Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [137]
I had my doubts and would have more doubts, obviously, as time went by. But they said, “Would you do this?” I can be extremely argumentative when it comes to defending my point of view, and believe my point of view is as valid as any boss that I’ve ever had. Those are my terms, and I’ve always stuck with them personally, largely, I think, to successful ends. Having said that, and despite my reputation to the contrary, I am actually a team player. If I work for you and you ask me to do something and give me your reasons why, especially if it’s an option to do it or not do it, I will usually defer. And ultimately, although I had a lot of misgivings about it, I said, “Okay, let’s try it. But you can’t seal me off. I can’t not have a way back.” And they said, “Well, we’re going to ask you to commit to it for six months to a year.” I said, “Okay, as long as when I come back, if I want to I can come back to the eleven o’clock SportsCenter.” And they said yes. We put that in specific language in the contracts. I was not looking to get away from SportsCenter. I can say without question that Dan called me from the All-Star game in Baltimore on July 13 to tell me how many players asked him about me and how there was still time to go back to Walsh and turn it down even though I’d agreed a month or so earlier.
The guy originally put in charge of the project was John Lack. He and Walsh both said, “Look, this network needs a Berman, and we want you to be the centerpiece of the network. We want to build this around your personality and your approach. And in addition to being on the air, we want your input as to what the show should look like. You will be probably the only veteran ESPN presence on this program; the rest of the people will be outsiders. You will be the continuity point. You will be the leader of the rest of this group. You will be, in many senses, an on-air producer.”
The longer we got into this, the more that was emphasized to me. And it sort of tapped into the responsible Keith who, and I’ve always told them this, if you put me in charge, I automatically get more conservative because it’s essentially my money on the table in addition to yours.
Concomitantly, Walsh was telling us ESPN2 was designed to get a younger audience. About a week before we premiered, he asked me a weird question, given that we were in the midst of a metaphorical burning building. “Do you know which TV show has the largest percentage of its viewers under the age of twenty-five?” The number is a hazy memory, he might have said twenty-one or even eighteen. I guessed something on MTV. “Nope! The 11:00 p.m. SportsCenter!” Needless to say, I was newly confused about what ESPN2 was for. “I want to move that audience over there and keep SportsCenter for adults!” That wasn’t my first hint of disaster but it was one of the biggest ones. You do not “move” audiences. I did ask—in fact we got it in the rewrite of the contract as I went to ESPN2—that I be permitted to do some play-by-play. “Some” turned out to be one Astros-Phillies game in September 1993 for which Buck Martinez and I didn’t even have a monitor for the first two innings.
JOHN WALSH:
At that point in his life, Keith was seeking advice from anyone and everyone he could. I can’t distinctly remember what I told him, but it was something about the fact that he was very successful and he should go to ESPN2 if he could get comfortable with what the show was going to be; that ESPN2 was going to attract a great deal of attention; and within the company, it was a big priority, so it would be front and center. That was always an attraction to Keith—whatever was going on within the company. He always wanted to be at the center of what people watching the company were paying the most attention to.
DAN PATRICK:
Initially