Democratized Sports Instruction & Ownership

Published: 2021-12-02

5/5 Average rating

Sports thrill, teach, unite, heal, and, yes, pay.

Measuring sports’ rewards took many of those paths and for this penslinger, player, and benchwarmer the fibers of sports have clothed me well.

Most prominent was a right-place-at-the-right-time appointment as ESPN’s founding executive producer. The odds of being in the right place at the right time are dramatically increased by going to a lot of places a lot of times, experience shows.

Before and after that as a newspaper sports reporter, golf author, developer, coach, and now SportsEdTV's Senior Content Editor I attribute much of life’s fruits to balls of varying shapes and sizes.

Being privy to ESPN’s birth is always a hot topic when that lineage gets revealed—once in a while pridefully by me.

This, I guess, is one of those times, because joining SportsEdTV in its early stages reminds me of that ESPN rocket ride.

For context look at this:

My golfing friend Bill Rasmussen, his son, and a colleague Ed Eagan were the three partners who started ESPN using $9,000 on Bill’s credit card to begin.

In 2012 Forbes said ESPN was worth $40 billion and in 2021 MD Daily Record valued the sports network at $50 billion.

From Page 69 Sports Junkies Rejoice—Rasmussen’s Diary-Like Book Speaking to his partners:

"Tell you what—whatever I can raise, we will divide by three, and that will be your start-up investment. You two can borrow the money and pay me back when we get an investor or however we raise the funds."

Like I said, it was a rocket ride and this ESPNaut tells stories about:

Throwing the switch on our first telecast, November 17, 1978
Betting Ted Turner at National Cable TV Show that we’d beat CNN on the air. We did.
Hearing Getty Oil Board Chairman Sidney Petersen tell us they had enough money to buy NBC, CBS, and ABC, "so do not embarrass us." They invested.
Making friends with Steve Bogart—Humphrey’s son-- as we worked in SportsCenter
Playing pick-up hoops with my sons on famous arena courts as crews set up our TV gear.

So, yes, sports has taught, healed, and paid me in ways that in reflection brings gratitude.

Soon earning octogenarian status and full of pee and vinegar again thanks to inspired SportsEdTV leaders I’m buckling in for another ride.

This time, I’m all in. In with my heart and in with shares. The shares matter. It’s a way to keep score.

But, a heart that brims with pride again is thumping strongly powered by SportsEdTV’s global commitment to “democratize sports instruction.”

In a sports world that has in many segments become too expensive for many potential athletes to afford and thereby enjoy the fruits that I have, SportsEdTV’s unlimited, FREE anywhere, anytime, online world-class sports instruction is a compelling solution.

As an insider with an outsider perspective coming to know SportsEdTV’s Leadership Team makes going all-in a layup. That’s a heart-on-his-sleeve ESPNaut talking.

When more sober voices like Price Waterhouse Cooper and Deloitte pre-think the future of sports in current assessments my snowball rolls.

And you?

All I can say is once again, I’m admiring the SportsEdTV leadership for their vision to embrace the democratization of its ownership by crowdfunding, its investments.

That means you, maybe even your pee wee player can own a chunk of SportsEdTV.

I’m no legal eagle, so I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say about the online crowdfunding site Start Engine where SportsEdTV’s rocket is padded.

Could it evoke the same kind of feeling the citizens in Green Bay have about the Packers because the taxpayers own the team?