Unlocking The ESPN Empire With Mike Soltys And Garrett Sutton

Unlocking The ESPN Empire With Mike Soltys And Garrett Sutton

From Unlocked with Skot Waldron by Skot Waldron

June 16, 2026 · 50 min · Season 3 · Episode 171

About this episode

Skot Waldron interviews Mike Soltys and Garrett Sutton about the founding of ESPN and the leadership lessons from Bill Rasmussen's journey.

In this episode of Unlocked, Skot sits down with Mike Soltys ESPN's official historian and a 45-year veteran of the company and Garrett Sutton, attorney, bestselling author, and executive producer of the new documentary Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN. Together, they pull back the curtain on Bill Rasmussen, the 43-year-old who got fired from a hockey team and decided to build a 24-hour sports network instead of feeling sorry for himself. What makes this conversation compelling isn't just the ESPN story it's what that story reveals about leadership, conviction, optimism, and the willingness to believe in something before anyone else does. Bill Rasmussen had to simultaneously close deals with Getty Oil, RCA, Anheuser-Busch, the NCAA, and the city of Bristol none of them finalized while racing toward a launch date he'd already announced publicly. That's not luck. That's a specific kind of leadership most people never talk about. If you've ever had a vision that no one else could quite see yet, this episode will feel like a permission slip. Timestamps: 00:00:00 – Cold Start & Intro 00:05:15 – Why Getting Fired Was the Best Thing That Happened 00:07:26 – The Doubters, the Vision, and…

People in this episode

Host: Skot Waldron

Guests: Mike Soltys, Garrett Sutton

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ESPN, Getty Oil, RCA, Anheuser-Busch, NCAA

Books & works: Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN

Places: Bristol

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