Grating The Nutmeg

If you are driving in Bristol, Connecticut-maybe you're going to Lake Compounce Amusement Park - and suddenly you spy a cluster of huge satellite dishes, you might wonder if space aliens had really landed. But what you've discovered is the home base of ESPN - originally entitled the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network - shortened to ESPN in 1985.   Every year tens of millions of fans watch ESPN but 47 years ago, a 24-hour sports television cable network was considered a wild and impossible idea. Our guests on this episode are the authors of the new audiobook SPORTS HEAVEN: The Birth of ESPN  published by Hachette Audio on April 7, 2026.   Historian Mike Soltys was hired in the summer of 1980 as a college intern by ESPN's founder, Bill Rasmussen, and served 43 years in ESPN's corporate communications department, the last 20 as a vice president. He returned to ESPN in 2024 as a part-time Historian.  Mike is serving as producer of a documentary Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN and co-author of  the