School of Management at Wake Forest University. Career ESPN In 1978, Rasmussen partnered with his father, Bill, to form an exclusively sports-devoted 24-hour cable television network. The network was initially named "Entertainment and Sports Programming Network," but was changed to "ESPN" to shorten its length. Five years later, the Rasmussen's ownership stake in ESPN was bought out by Texaco, who thereafter sold ESPN to ABC for $237 million. They went on to found the Enterprise Radio Network. Rasmussen and his father later had a falling out over what Rasmussen called unspecified "differences." Polling Rasmussen first became known for his public opinion polling work. In the 1990s, he volunteered as a pollster for friends who were attempting to impose congressional term limits. In 1995, he founded a polling company called GrassRoots Research. In 1999, after changing the name to Rasmussen Research, the company was bought by TownPagesNet.com for about $4.5 million in ordinary shares. Rasmussen Reports In 2003, Rasmussen founded Rasmussen Reports, LLC, a U.S.-based public opinion polling company, to track consumer confidence, investor confidence, and presidential approval. Rasmussen Reports has been called "one of the most consistently interesting polling and analytics companies," generating a daily cycle of news reports based on original survey results as well as political, business, economic and lifestyle content. Unlike traditional pollsters whose polls are often influenced by partisanship, the company's business model relies on website advertising and paid subscriptions for premium content. Rasmussen Reports' polls are notable for their use of automated public opinion polling, involving pre-recorded telephone inquiries, which have been shown to produce accurate results at low cost. In 2009, Noson Lawen Partners provided a significant investment in Rasmussen Reports to help expand its daily, automated tracking polls, noting the "rock solid credibility and market-leading accuracy of the Rasmussen Reports product suite." In 2010, Rasmussen Reports was one of two firms providing daily tracking updates of the president's job approval ratings as well as consumer confidence. By 2012, Rasmussen Reports had garnered a national reputation for providing "reliable, newsworthy and actionable public opinion data," receiving over one million visits per day during the presidential election that year. In July 2013, Rasmussen left his position as president of Rasmussen Reports following disagreements with investors over business strategies. In a press release from Rasmussen Reports, the company confirmed Rasmussen's departure and said, "[i]n part, the move reflects disagreements over company business strategies .... The Company