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The image Paul Allen shared in 2015 was an early concept for ESPN’s online service, then called ESPNet SportsZone—not a verified screenshot of the final launch homepage. Starwave, the company Allen founded, helped launch the service with ESPN in 1995. The specific mock-ups were created by Greg Hollobaugh, Starwave’s creative director.
What the mock-up shows
The concept presents sports news through a headline-led layout, with sample items including “Blazers win at the buzzer” and “Sox trade Jordan to Yanks.” Those are fictional or placeholder headlines, not reports of actual games or trades. The image is useful evidence of a design concept, but the available account does not establish that it matches the exact page visitors saw when the service launched.
Its text-forward approach makes sense as a snapshot of early Web publishing: the central promise was quick access to sports information and news. That is an interpretation of the image, not documentation of the site’s underlying technology, workflow or complete feature set.
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ESPN, Starwave and the 1995 launch
ESPN’s first online property launched in 1995 as ESPNet SportsZone. ESPN and Starwave developed it as a joint venture, and the service was unveiled at the Final Four in Seattle, according to GeekWire’s 2015 account. The name later gave way to ESPN.com.
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That distinction matters: Starwave helped bring the online venture to life, but it is too simple to say that the company alone created ESPN.com. ESPN supplied the sports-media brand and partnered in the project; the particular images later shared by Allen have a separate, specific creative credit.
Who made the mock-ups—and what Allen did
GeekWire’s editor’s correction credits Greg Hollobaugh, Starwave’s creative director, with creating the mock-ups. Paul Allen was not their designer. His connection was as Starwave’s founder and as the person who resurfaced the images: on April 2, 2015, he shared them on Twitter as ESPN.com marked roughly two decades online.
The “Blazers” sample headline also nods to Allen’s ownership of the Portland Trail Blazers, which began in 1988. It adds a personal touch, but does not show that Allen wrote or edited the mock-up’s sports content.
Why the image reappeared in 2015
The anniversary moment coincided with ESPN.com introducing a redesigned homepage and new mobile apps in early April 2015. Placed beside that news, Hollobaugh’s concept offered a compact contrast: an early, headline-driven Web presence alongside a much newer digital product. The 2015 redesign is itself historical now; it should not be mistaken for ESPN’s current interface.
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The reach of ESPN’s digital properties had grown substantially by the time the mock-up resurfaced. GeekWire reported figures supplied by ESPN: the site had 1.2 million visits per day in 1998 and averaged 24.7 million daily visits in 2014, with more than 9 billion visits that year. ESPN said its digital properties recorded 126.5 million monthly unique visitors worldwide in January 2015; on March 10, 2015, the first day of NFL free agency, they drew 2.3 million visits in one hour. These are historical figures reported at the time, not current traffic statistics.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Starwave’s place in the story
ESPN was one of Starwave’s media ventures. The Seattle company also worked on online properties including ABCNews.com and Outside Online, and produced CD-ROM titles associated with figures such as Clint Eastwood and Sting. Disney acquired Starwave in 1998.
The mock-up matters less as proof of what the first live ESPN page looked like than as an artifact of the process by which a major sports brand moved onto the Web. Its history is collaborative: Allen founded the company behind the venture, Starwave partnered with ESPN, and Hollobaugh created the specific concept images.
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