Written by James Fohl

After a long hard day, most Americans find themselves on a nice comfy couch or chair in front of the television set watching some what of entertainment. For a lot of guys, it is usually a sports program that recaps what had happened in sports during that particular day. While many television shows dedicated to sports exist, only a few television stations are completely dedicated to sports. Among them is perhaps the most popular sports channel, ESPN.

ESPN stands for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network and is a cable television station that was launched on September 7th, 1979 by two father and son pairs; Bill and Scott Rasmussen and Donny and Cardell Stanley. ESPN is based in the state of Connecticut (Bristol), and is viewable in over seventy seven million homes across the United States of America.

ESPN started its infancy in the early 1980's by airing a variety of sports that viewers could not see anywhere else. Examples of such broadcasts included tractor pulls, Australian football, and the United States Football league. ESPN really was not considered to be a big player in the sports department until they were given a contract that allowed them to air NFL football games on Sunday nights, starting in 1987.

As the years progresses, ESPN was getting bigger, better, and started to expand. In October of 1993, the second ESPN television station was launched. Titled ESPN 2, this television sports station was targeted towards young adults with its extreme sports related lineup. Unfortunately, the station did not initially do as well as it had hoped, and eventually its extreme sport lineup was replaced with content similar to the original ESPN station. As a result, today ESPN 2 is viewable in more than sixty three million homes across the United States of America.

The expansion did not stop with ESPN 2. As ESPN became more popular through the 1990's, they gained more cash revenue, much of which they recycled back into their programming line up. ESPNEWS was launched in early November of 1996, and was basically a 24/7 news channel for sports. The following year, ESPN launched its ESPN Classics sports channel which broadcast ed a variety of memorable sporting events.

Things were quiet for a few years before ESPN launched a Spanish version of its popular ESPN channel entitled ESPN Deportes on January 7th, 2004. Later that year, ESPN also launched its high definition station, ESPN HD, which broadcast the same programs as ESPN, only in high definition.

Not only does ESPN have a large variety of sports television stations, but it also has a variety of radio stations, known as ESPN Radio which launched in January 1992. ESPN also has managed to get into other forms of media with its publication, ESPN Magazine.

ESPN was once just a single television station that had shown a variety of programs that could not be seen anywhere else. Today however ESPN is one of the top names in sports, as the company has managed to overtake sports television with several different stations, as well as its other media outlets.