Hollywood film in works on ESPN and its DePauw grad founders

Wednesday, August 15, 2018
ESPN founder and 1954 DePauw University graduate Bill Rasmussen visits campus last fall.
Courtesy photo

Actor-director James Franco is in negotiations to direct the movie “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN” for Focus Features, the trade publication Variety reported recently.

ESPN was launched in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott as the world’s first 24-hour cable TV network, it notes.

Bill Rasmussen is a 1954 graduate of DePauw University, while Scott Rasmussen received a DePauw degree in 1986.

Scott and Bill Rasmussen in the early days of their cable TV network.
Courtesy photo

“The project is based on the 2011 book of the same name by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, which recapped the formation of the sports network, based on interviews with more than 500 people,” Dave McNary reports

“Halt and Catch Fire” co-creator Christopher C. Rogers has been hired to rewrite the script. Miller was tapped to adapt the script in 2015. Michael De Luca, Jamie Patricof, and Julie Yorn are producing the film, Variety adds.

According to a report, the movie “will follow Bill Rasmussen, a communications executive who teamed up with his son, Scott, to launch the world’s first 24-hour cable TV network. But first, the Rasmussens had to max out their credit cards to scrape together enough cash to reserve a satellite transponder so they could show sporting events nonstop throughout the day.”

ESPN icon Chris Berman has called Bill Rasmussen “the George Washington of ESPN.”

Jim Miller, the co-author of the book, “Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN,” told SportsBusiness Journal that Rasmussen “is a guy whose idea gave birth to, arguably, the most successful media story of our time.

The author of “Sports Junkies Rejoice: The Birth of ESPN,” Rasmussen was recognized as one of the 2011 class of “The Champions: Pioneers and Innovators in Sports Business” and in 2016 was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the fifth annual Cynopsis Sports Business Summit.

Bill Rasmussen delivered an Ubben Lecture at DePauw last November during a week-long residency.

During a 2012 visit to DePauw, Rasmussen -- who was a Rector Scholar and economics major -- was interviewed on TV’s “Inside Indiana Business” and was inducted into the DePauw Media Wall of Fame.

Scott Rasmussen founded the polling firm Rasmussen Reports and has authored “Politics Has Failed: America Will Not,” “The People’s Money,” “Mad as Hell: How the Tea Party Movement is Fundamentally Remaking Our Two-Party System,” “In Search of Self-Governance” and “Solving the Budget Crisis: Hope for America’s Future.”

A history major at DePauw, he went on to earn an MBA from Wake Forest University

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