ESPN is a U.S.-based global cable and satellite television channel that is owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which operates the network) and the Hearst Corporation (which owns a 20% minority share). The company was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott, and launched on September 7, 1979. ESPN broadcasts primarily from studio facilities located in Bristol, Connecticut.

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The network also operates offices in Miami, New York City, Seattle, Charlotte, and Los Angeles.ESPN is available to approximately 91 million households in the United States. In 2011, ESPN's history and rise was chronicled by These Guys Have All the Fun, a nonfiction book written by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. The rise of the ESPN cable network began in 1978, with the launch of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), which was created by Bill Rasmussen, his son Scott, and Ed Egan.

ESPN was launched on September 7, 1979, from the Bristol, Connecticut studios of an upstart cable television operator. The new network was originally a 24-hour channel dedicated to sports news, highlights and live event coverage, and was originally distributed to cable systems primarily in the northeastern United States. In 1980, ESPN expanded its programming lineup by adding live coverage of Major League Baseball games, followed by games from the National Basketball Association (NBA) and NCAA Division I college football in 1981.

In 1982, ESPN became the first cable network to televise live coverage of the National Hockey League (NHL), and in 1984, it obtained the broadcast rights to show live games from the newly formed United States Football League (USFL). By the mid-1980s, ESPN had become one of the most recognizable sports media brands in the world, and in 1987, the network launched ESPN2, a second 24-hour sports network that featured a wider array of sports programming than its parent network.

In the 1990s, ESPN continued to expand its reach and programming options, becoming the exclusive broadcaster of the FIFA World Cup in 1994 and 1995, and launching ESPNews, a 24-hour sports news channel, in 1996. ESPN also began to experiment with original programming, such as the sports talk show Outside the Lines, which debuted in 1993, and the docudrama series SportsCentury, which profiling 50 of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, which debuted in 1999.

In the 2000s, ESPN solidified its position as a leading sports media company with a series of high-profile acquisitions, such as the sports news website ESPN.com (2001), the sports statistics website Stats Inc. (2002), and the sports broadcast rights to the National Football League (NFL) (2005). In 2010, ESPN launched the ESPN 3D cable channel, which featured 3D broadcasts of select sporting events.

In 2011, ESPN entered into a $15.2 billion contract with the Walt Disney Company to become that media conglomerate's exclusive cable broadcaster of NFL games through the end of the 2021 season, solidifying ESPN's place as one of the most powerful sports media companies in the world.