Cable TV mogul Ted Turner has died, Turner Enterprises announced on Wednesday.
The Cincinnati-born pioneer of 24-hour cable news with the founding of CNN was 87.
“Ted was an intensely involved and committed leader, intrepid, fearless and always willing to back a hunch and trust his own judgement,” CNN Worldwide chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said in a statement. “He was and always will be the presiding spirit of CNN. Ted is the giant on whose shoulders we stand, and we will all take a moment today to recognize him and his impact on our lives and the world.”
Turner’s impact was also felt across the sports world. He purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976 and was suspended for a season only a year later by then Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn for tampering in the pursuit of impending free-agent outfielder Gary Matthews then of the San Francisco Giants. Turner was a fixture at Braves games into the mid-1990s when he took a step back from the day-to-day operation of the club. Reaching the World Series in both 1991 and 1992, Turner’s Braves finally won a World Series in 1995. The team was sold as part of the Turner-Time Warner merger in 2007.
In 1977, Turner purchased the Atlanta Hawks. The team was also sold as part of the merger in 2007, having made the playoff on 15 occasions. Turner was also the inaugural owner of the expansion Atlanta Thrashers with the team beginning play in 1999. The franchise would relocate to Winnipeg and become the Jets in 2011.
In 1988, Turner founded World Championship Wrestling and aired its programming on his TBS and TNT networks. The organization would go on to become the premiere wrestling brand in North America by the late-1990s thanks to the creation of the New World Order stable in 1996 featuring Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and a newly heel Hulk Hogan. The company’s flagship program, Monday Nitro, went head-to-head with the World Wrestling Federation’s Monday Night RAW in the so-called “Monday Night Wars.” Turner’s WCW was eventually sold to Vince McMahon in 2001.
Turner was also responsible for the creation of the Goodwill Games in 1986. The competition was designed to foster camaraderie between the United States and USSR at the height of the Cold War. Six events would be held between 1986 and 2001. A Winter Goodwill Games was scheduled for Calgary in 2005, but it was cancelled.
