Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [112]
CHARLEY STEINER:
At the Christmas party the year before he took over—back in the days when a Christmas party had about two hundred people and everybody knew each other—it was getting late, maybe two, three o’clock in the morning, and Bornstein comes up to me and says, “You know, in a perfect world, we would have SportsCenter with robots. But you, Berman, and Saunders fucked up my master plan.” We had all been interchangeable parts, which was perfect for him—perfect financially and for his vision of what SportsCenter would be. He was so clairvoyant about the future of sports and ESPN; where he was a little slow to the dance was the appreciation of the guys who delivered the news, which was what made it so fascinating. But maybe his attitude explains why we were the last ones to realize that ESPN was becoming a big deal. To us, it was the sports station on cable—no more, no less.
JED DRAKE:
I was walking one afternoon with Bornstein and John Wildhack, and something either Wildhack or I said triggered the latest rendition of “You fucking guys,” which was said with that inevitably all-knowing sly grin that Steve always had when he was trying to be a bit fatherly. So he says to us, “You fucking guys… Here’s the deal: I can’t make all the decisions myself. What I do is put you guys in place, guys who I think are pretty smart, who will make the right decisions most of the time. Now, I know you’re not going to make the right decisions all the time, that you’re going to screw up sometimes, but that’s okay. I just have to be able to trust you.” Wildhack and I, heads looking somewhat downward as we continued to walk with Steve, nodded our heads, but we glanced at each other, each with slight grins, knowing that this was actually a major signal from Steve that he really believed in us, and that we were indeed going to be called upon to make major decisions on our own. That was the Stevie B. speech: all about putting the right people in place to make decisions that Steve would likely make himself.
BEANO COOK, College Football Analyst:
Bornstein had a temper; Roone did not have a temper. Bornstein yelled; Roone never yelled at people in public. In those early years, Bornstein had a lot of Roone in him in terms of programming. But things get really different when you’re no longer hidden behind the guy in charge. Once you take over everything, things have a way of changing.
In the beginning, Bill Rasmussen took a wild idea and got it going with Stu Evey and Getty. Chet Simmons came on board to put the network on the air and give the company legitimacy and a patina of professionalism. Then Bill Grimes and Roger Werner constructed the all-important dual-revenue stream, solidified relationships with cable operators, and secured powerhouse programming acquisitions. Thirty-eight-year-old Steve Bornstein had been around for virtually the whole trip and had played an incredibly aggressive role. But now the company was his, and the question became, how would he leave his mark?
STEVE BORNSTEIN:
People forget, but we had a business show that ran in the mornings. I always wanted to get rid of it, but neither Grimes nor Werner would ever let me do it, because they didn’t want to piss off the Chamber of Commerce, which produced the show. Well, as soon as I became president, I decided to bite the bullet, take them on, and end our contract with them. This was right around the time that I was starting to get really conscientious about my health, and I started working out in the mornings. So it was great to have SportsCenter on as I worked out; I could watch that instead of the business show. As I got more in shape, I was able to work out longer, and that became the primary reason why I expanded the show from thirty minutes—which it was back then—to sixty minutes.
GARY MILLER, Anchor:
I came over to SportsCenter in 1990 from CNN. We had been well aware