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ESPN launches for the first time at 7pm ET. ESPN Sports Center Debut with ESPN Founder Bill Rasmussen.
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ESPN begins distributing programming internationally.
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ESPN awarded NFL's first cable contract; begins fall '87.
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ESPN and Major League Baseball reach a four-year agreement to begin in 1990.
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ESPNet SportsZone, a partnership between ESPN and Starwave Corp., makes its debut.
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ESPN2 reaches 75 million homes faster than any other network - 89 months. Deal struck to be the exclusive sports channel content provider for Microsoft’s MSN portal. It runs for three years and provides a major boost to ESPN.com traffic.
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ESPN reaches agreement for multimedia NBA coverage, becoming the first network to televise all four major professional sports-NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA. Debut of ESPNMotion, allowing broadband users to view automatically loading streaming video on the home page. Developed in part by Walt Disney Imagineering, ESPN Motion would help pave the way for ventures in live and on-demand streaming video. A Miami-Rutgers football game that October represents ESPN.com’s first live game webcast.
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ESPN HD, a high-definition simulcast service of ESPN, launches.
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Shift to fantasy football games from strictly a paid service to free, helping generate what would become a historic mushrooming in consumer interest in fantasy games. ESPNU, a 24-hour network devoted to college sports, launches. ESPN Acquires Monday Night Football for eight years, beginning in 2006. ESPN acquires rights for multiple Men's and Women's World Cups. ESPN announces eight-year agreement with NASCAR, 2007 - 2014.
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ESPN rebrands and relaunches ESPNSoccernet as ESPNFC, which becomes one of the world’s largest online soccer destinations.
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Establishment of a comScore traffic record for any U.S. digital sports entity with 72.7 million unique users in September. ESPN has since set four more sports category records, reaching a high of 93.97 million unique users domestically in January 2015.
