ESPN Inc. is an American multinational sports media conglomerate majority-owned by the Walt Disney Company, with Hearst Communications as an equity stakeholder.

[2][3][4] 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.

An advertising contract with Anheuser-Busch was in talks at that time, and Getty Oil came on board as its major source of capital.

[6] With a reasonable payment plan in July 1979, Rasmussen leased RCA's Satcom 1 transponder using his credit card.

At the end of 1980, Rasmussen was removed as company president by Getty Oil executive for ESPN, Stuart Evey, relegating him to a ceremonial role.

[6] Investing another $15 million into the company and no profits expected any time soon, Getty used management consultant McKinsey & Co. to assess ESPN's future.

McKinsey's lead consultant was Roger Werner, who figured with another $120 million and five years ESPN would become a profit maker.

Werner developed a new revenue source beyond advertising by initiating revolutionary affiliate fees paid by the cable operators by number of subscribers starting at 6 cents.

[9] Steve Bornstein replaced him in the CEO post moving up from the second position of executive vice-president in charge of programming and production.

Disney purchased the stake to first develop an ESPN-branded subscription streaming service, later named ESPN+.

As part of the agreement, ESPN will receive $1.5 billion in cash over 10 years, and will take $500 million in Penn stock.

The company plans to launch a "flagship" standalone streaming offering, including the ESPN and ESPN2 linear channels, in late summer or fall 2025.

Under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission's rules regarding foreign broadcasters, ESPN has been prohibited from acquiring majority ownership of any channel operating in Canada.

Instead, ESPN partnered with several Canadian firms to form a privately held consortium named NetStar Communications in 1995, which then acquired the sports networks TSN and RDS.

[13] The sale's closure in March 2007 added NASN to the ESPN family, although it remained as part of the Setanta Sports Pack on satellite television.

[29] ESPN UK launched in August 2009, forming as part of a new TV package with America and Classic, by acquiring much of the ex-Setanta slots.

By 2012, the network had begun to lose many of its key sports rights, including the Premier League, to BT Group.