ESPN Inc. is an American multinational sports media conglomerate majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Hearst Communications as an equity stakeholder. Headed by James Pitaro, it owns and operates local and global cable and satellite television variants of ESPN, ESPN Radio, ESPN.com and other related ventures. Commonly and colloquially marketed as the "Worldwide Leader in Sports", programming on its television networks include broadcasts of live or tape-delayed sporting events and sports-related programming including talk shows and original documentary series and films. History ESPN Inc. was founded in 1979 by Bill Rasmussen, initially as an attempt to broadcast Connecticut sports over an "Entertainment and Sports Programming Network" (ESPN) cable channel, and soon became a nationwide cable sports network. Shortly after being terminated as the World Hockey Association's New England Whalers communications director in 1978, Rasmussen conceived of a plan to produce Connecticut sports events for Connecticut cable systems. With his son, Scott, they had moved beyond that, considering a national sports channel doable. RCA had an underused satellite and was pushing for customers. Finding it cheaper by the hour to rent a satellite transponder full-time, instead of 5 hours a day, the Rasmussens changed their plans from creating a Connecticut sports channel to creating a national cable network. On February 7, 1979, Bill Rasmussen got the NCAA to agree, in principle, to grant ESPN broadcast rights for NCAA sports. The next day at the Texas Cable Show exposition, he was able to get cable companies on board. An advertising contract with Anheuser-Busch was in talks at that time, and Getty Oil came on board as its major source of capital. In 1979, Rasmussen purchased the first acre of land for ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. With a reasonable payment plan in July 1979, Rasmussen leased RCA's Satcom 1 transponder using his credit card. Anheuser-Busch became a major sponsor, signing a $1.4 million ad contract, a record at the time. Getty Oil invested $10 million into ESPN getting a controlling stake in 1979. On September 7, 1979, the ESPN cable channel went on the air, with 24 hours of programming on the weekends and limited hours during the week. 625 cable system affiliates were signed up at launch and they had one million household subscribed total (out of 20 million households with cable). The channel's first game featured the Milwaukee Schlitz and the Kentucky Bourbons in the deciding game of the