ESPN Trivia
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6correct to beat the crowd
46 free ESPN trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
ESPN began in 1979 because a fired hockey publicist discovered a satellite transponder was cheaper than he expected. These ESPN trivia questions cover the Bristol launch, the Getty Oil money, the March Madness breakthrough, SportsCenter's anchors and catchphrases, ESPN2, the ESPYs, the X Games, 30 for 30 and the Disney ownership era. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 46 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What did the initialism ESPN originally stand for?
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. The plan grew from one state's games to a 24-hour national channel when renting a satellite around the clock proved cheaper than renting it for five hours.
Q 02ESPN's 2020 documentary series The Last Dance followed the final championship season of which NBA team?
Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls. ESPN had planned the series for June 2020, but with the pandemic wiping out live sport it rushed the premiere forward to April, and it became the network's most-viewed documentary.
Q 03In which Connecticut town is ESPN headquartered?
Bristol
Bristol. The founders had first rented offices in nearby Plainville, but a local ordinance against satellite dishes forced the new channel to find land elsewhere.
Q 04Bill Rasmussen conceived ESPN in 1978 after being fired by which team?
New England Whalers
New England Whalers. He had been the hockey team's communications director and announcer; out of work, he went looking for a way to put Connecticut's games on cable.
Q 05Which company bought control of ESPN in February 1979, months before the channel went on air?
Getty Oil
Getty Oil. It put in $10 million to diversify, watched the bill climb with no profit in sight, and had given up on the channel by the time it sold in 1984.
Q 06Which brewer bought exclusive beer-advertising rights on ESPN in spring 1979?
Anheuser-Busch
Anheuser-Busch. The Budweiser brewer became the channel's first sponsor months before launch, in what was then the richest advertising deal cable television had seen.
Q 07The first game ESPN ever aired, in 1979, was in which sport?
Slow-pitch softball
Slow-pitch softball. The Milwaukee Schlitz met the Kentucky Bourbons in a professional world series game from Wisconsin, a long way from the major leagues the channel shows now.
Q 08Which anchor joined ESPN one month after launch and stayed for decades?
Chris Berman
Chris Berman. He arrived as a 24-year-old with long hair and became the voice of the highlight, stretching out 'back, back, back' as a home run left the park.
Q 09Early rounds of which event gave ESPN its first big programming step in 1980?
The NCAA men's basketball tournament
The coverage helped turn the event into what is now called March Madness.
Q 10Which analyst joined ESPN in 1979 just after being fired as coach of the NBA's Detroit Pistons?
Dick Vitale
Dick Vitale. He took the job only until another coaching offer came along, called ESPN's first big college game that December, and never left the microphone.
Q 11Which of the big broadcast networks took control of ESPN in 1984?
ABC
ABC. It bought the channel from its weary first backer, kept 80% and sold the rest to the biscuit maker Nabisco; ESPN veterans say that until then it could have gone either way.
Q 12ESPN's 2003 coverage of Chris Moneymaker turning an $86 entry into $2.5 million set off a boom in which game?
Poker
Poker. He was an accountant playing his first live tournament, and the sight of an amateur with the perfect name beating the professionals sent thousands of new players online: the 'Moneymaker effect'.
Q 13ESPN's first pro football package, eight games in 1987, put the sport on cable on which night?
Sunday
Sunday. The eight games were the league's first on cable and began a weekly Sunday-night fixture that ESPN kept until 2006.
Q 21In 1980, ESPN became the first network to televise which annual off-field event, now a prime-time spectacle?
The NFL Draft
The NFL Draft. When ESPN's bosses floated the idea, commissioner Pete Rozelle laughed and asked who would want to watch it, but he let them try anyway.
Q 22Which 30 for 30 film won ESPN its first Academy Award, in 2017?
O.J.: Made in America
O.J.: Made in America. At about eight hours it is the longest film ever to win an Oscar, and the Academy promptly changed its rules to keep multi-part series out of the category.
Q 23From 2019, ESPN paid about $300 million a year to carry 42 live events annually from which combat-sports promotion?
UFC
Q 14Which ex-coach joined ESPN in 1987 and stayed on College GameDay for 38 straight seasons?
Lee Corso
Lee Corso. From 1996 he closed each show by pulling on the mascot head of the team he was picking to win, beginning with Ohio State's Brutus Buckeye.
Q 15ESPN Radio's 'Mike & Mike' paired Mike Greenberg with which ex-lineman?
Golic
Golic. The ex-Notre Dame lineman played the blunt tough guy to Greenberg's fussy New York fan for 17 years, until the show signed off in 2017.
Q 16ESPN2 launched in 1993 as a brasher, younger channel with a graffiti-style logo and which nickname?
The Deuce
The Deuce. The channel was pitched at younger viewers, with a looser style and room for the sports its big brother had no time to show.
Q 17In 2010, which NBA star announced his next team live on ESPN in a special called 'The Decision'?
LeBron James
LeBron James. 'I'm going to take my talents to South Beach,' he said from a Boys & Girls Club, and the hour raised millions of dollars for the clubs and other charities.
Q 18Which publishing company bought a 20% stake in ESPN from Nabisco in 1990?
Hearst Communications
Hearst Communications. The price was never announced, though reports put it near $170 million, and the stake went on to become one of the magazine publisher's biggest money-makers.
Q 19Which league agreed in 2025 to take a 10% stake in ESPN?
NFL
NFL. In return the league handed over its own NFL Network and the right to distribute its RedZone channel, turning a seller of TV rights into a part-owner of its broadcaster.
Q 20As of 2025, which outspoken commentator had starred on ESPN's morning debate show First Take since 2012?
Stephen A. Smith
Stephen A. Smith. The former Philadelphia newspaper columnist has outlasted every sparring partner the show has given him, from Skip Bayless to Max Kellerman.
UFC. The five-year deal put mixed martial arts' biggest fights on ESPN and its streaming service; when it ran out, the promotion left for Paramount in a $7.7 billion contract.
Q 24From 1994 to 2021, ESPN televised the national finals of which contest for schoolchildren?
The spelling bee
The spelling bee. ESPN covered it for 27 years, with analysts and profiles of the young spellers, until the company that runs the bee moved it to its own channels in 2022.
Q 25What was the original 1995 name of the vintage-game channel ESPN later rebranded?
Classic Sports Network
Classic Sports Network. ESPN bought the channel in 1997 and put its own name on it; after 26 years of replaying sport's past, it was itself switched off at the end of 2021.
Q 26In 2006, which prime-time football institution moved to ESPN after 36 seasons on broadcast television?
Monday Night Football
Monday Night Football. One of ESPN's first Monday games reopened the New Orleans Superdome, a year after Hurricane Katrina had driven the Saints out of their city.
Q 27Which university had its own ESPN-run television channel from 2011 until it joined the SEC in 2024?
Texas
Texas. The Longhorn Network was possible only because its old conference let schools sell some rights themselves; the SEC pools them, so the channel closed the day before the move.
Q 28On ESPN, what is 'The Ocho'?
A block of obscure sports
A block of obscure sports. The joke began in the 2004 comedy Dodgeball, whose made-up ESPN8 showed contests that were 'almost a sport'; in 2017 the real ESPN started playing along.
Q 29From which city has ESPN's Pardon the Interruption been broadcast since its debut in 2001?
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C. Hosts Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon were both writing for The Washington Post when the show began, so ESPN built the programme where they already worked.
Q 30Which anchor hosted her 5,000th SportsCenter in 2016, more than anyone before her?
Linda Cohn
Linda Cohn. When she started in 1992, viewers rang ESPN's switchboard to ask why a woman was on the air; she stayed at the desk for more than three decades.