Happy Birthday ESPN

[DrJay]

ESPN turns 30 today. It and HBO and MTV paved the way for the explosion of cable channels. Thank god, what would we do without the Home Shopping Network and shows about animal control officers pursuing the neighborhood raccoon?

[Marlow]

Re: Happy Birthday ESPN

ESPN turns 30 today.

Long live Australian Rules Football, and all that other awesome 1979 fare! :twisted:

[Pego]

3 great inventions of the latter part of the 20th Century. It is a mystery, how could life exist without them.

1. ESPN
2. Remote.
3. The PC button.

[Marlow]

3 great inventions of the latter part of the 20th Century. It is a mystery, how could life exist without them.
1. ESPN
2. Remote.
3. The PC button.

It's odd to think that just 20 years ago, that the internet, e-mail, and cell phones were virtually non-existent.
I didn't get e-mail till 1990, the www till around 1995, and a cell phone till 1998.

[Halfmiler2]

Re: Happy Birthday ESPN

ESPN turns 30 today. It and HBO and MTV paved the way for the explosion of cable channels. Thank god, what would we do without the Home Shopping Network and shows about animal control officers pursuing the neighborhood raccoon?

You should include CNN in that mix. It came along just after ESPN and broke the network monopoly on news just as ESPN did onsports.

[TrackDaddy]

It's odd to think that just 20 years ago, that the internet, e-mail, and cell phones were virtually non-existent.
I didn't get e-mail till 1990, the www till around 1995, and a cell phone till 1998.

I can't remember when I got email, but I also got the internet around 1995.

I had a bag phone in 1993.



Happy Birthday to ESPN. It's hard sometimes remembering/imagining what we did for sports coverage before it was born.

[bambam1729]

Re: Happy Birthday ESPN

ESPN turns 30 today.

Long live Australian Rules Football, and all that other awesome 1979 fare! :twisted:

I miss Aussie Rules. I loved watching that. One of the things I don't like about ESPN is that as it has become more successful, it no longer shows some of the obscure sports I used to like to watch.

I think a great job would be those guys in Aussie Rules who stand by the goalposts and signal a score by pulling out both hands like six-shooters in the old West days. Wonder how you audition for that job?

[bambam1729]

3 great inventions of the latter part of the 20th Century. It is a mystery, how could life exist without them.
1. ESPN
2. Remote.
3. The PC button.

It's odd to think that just 20 years ago, that the internet, e-mail, and cell phones were virtually non-existent.
I didn't get e-mail till 1990, the www till around 1995, and a cell phone till 1998.

Cell phone in 1989, but was slow for e-mail/Internet, both in 1995. I remember about 1993, Phil Hersh was making fun of me because I didn't have a FAX.

In my day job, I am in a fairly large orthopaedic group of about 30 MDs. At our executive committee meetings we make some relatively large financial decisions at times, about new buildings, new satellite offices, etc. We sometimes joke about the 1990-92 era, when I first joined the group, and we only had 5 guys, and we all remember when we agonized over whether or not we should spend the money to get one of those new-fangled FAX thingies. It was about $600 and we actually tabled the decision at one meeting to get more information about better prices, what type we should get, etc.

[bambam1729]

3 great inventions of the latter part of the 20th Century. It is a mystery, how could life exist without them.

1. ESPN
2. Remote.
3. The PC button.

Microwaves
Air conditioning in cars (I can remember coming back from a golf tournament in Johnston, PA in June 1973 in a Northeast summer heat wave, stopped outside Philly in a big back-up, just dying from the heat in my car, even with all the windows wide open)
Power windows in cars (would kids today even know how to crank those things open?)
And of course, iPods/iPhones

Maybe somebody should start a thread about what we would all put on our iPod if ...

[Halfmiler2]

Our track club's summer all -comer meets began in the late 1970's and are still going. One of my job in the early years was to gather the result sheets and find a pay phone at whatever pub we went to afterwards to call the results (i.e. the winners) in to the local newspaper.

In the 1990's, cell phones made the need to use the pay phones unnecessary, but then the newspaper decided to cut space for local coverage, making the phone calls unnecessary, but then the rise of the Internet allowed our club to post results on its website, making the newspaper unnecessary.

Always interesting to see the chain reaction of technological change. Sort of reminds me of that PBS show "Connections" years ago.

[skyin' brian]

Ha, ESPN is older tha me.

I used to really like Sports Center, but now the only program that I'll watch -- other than live sports, obviously -- is PTI. Baseball Tonight (or similar programs for football, etc.) make even less sense. Okay, if you just watched sports center which included most of the important baseball highlights, why do you need another hour of baseball highlights?

[Marlow]

now the only program that I'll watch is PTI.

Really? I can't turn that off fast enough. It's everything that's wrong with Sports Talk Radio/TV - inane, sound-bite conversations with no rational thought necessary.

[Cooter Brown]

Really? I can't turn that off fast enough. It's everything that's wrong with Sports Talk Radio/TV - inane, sound-bite conversations with no rational thought necessary.

Yeah, all the talk shows have ruined ESPN like reality TV ruined MTV. I used to watch the Sports Reporters before NFL Gameday but that was the only one I could handle.

[skyin' brian]

Re: Marlow's comment on PTI -- I used to think that until I watched Around the Horn.

Come on, PTI is entertaining...those two guys are pretty funny even though they don't know that much about track & field or many sports other than the big 3 plus golf.

What we need is a T&F version of PTI. Can you imagine gh and eldrick hosting this, or maybe Marlow and malmo.

[scottmitchell74]

Great thread!

I didn't get e-mail till 1990, the www till around 1995, and a cell phone till 1998

Funny how we all come to things at different times and for different reasons. I'm always painfully slow in reacting to new tech.

Cd Player = 1995

Email = 1999

www = 2006

Cell Phone = 2007


ESPN = one of the best inventions in human history.

I also love the MP3 player. I dreamed as a kid of a device that would allow me to have all of my music 24/7. I lived to see it!