RIP John Saunders

[3Peatkb24]

This is actually a guy I really liked on ESPN. I loved him on Sports Reporters and he was smooth in his reporting. Not sure of cause of death yet but he was only 61. He was an ESPN employee for 3 decades, had an excellent voice as well.

[lakerevolution]

Yes, very shocking. I keep checking to see what the cause of death was. Well, he lived a great life and touched many people with his good works. I know "The Boomer" Chris Berman is getting on in his years . . you don't see him as much anymore. Like Saunders, he helped give ESPN its successful start in the 1980s.

"Though ESP would not launch for some six months, the 1979 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament had garnered considerable attention, as it was watched by 24.1 million viewers, due to the matchup between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson – the tournament is regarded as having an instrumental part in ESP's eventual success due to the fact many viewers called their cable providers asking that they wanted "that channel that has all the basketball". In May 1979, Getty provided $15 million to the company and Anheuser-Busch came to an agreement with ESP for the largest advertising contract in cable television history at the time, valued at $1.38 million.

Rasmussen, realizing that ESP needed additional sponsors and advertising, decided to distinguish the network from the "Big Three three-letter networks," ABC, NBC and CBS, and renamed ESP as ESPN-TV. The name was shortened to just ESPN prior to the channel's launch."