape, isn't it? So this, I guess, leads me to one of my very first questions i've read that you were obsessed with sports as a kid now did you have an impeccable memory for different aspects of sports but what what type of obsession was it well it all started this is a very appropriate time to be talking about this but since the cubs have finally won. Are there any Cub fans around? We have to have Cub fans. My grandfather actually saw all six games of the 1906 World Series when the White Sox beat the Cubs, the only all-Chicago World Series ever. And he talked to me about baseball and the White Sox, because I was living on the South Side, from a very young age.

Starting point is 00:08:28 And before I knew it, I had a glove in my hand and a ball in my hand, and by the time I was in the fifth grade, I was playing in organized games, and I've always been obsessed with it. And for some reason, I have a memory for statistics. And I can, you know, we can talk about the Cubs or the White Sox or whatever, and names stick in my head from days when I was living in Chicago and the Cubs didn't have Chris Bryant at third base. They had Stan Hack at third base. And they didn't have Rizzo at first base.

Starting point is 00:08:55 They had Phil Cavaretta at first base. And it's just always been there. I don't know why. And do you remember your first baseball game that you saw on television or your first media experience on television or otherwise? It was 1947. The Yankees were playing the White Sox. And my father, I had played a game somewhere.

Starting point is 00:09:18 My father said, let's stop. I want to show you something. Because one of the local establishments, quote unquote, had a TV and they were going to, that was 1947. Must have been WGN probably doing the game. The picture was about this big and it was in a cabinet about as big as the dresser in your bedroom. So it'd be like if you took your smartphone and just put it on your wall. That's sort of basically what the TV looked like.

Starting point is 00:09:42 Yeah. That's about it, size-wise. Tell me a little bit more about your father. He was always encouraging. He encouraged all of us. We were all going to get a college education. I was the first one in the entire family. He was the 11th of 11 children, and I was the first one to get to graduate from college. And always 100% supportive.

Starting point is 00:10:03 But I'll tell you, he was a real taskmaster. The deal was my two brothers and sister used to come with me. We'd pile in the car if I was playing a game because we're all going to support Bill, you know, and that was great. And if I got a hit, we would all get a soft ice cream cone on the way home. So I had a lot of real supporters on the side, you know, on the sideline, two brothers and sister. And if I didn't get a hit, my father would drive the same route and he wouldn't even take his foot off the gas. He'd drive right by. And my brothers and sister would

Starting point is 00:10:37 just be all over me. What did you do? Why didn't you, you know, you should have run faster for this. You should have done that. Why did you swing and done that why did you swing and miss why did you strike how old were you at the time this is oh kind of yeah i mean a picture for us this is i'm in the 14 or 15 year old age yes so that's a very i've like maybe i'm just projecting here but you know 14 15 16 i was a very i didn't hadn't found my footing in the world that type of pressure would be i didn't i didn't think not not uh terrible but but just a real thing to consider. Did you... How did you... Did that affect how you played, or did you say anything to yourself before you played?

Starting point is 00:11:10 No, I just always wanted to get a hit, you know? Everybody wants to get a hit. Everybody wants to bet a thousand, yet nobody can. It's just the way it is. And some days you go four for four, and some days you go oh for four. And if we jump to college, what did you think you were going to be? You know, when we were in college, the only thing we all knew was we were going to go on active duty in the service. We had no, there was no thought about what was going to happen next.

Starting point is 00:11:33 And that was literal. Our choices were, unlike many years later, we did have choices, four choices. Do you want to be called on active duty September 15th, November 15th, January 15th, or March 15th? That was it. Turns out they didn't really mean that. They just took you when they wanted, and my name came up in November. Do you know how hard it is? You've graduated from college.

Starting point is 00:11:59 You want to go do something, work gainfully somewhere. And they say, well, what about, well, yeah, actually I have to go on active duty on November 15th. No jobs. I mean, I graduated on June 6th, and I ended up actually being a, I'm not even sure what you call it, but I was unloading trucks of produce at night at the local grocery store.

Starting point is 00:12:25 That was all. You couldn't get a job. But nobody minded because that was what we had to do. That was during the Korean War, of course. Now, if if you hadn't been in during wartime, had you thought of or was baseball even a prospect? Oh, yeah. Oh, I was going to play third base for the White Sox. Oh, man man look out i was gonna do it but you don't mean that as say you know a third grader saying someday i'm gonna be a professional baseball player you actually had the chops oh no i was i was gonna play that's all there

Starting point is 00:12:54 was to it i i could run and feel and one summer we were playing a summer league and an unknown then and now could have been record was i never got caught stealing the whole season and so we were in the last game of the season I thought if I steal one more I didn't have to run I hadn't been caught all season if I get one you know always want to get one more that's gonna be pretty cool end the game end the season nobody's ever done that man I had second base stolen I said I've done it I let up for one second. Whap. Ball was there, and I was out. From that moment, and I can feel that moment right now, sitting here talking to you, Tim,

Starting point is 00:13:31 I let myself down, and I've never done that. I want to go all the way through the finish line. Every time, and I think of that lesson, and I thought about that in business. I thought about that when I was in the Air Force, and sitting here today talking to you. It's keeping your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball.

Starting point is 00:13:48 Keep focused. Never, never let up until you've accomplished what you want to do. And that's the difference, right? I mean, it's that last 2%, which separates being out from being sick. Maybe it's the last two-tenths or two-one-hundreds, whatever it is. How did that translate to after college? I mean, you have a very long resume. You did a lot of different jobs. But how did that, say, translate to whether it's the Air Force or the business world? Well, when I started, I got out of the Air Force in November 1956 and went to work for Westinghouse right after the first of the year.

Starting point is 00:14:27 And was it at Westinghouse that you started to learn about advertising, television, things like that? Yep, it was. And I was working in the advertising department. And one of the things, to answer your preceding question, was the sales department would go out and the sales manager would have all of these. This was a national company, obviously. They were all, I don't know, they had, say, 12 or 14 districts across the country or regions. And they would go out and set up this great program, get all of the materials printed, get all of the corrugated displays printed, get everything in ready.

Starting point is 00:15:01 And the problem was that this program would be introduced and it'd be 14 weeks later before they got the material for the program. So I went to the advertising manager and I said, I have a great idea. I said, we've got to improve this and I'll, are you familiar with carbon interleaved forms? Does that ever ring, does that even?

Starting point is 00:15:21 Carbon interleaved forms. Are these like triplicates that leave an impression? I'm just guessing here. That's exactly what it was. All right. And so I said, let's make one and we'll color code them. One for the large lamp division, the automotive division, the photo division, so on. Different colors for each one.

Starting point is 00:15:38 So if you're a guy who's selling photo lamps, you send in the right color. We've got three copies and we'll, you know, still didn't improve things. So I said, tell you what, I'll quit and start a business and we'll do that. And the business was Add 8 Inc. Started in 1959. It lasted, it may still be there, but I know in 50 years later, it was still functioning in Kearney, New Jersey. So you identified the need within a business while you were still getting paid and then offered to solve it by starting your own business. By quitting and starting my own. So you already had a customer before you even started your business.

Starting point is 00:16:10 And we made a, you talk about making decisions about business. Of course, you know, we stepped out and we had Westinghouse and we said, well, we'll see who else can do it. We went down the street, you know, small business here, small business here, small. Decided that wasn't the way to go because small businesses are more of a pain in the neck to take care of and try to collect your money really tough. Whereas Westinghouse, the end of the month, check arrived automatically.

Starting point is 00:16:37 So we decided we would stop talking to the little businesses and we went to, well, we went to General Electric. We went to S&H Green Stamps, which was a big company at the time. General Foods. All the big companies. I said, great idea. And you know what? Never had a default after that.

Starting point is 00:16:53 So we learned another lesson. Do business with people who are good business people. And actually have the funds and the budget. To make it work. This became a gigantic operation. I mean, it seems like it was an immediate hit and how did you segue then from this to broadcasting this was pretty repetitive every day you go in and you have a big order and you fill it and they pay you and so on and and i was getting old i was approaching 30 i didn't i didn't want my life to go by without

Starting point is 00:17:24 something well when i found out i couldn't play baseball i decided that i could become a I didn't want my life to go by without something. Well, when I found out I couldn't play baseball, I decided that I could become a broadcaster. Now, I had no radio experience, obviously, because all I'd been is in the Air Force and Westinghouse and this. I'm not sure if you've seen a magazine called Broadcasting. And they used to run little two-line ads, like little want ads. There was one for a sportscaster in West Philly, Rhode Island. And I can remember, just as we're sitting here now, walking in,

Starting point is 00:17:49 hi, how are you, and so on. Did you bring a tape? Nope. Didn't bring a tape? No. Well, what station do you work for? I've never worked for a radio station. He said, well, you answered this thing for a sportscaster.

Starting point is 00:18:04 He said, why do you think you can be a sportscaster? I said, because I know I can do it. He said, you're kidding me. You don't have a tape. You've never done it, but you know you can do it. I said, yep. He said, you know what? Based on this approach, I'm putting a new station on the air in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Starting point is 00:18:22 And if you'll help me put it on the air, you're my sportscaster. So hold on. I'm going to pause for a second. So the force of will sort of should spark, right? That just willed that into existence. There's got to be a little bit more to it. Did you just stare him down or was it you let the silence do the work? I mean, what else was it? Well, no, I just told my story. And I guess it was just the silence. And he pondered, not very long. And what I didn't realize is his station was going on the air.

Starting point is 00:18:57 This is now October. He said, I'll start you January 1st. Because they were going to have to do field strength testing of the signal and so on. What I didn't realize was Amherst, Massachusetts, in January, the snow was about hip deep, and you had to go out into the farm fields and hold up this little, you know, can you hear me now? One of those kind of things. And so we did that, and we went on the air on April 1st. Wait, did you have to do that?

Starting point is 00:19:24 Yeah, that was part of the gig. Wait, did you have to do that? Yeah, that was my... That was part of the gig. That was part of the gig, yeah. So I had to go do that. And we went on the air April 1st, and then I... University of Massachusetts was located, still is, in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was a small school, then, of about 10,000 students. I almost went to Amherst.

Starting point is 00:19:40 I mean, great school. So I said, why don't we do UMass football? He didn't care. He wasn't a sports fan. He said, you know, I hired you as a sports guy. So I went up. I introduced myself to the athletic director. Hi.

Starting point is 00:19:54 Warren McGurk was his name. Hi, I'm Bill Rasmussen, local radio station. We'd really like to talk to you about doing your football games. He said, you want to do the games? Go ahead. I didn't say it to him. I said to myself, what did he just say?

Starting point is 00:20:09 He said, go ahead. No requirement for discussion, no requirement for a contract, and especially no rights fee. So off we went and got the rights to do UMass football. But of course, I had never done a football game because I had never done any radio before I got there. So how'd that go? What about, what was your first, first game, first game like? It was fun. It was, it was the University of Massachusetts at the University of Maine in Orono, Maine. We didn't have anybody else at the station. So I've been talking to their sports information people and the direct sports information director, a veteran who'd been there for some 20 years, said he would be my color guy.

Starting point is 00:20:51 So all the way from Amherst to Orono, Maine, I was thinking, should I tell him I've never done a football game before? Worse yet, should I tell him I've never even seen a college football game live before? I said, nah. Extraneous. he'll figure that out on his own let's just go for it so that's what we did we just went in started talking not a problem never heard a word uh massachusetts won 14 to nothing we drove all the way back and he never said a word and about i didn't know you hadn't done this or did nothing i never said anything and he never asked don't tell yeah he didn't he didn't say anything i didn't say anything we did the whole season it was it was great i mean if you if you don't try you never get anywhere no i agree

Starting point is 00:21:36 you have to try when i do something new i like to try a lot of new things. I'm a novelty seeker and very frequently unqualified for whatever it is that I'm trying to do. A very good friend of mine said once, a very successful investor, he said, if I always did what I was qualified to do, I'd be pushing a broom somewhere. And I really believe that at the same time. I get a little nervous maybe before doing something, especially publicly, that I haven't done before. Did you have any type of, what is your self-talk like, if anything? I mean, what does that warm up look like?

Starting point is 00:22:18 It's kind of like a movie in my head. I know it's going to work. I've already seen it up here before it happens. You're visualizing it working. Yeah. You have to prepare. And I do that to this day if I'm going someplace to do something that requires specifics. I'll know all those specifics frontwards, backwards, and all of those specifics around it before we get started. And as you mentioned earlier, for some reason, I've been

Starting point is 00:22:42 blessed with a really good memory. Well, it's a powerful asset to have also. I mean, just as in terms of types of memory for your chosen field, it was a very nice. It was a very good one. Yeah. And you have, I mean, you've winged it a fair amount, which I mean as a compliment with preparation. Not a fair amount. A lot. A lot.

Starting point is 00:23:02 A lot. Okay. All right. I won't hedge. I think a lot of people who are watching might think, oh, my God, this guy is just exuding more confidence than I've seen in every extended member of my family combined. So they might say, well, this guy has no weaknesses. He's never had any self-doubt. What is one of those things that wasn't part of the highlight reel? Well, getting fired is always kind of a traumatic moment is there a particular getting fired well the one that the one that's

Starting point is 00:23:30 most particular to me was getting fired i i was uh with the new england whalers the world hockey association for four years in the mid 70s they uh the world hockey association had been around for four years and they'd been in the playoffs, won the championship one year and won the playoffs. And in 1977, 78, they missed the playoffs. And you know, when a team misses the playoffs, after all that success, they have to have some changes. They fired everybody in the front office, me included. None of us had, by the way, skated one stride for the team that lost all those all those games and missed the playoffs that was memorial day weekend following we were supposed to do a tv show to talk about the whalers past and the whalers future with a guy in in hartford and i called him and said you know ed you probably

Starting point is 00:24:15 don't want to talk to me because and he said yeah we're going to do the show i said no i don't think so because i was just fired so you got to come down and talk to me i don't have anybody else to talk to so come on down so i went down and talk to me. I don't have anybody else to talk to. So come on down. So I went down and saw him that first week in June. We began to talk about maybe doing some Connecticut basketball or maybe, maybe why not the whole state of Connecticut? Why not add Wesleyan and Yale and Fairfield and so on?

Starting point is 00:24:41 And that was a really great idea. I mean, there was no Big East then. So he said, okay. So right away, I said, okay, we got to figure out how to hook them together. I knew how to put a network together because Telco, I'd done it with radio in Massachusetts and with the Whalers and so on. So I called SNEPCO, Southern New England Telephone Company. And the guy's name was Bill something. I remember that. I can't remember his last name now. But I told him what I wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:25:08 Connecticut had all of five cable systems operating. That's all five. I said I wanted to hook them all together so we could do a broadcast from one point to all of them at the same time. How much is it going to cost? Simple question. Put them together. Tell me how much it's going to cost. He said, well, you're getting a cart ahead of the horse here. He said

Starting point is 00:25:29 It's gonna take us some time to put together and we have to go through and do a Evaluation or something I said well how long I'm thinking it's gonna be you know 48 hours. I'll have an answer He said well takes about 18 months to do this. I said it takes what he said 18 months so I Went back and said did This thing? He said, 18 months. So I went back and said to Ed, this isn't going to work. It's going to take 18 months. He was officing at the Plainville, Connecticut branch of United Cable, was headquartered in Denver. And the general manager heard us talking one day, and he said, you know what?

Starting point is 00:26:00 He said, I don't know about that idea of yours hooking all the cables together. He said, but here's something you might look into. RCA has got this thing called a satellite. Nobody seems to know much about it, but I've got the phone number for RCA Americama New York. I'll just give it to you. You call them and you figure it out. So I said, I'd like to speak with someone about RCA Americama about time on one of your satellites. Oh, yes, sir. Wait a minute. I'll get you somebody. The guy came on and said, Al Perinello, may I help you? I said, yeah. I briefly described what I wanted to do. And he said, where are you in Connecticut?

Starting point is 00:26:35 I thought, wow, this is pretty good. Told him and he said, I'll be up there tomorrow morning. Now, we didn't have an office. Where's he going to come up to? This is another one of those, what do you mean you don't have a tape situation? So we went down and I talked to the vice president. He gave me the number. He got me into it. So I said, can we use your conference room? Very nicely appointed conference room. They spent a lot of money putting it together. He said, we have a company policy. I have to charge you for it. I thought, oh boy. He said, will 20 bucks be too much. So I gave him a $20 bill and we had the conference room and he came up

Starting point is 00:27:09 and he explained everything. And at the end of his whole presentation, he said, there's one thing that we used to offer, but we don't anymore because nobody has ever been interested in it. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it's a five-year contract 34 167 dollars a month okay and so he went off and my son scott and i started talking about that overnight we called him the next morning and it was really a funny conversation the next morning so i didn't know the difference between satellite transponder and all that you know jar, jargon. So I just called and I said to him, Al, we'll take one of those. He said, one of what? That thing you were talking about. That, you know, what you did just about what I did, because at my desk, I went, one of those things that transponded that satellite

Starting point is 00:27:58 thing we were talking about. He said, you mean a transponder? Yeah, that's what I mean. And that started it. So he said, you've got it. We'll paper it over, obviously. So that was all we needed. We went down into Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, incorporated ESPN on Bastille Day, July 14th, 1978. Off we went. So we've talked a lot about satellites, transponders, everything in between. I'll take one of those. So I thought it would be fun to bring up a video that explains how some of this works. Years ago, tales of Jules Verne and Buck Rogers were made of dreams and wild bits of imagination.

Starting point is 00:28:39 Today, modern technology has taken those dreams and that imagination and turned it into a reality that allows us to bring a television picture into your home via satellite. The picture you're watching right now has been taken by a camera sent through some sophisticated equipment to this Earth transmitting station, which in turn feeds a satellite located 22,300 miles above the equator just south of Hawaii. Our cameraman takes a picture at a football stadium, for example. That picture is fed into our ESPN remote truck, out of the remote truck to an Earth-transmitting station, up to the satellite over the equator, back down to an Earth-receiving station, over a cable in your hometown,

Starting point is 00:29:13 into your television set in your living room. All right. Technology at its best. So, everybody got it? That was like virtual reality back in the day. All right. One take, too, by the way. That was the only take because it was 6.30 and we were going on the air in 30 minutes.

Starting point is 00:29:37 They said, don't mess it up. Don't mess it up. So, ESPN, what was the original incarnation? You said you incorporated it. When you incorporated it, what in your mind was ESPN and how did you choose the name? We knew we were going to do 24-hour sports at that point. We had made that decision. And a colleague, he was a partner in an advertising firm. One of their clients was the Connecticut Natural Gas Company, who was running a promo

Starting point is 00:30:07 for an energy-saving program. Recognize the letters? E-S-P. To do animation in those days was very, very expensive, and we had no money. We started this whole thing with a $9,000 credit card cash advance. So, you know, you have to husband your dollars. They had this great graphic and there was something circling the globe and here was, you know, clouds and all this motion and they had done it. It said ESP, ESP going around. And so he called and he said, you know, I think you guys have a great idea. I'd like to come to work for you. And I said, you know, we couldn't hire anybody. I said, I'll tell you what, that Connecticut natural gas thing, if you can bring that graphic minus the, you know, no audio, just bring that graphic and we can put our own words to it, you're hired. He called me the next morning. He said, when do I start? I

Starting point is 00:31:01 nearly fell over. I couldn't believe he'd pull it off. He got permission from Connecticut Natural Gas to take the stuff that they had paid for, the graphic, the visual, and brought it to us. And so we had the ESP. Well, that wasn't going to work. We thought we would be the SPN, Sports Programming Network, but somebody already had a satellite programming network, so we couldn't use it. So he had the E on the front end, and we figured we could add the N on the back end, and we'll see that the original version of ESPN was the E period, S period, P period network, and it was a kooky-looking logo, I have to tell you. And it sounds a lot like registering these days in a website. It's domains.

Starting point is 00:31:45 You're like, oh, well, that one's taken. This one's taken. Well, if we had a letter here, subtract one here, add another one there. Yeah. So now it's time to move ahead, and we're looking for funds. You got a nice chunk of change. We can talk about it. I think it was 9,000, 30,000 kind of family and friends.

Starting point is 00:32:00 Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah, that's right. And then Getty Oil came. Not quite. There was an interim step in there. There was an interim step in there's an interim step what happened we had some appointments with some very very big and powerful companies uh the pittsburgh plate class people um the campbell soup foundation we i mean they were big companies and yeah with staff broadcasting do you remember that they went

Starting point is 00:32:22 out of business i don't know at what point along the way. Anyway, we went out there. I visited with them. I actually met with the board, and the chairman hosted me. We had a delightful lunch. We talked a little bit, and then he walked me to the front door and out into the parking lot for my rental car, and he said, we really appreciate your coming. He figuratively patted me on the head and said,

Starting point is 00:32:44 you're a delightful young man. Thank you for coming today. We really appreciate your coming. And he figuratively, you know, patting me on the head and saying, you're a delightful young man. Thank you for coming today. But I have to tell you, your idea simply will not work. Oh, and one other thing. He said, there will be no cable television three years from today. Tap broadcasting went out of business. I just don't remember when. Cable television is live as well.

Starting point is 00:33:15 How did you feel when he said that to you and dismissed you in the parking lot? I thought he made a mistake. He was a nice man. I wasn't going to say anything nasty to him. I had no negative reaction to him. I just knew he was wrong. I just thought he made a mistake. He had a great opportunity, and they might still be around today if he had made the right decision. That sounds copy. But that was the sixth company we'd been to. And then we ended up coming out to Getty Oil,

Starting point is 00:33:37 met with the vice president and explained the whole thing. And he was very skeptical and so on. But what I didn't know is that he was a gentleman who really liked the idea because it was putting him close to television and he lived in Hollywood and all this kind of stuff. And many, many years later, this finance manager told me, he said, you don't know this, but his office was on the 18th floor. And he called me when he left his office and he said, I swear before you got, the elevator got to 18th floor, and he called me when you left his office, and he said, I swear before the elevator got to the bottom floor, he had called me and said, George, we're going into television business. Because he wanted to be in the television business. Was this a chicken and the egg issue?

Starting point is 00:34:18 Were you basically saying, Getty Family is totally behind us. We got this nailed down, so you should really give us the programming. Oh, no, it wasn't just those two. You've seen the jugglers who can throw five of them in the air at the same time? And this literally happened. If we were talking to Getty, we were doing very well with RCA and the satellite, although we hadn't signed a contract yet. But they weren't contractually obligated to you because they put the paper down, right? Yeah. Nice. Good move. but they weren't contractually obligated to you because they put the paper down right yeah nice good move we are making a lot of progress with the cable operators we have well how many they never asked how many we had signed early on but we were making a lot of progress with them uh and program with the ncaa it's natural for the ncaa now if we're talking the ncaa they say well

Starting point is 00:34:59 how are you going to finance this oh we're talking to getty oil they are 100 behind this as a matter of fact their finance manager is coming in the next meeting so we can explain all of it. And it just went like that. And of course, when we were talking to the cable operators, it was, we've got the financing with Getty, we've got the programming with the NCA, and all we need is you to let your subscribers know, and they will be fans of ours and customers of yours and increase your... So the programming though, I mean, that's the lifeblood. That was the key.

Starting point is 00:35:27 In a lot of ways. I mean, you need the capital, but you also need the programming. So this is a good point to talk about something we have here that I'm not going to open up and we're going to get to. You have a broken arm if you open that one. Yeah, I can't open this. This is a shrink-wrapped copy of the original ESPN pitch deck to the NCAA. A, why is this shrink-wrapped?

Starting point is 00:35:46 And then B, can you describe? If you would hand it to me, I'll show you what we did. All right. This is really easy. We had a very creative printer, and he was very much on our side helping us get things done. And I don't know if you can see what this says. He said, I'm going to design this for you

Starting point is 00:36:01 because you don't know what you're doing. And I said, okay. And I said, we've got to get these copies out to the NCAA. And he said, no, no, no, you cannot do that. He printed six copies, shrink-wrapped all of them. And I said, why are we shrink-wrapping them? He said, because if you put an open book in front of somebody in a meeting, they will begin to flip through it before you finish saying what you have to say.

Starting point is 00:36:20 Oh, that's very smart. If you put a shrink-wrapped book in front of them, they'll be looking right and left until somebody else starts to open it, they won't touch theirs. And you get to finish your story and then you cue them and say, now, open your presentation.

Starting point is 00:36:34 And then we walk through it. That is very smart. And I've used this as an example, I can't tell you how many times. It's a very, very effective tool. It's amazing. I've seen so many pitches. I mean, in my other life, I do a lot of investing in early tech mostly, and I've seen so many dozens of pitches fail because what happens is exactly what you said. People start flipping ahead.

Starting point is 00:36:59 They're busy, they're distracted, and they're not listening at all to what the person is saying. And before that person can get two sentences in, they've already found an objection and it's game over. So what then, tell us more about the pitch meeting with the NCAA. So what were other keys of the pitch? Well, at first, the first meeting was in October when we presented this book. So he said, well, I'll have to talk to Walter about this. But he said the best thing you can do is keep working through the TV committee. So we went to a TV committee meeting in October. We went to another one in December.

Starting point is 00:37:29 We went to another one in January, and I'm getting tired of going to TV meetings. We don't seem to, I've never seen Walter Byers at this point. I still haven't seen him. On January 25th, we're at the Kansas City Marriott Airport doing yet another TV committee meeting, and the back door of the meeting room opens and it's Walter Beyer. He comes in, sits down. Right in the middle of a sentence, doesn't say excuse me, doesn't say anything, doesn't have a question. He just comes in, sits down. Hail Caesar, there he is. Yeah, there he is. He's there. So I kept talking. I mean, literally, I kept talking. And he stood

Starting point is 00:37:58 up and he said, how do I, right in the middle, no introduction. I mean, everybody knew who he was. He said, how do I know that you're not just on a fishing exposition? You're just looking to use our name to go out and raise some money. And to this minute, sitting here talking to you, Tim, I don't know why I said it or where it came from, but I said, you give us the name of your bank and on July 1st, we'll deposit 50% of whatever amount we come to an agreement on. Sat back down. Two guys next to me, J.B. Doherty from KS Suite and George Conner, the financial guy from Getty, turned about as white as this table.

Starting point is 00:38:37 And worse than that, Waller gets up, walks out the back door and slams the door and leaves. I was sure it was all over. Coppage adjourned the meeting. hansen came up and said walter wondered if you could stay over another night and come out to the office and meet with us and that started that was january 25th by march 1st we had a written contract signed So let's talk a little bit about the launch itself. So you get these pieces of the puzzle arranged. You manage to juggle successfully.

Starting point is 00:39:21 And you have these incredible commitments. And by the way, I want to just underscore something for folks. It seems like and Please feel free to jump in but you can you can get really really far in life further than you than you would expect Just by asking why not? I've noticed you brought that up a couple times like why not? What's the worst that could happen and The launch though, I really want to dig into so So between signing all of these folks, getting all these commitments, and your first air date, how much time elapsed? We signed the NCAA on March 1. We hired Chet Simmons from NBC. He came on board July 31st.

Starting point is 00:40:01 We were signing subscribers, cable subscribers, multiple system operators, all through that period. Chet came on board on July 31st, and we said we're going on the year September 7th, and he said, no, we're not, because the building hadn't even topped. They hadn't even finished the walls of the building to the point where they could put the tree on top and say, well, this is as high as we're going, you know. Chet was convinced we couldn't go on, but the contractor said, we'll have it ready for you. And they did. That's kind of a picture of what it looked like.

Starting point is 00:40:30 Now, that looks like the same tie that we saw in that video earlier. Was that the same day? No. Well, yeah, we finished the building by 6.30. No, that wasn't the same day, but it probably was the same tie. So we have a photo of you guys in the control room behind the scenes. You can see how positive we all were. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:47 So what is the conversation happening in this room when you guys are doing this first broadcast? That particular moment, there wasn't a word being said. But in general, was paint a picture for us of that day? We had a picture at 6.30 at night, and we're going around the air at 7. We hadn't recorded some of these things by that time. So there was a little bit of angst building among people. And we still had the contractor outside cleaning windows because we had all glass windows so people could see into the control room, into here and there. And speaking of the master control room next to the studio to run the show, it didn't work. ESPN actually wanted the air from

Starting point is 00:41:24 a remote truck out behind the building. We were on the air with ESPN for about a month from the remote truck out back, which is kind of funny, but that's the way it was. What were some of the, with ESPN, some of the best and worst decisions that you made? I think the best decision was SportsCenter. I mean, you have to understand the context of the day. ABC, NBC, and CBS, they commanded 93% of the audience at 6.30. 93%. 93%. America tuned in to the evening news. And we said we were going to put SportsCenter on at 6.30.

Starting point is 00:42:01 What do you think the first reaction was from everybody outside of our enthusiastic little bunch? DOI. You're crazy. You're crazy. They have 93%, I said, but the other 7% will watch us. What do you mean the other 7%? Well, maybe they're sports fans.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Fast forward many, many years, and I don't know what it is today, but I know it's under 15% watch the big three networks, and of course, there are a lot more channels and so on. I don't know what it is today, but I know it's under 15%. Watch the big three networks, and of course there are a lot more channels and so on. I don't know what the... I know there are many nights that SportsCenter has, and depending on what's happening in the sports world, they produce some pretty big numbers. So you have a lot of hours to fill. 24 hours, that's a lot of hours. And so you had to, in some cases, really slot in a wide spectrum of different sports. So I thought it would be fun to take a look at just a handful of those sports. From Penn State University, ESPN brings you the NCAA Championship Fencing.

Starting point is 00:42:55 So, we go into event number three of the day, Bruno the Sabre. And this one's kind of a throwback to the old movies of the swashbuckling pirates and the three musketeers next division three cross-country championships enjoy NCAA championship cross-country on ESPN Today from the Duran Eastman golf course in Rochester, New York. It's the division three championship. And you had some very esoteric... I was going to use the word esoteric. It's hard to believe we turned anything down, right? We had a group from New York City come to us and ask us what rights fee we would pay

Starting point is 00:43:40 them to televise their New York City rooftop platform tennis league. So you were receiving the pitch in this case? Yes, and we said, don't think so. We had a lot of people present serious proposals, but that one was probably the farthest out in, that was not in left field, that was in deep left field and farther it was gone perhaps this is a good place to ask just for people who are wondering uh when did you leave espn it was sold so i can tell you exactly when i left it was 205 p.m

Starting point is 00:44:22 friday afternoon june 25th 1984. bill ross and the reason they had that's a big check yeah so from from memorial day 1978 to june 25th 1984 was my active tenure with ESPN. Do you ever regret having left? Do you wish you could have stayed longer? Not for a second. And I think of all of the things that have happened, the creation of literally hundreds of thousands of jobs

Starting point is 00:44:59 for freelance people, for network people, for all the teams have their own networks now. And basically ESPN spawned all of that. And I'm really proud of that. I'm pleased. If somebody wanted to get good at negotiating or just pitching like this, do you have any particular recommendations for them? I know I have a few books that had a huge impact on me. I'll share what those are.

Starting point is 00:45:18 But do you have any recommendations? I think, one, you have to know as much as you can possibly know about your subject. The other thing is, I don't have to know all the details about your business. What are your goals and what's your general business? I don't have to know all the details about my business. Where do we want to go and where do we want to take it? I'm not an engineer. I'm not a mathematician.

Starting point is 00:45:41 I'm not an accountant. I'm none of those things. But I kind of have an idea to put the idea together and have a general knowledge of some statistics that make some sense. Well, you have a really good combination of a number of things. And I remember at one point reading an article by a gentleman named Mark Andreessen. So Mark Andreessen is a billionaire. He was co-author of the Mosaic web browser. So the first really popular graphic web browser. And he noted that most CEOs are kind of in the top 20% in two or three fields.

Starting point is 00:46:13 But they're very rarely the Michael Jordan of just one thing. You have to have a few overlapping skills. And the good news is it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier to plan that and engineer that in your life than it is to try to aim to be that one Michael Jordan. So the books I was going to mention for you guys, if you're interested, I found very helpful. Getting Past No, a little more realistic than Getting to Yes, in my opinion, and then Secrets of Power Negotiating. I would get the audio if you can,

Starting point is 00:46:38 because you can tell with the cadence of Bill's voice and the delivery, there's a lot of nuance. Let's see if we can pull up some audience questions. This is from Lex. How does it feel to have captured the attention of so many people and our boyfriends and bring them together through sports? Well, it wasn't always that way. In our early days,

Starting point is 00:46:57 some of the men in the audience got so enamored with ESPN that we were on the air barely a year and we were named in a divorce action. A lady in Texas included us because her husband was paying more attention to ESPN than he was to her. And when it arrived in Bristol, our general counsel and our whole legal department was only one person. So our general counsel went oh my we're dead what's going to happen and our pr lady said we want to spell her name right and she put

Starting point is 00:47:30 out a press release and and that turned out to the first of many times es men has been frequently named in divorce suits for alienation of whatever i i don't get it but addictive entertainment addictive entertainment aside from family members when you hear the word successful who is the of whatever. I don't get it, but... Addictive entertainment. Addictive entertainment. Aside from family members, when you hear the word successful, who is the first person who comes to mind? Successful. Success is described in so many different ways. When I think back to my father surviving the depression, getting four kids through college, coming through World War II, that was a success. What is success to you? Getting a good night's sleep, I guess. Seriously, when you get older, you'll find out. No, no, no. I do take it seriously because I've always had onset insomnia.

Starting point is 00:48:26 And by the way, Jodie Foster, I think, has said success is sleeping well. Like it's a good indicator of what you're doing right or what you're doing wrong. Well, and you have so much more energy the next day to do more things. Do you feel like a success? Not really. You know, I'm just a guy from the south side of Chicago. I've been blessed to be involved in a lot of really good things that turned out well. But I don't, you know, I don't walk down the street in my ESPN jacket across the back or anything.

Starting point is 00:48:57 If you had to give a high profile talk, 20 minute talk on something that is not something you're known for like espn what might be talking avid avid reader and i'm a serious advocate and a serious uh student of american history all the way back to the civil war but particularly in world war ii and just because i lived through it i mean i lived through the military part of it. I was in the high schools in Chicago were all military. They all had ROTC units. We had the various and sundry parades were all, you know, and it just, especially living in the World War II period, you got such a sense of country and patriotism.

Starting point is 00:49:42 If somebody wanted to immerse themselves in that, if you had a friend, student, doesn't really matter, someone who really wanted to immerse themselves in that history, what books would you recommend they start with or any places to start? The first one I would, and I'm now reading it for the second time, and it's a little book of 789 pages. You have to immerse. I mean, you have to really get into it. It's called December 1941. And if you read that book, you'll find out so much about

Starting point is 00:50:11 politics, war, America, and the resiliency of this country. It's just, it's an amazing, amazing book. What are your current challenges? Or if you had to pick one of your current challenges or problems that you're facing? We're starting a new business. It's called Hometown Networks. And what we're going to do is, I have been an advisor to a company that has come up with an incredible, I don't know how they do this stuff. It's one single 4K camera, one microphone, and a little black box. You can produce any baseball game, football game, hockey game, whatever you want, soccer game.

Starting point is 00:50:50 And he wants to do it for high schools all across America, or secondary schools, or town recreational areas, and so on. I think it's a great idea. So I've agreed to help him. So if I were to ask you then, what's next for Bill Rasmussen, that would be a big component of it, it sounds like. Yeah, that's what I'm doing now because, first of all, you talk about four-hour work weeks while you're pushing the envelope there. Getting aggressive, getting extreme. Yeah, no. But I really, I don't want to work at it full, and I don't work full. I don't work full-time in the sense that people think of going to work. Right.

Starting point is 00:51:27 Work up here because you're thinking about things. But I think it's a great opportunity for not only youngsters playing, but for parents, for grandparents, for relatives, anywhere. Streaming goes anywhere in the world now. If I have a kid playing in Florida and you're living in California and you say, what's Sam up to today? Tune in tonight.

Starting point is 00:51:51 You can find him. You'll watch him. Make sure that all those people who are going to benefit from this learn all about it. And that's what we're doing. Learn all about it. So I only have two questions left.

Starting point is 00:52:02 If there's anything you would like to say as parting comments, recommendation, suggestion, thoughts for people who are going out on their own adventures, careers, maybe they're just getting started. So I think it's really simple. In my view, when I look at a new business, it doesn't get very complicated. It's a short business statement, hopefully a mission statement, hopefully no more than six words, and then follow the facts. Five facts. You need financing, advertising, content, technology, and customers, subscribers, customers. That's what we used in ESPN.

Starting point is 00:52:35 I think the same thing works to this very day. If you keep it that simple, you'll win. One of the patterns that it seems has come up a number of times here that is worth mentioning is that it seems like for the most important decisions, for doing the big things, the timing's never really good. Like, the timing's never perfect. There's always something not ready. There's always someone who's walking out the door. There's always a partner who's leaving. There's always something. So if you wait until the timing is perfect or when it feels really good, you're never going to be ready.

Starting point is 00:53:02 You're never going to be ready. You just have to be ready. You're never going to be ready. You just have to be right. You have to move when you're ready to go and everybody else has to catch up or walk alongside you, one or the other. Or as Ted Turner says, lead follower, get out of the way. He's right. He's right to the point. So you guys are both to the point and you like six words a lot. I don't know if this will end up being six words, but if you had a gigantic billboard and can put anything on it and of course what i'm asking is really if you get a short message out to a huge audience what would you put on that billboard abc nbc abc nbc so yeah back to six words again yeah and back to the two

Starting point is 00:53:37 networks i work for always be curious never be complacent oh that's a good one. I like that. ABC, NBC, Bill Rasmussen, everybody. He's not done. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just one more thing before you take off. And that is Five Bullet Friday. Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little fun before the weekend? Between one and a half and two million people subscribe to my free newsletter, my super short newsletter called Five Bullet Friday. Easy to sign up, easy to cancel. It is basically a half page that I send out every Friday to share the coolest things I've

Starting point is 00:54:19 found or discovered or have started exploring over that week. It's kind of like my diary of cool things. It often includes articles I'm reading, books I'm reading, albums perhaps, gadgets, gizmos, all sorts of tech tricks and so on that get sent to me by my friends, including a lot of podcast guests. And these strange esoteric things end up in my field, and then I test them, and then I share them with you. So if that sounds fun, again, it's very short, a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend, something to think about. If you'd like to try it out, just go to tim.blog slash Friday, type that into your browser, tim.blog slash Friday, drop in your email and you'll get the very next one. Thanks for

Starting point is 00:55:01 listening.

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #569: ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.

Your Ad Here

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #569: ESPN Co-Founder Bill Rasmussen — Fear{less} with Tim Ferriss

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.