Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [147]
It was like that from October to March. Every show was this kaleidoscope, as if all the people who were told they were in charge—literally eight or ten people were told they were in charge of the final product—it’s as if what was left out of that was, “Yes, you’re in charge for five minutes. Then you, you over there, you’re in charge for five minutes. And you’re in charge for five minutes.” And you weren’t allowed to know what the previous guy did. That’s what it was like. It became such an unpleasant experience because I think everybody on it had the same sense, that “this is a minefield.” Stuart Scott probably didn’t feel that way because it was his first big break.
VINCE DORIA:
If the network had said, “You’re going to stay here and that’s how it’s going to be,” who knows what he would have done? Would he have left the network completely? Maybe. I don’t know. It’s all very hard to predict with Keith. But there was never an ultimatum. It was never, “Send me back or I’m quitting.” It was just clear that he was unhappy, had been unhappy, and was growing more unhappy. Frankly, it wasn’t a healthy situation for anyone. John Lack was in on it, John Walsh was in on it, even Bornstein. Everyone agreed it had gotten to the point where it was best for all for Keith to move back to SportsCenter. Stuart Scott took his place, which was a great opportunity for him and he thrived in the role. He also had a much better chemistry with Suzy than Keith did.
KEITH OLBERMANN:
I paid the ransom money—about $25,000—and got out of ESPN2. There was a maxim at ESPN that Howard Katz, who negotiated this, once admitted to my agent, “If you let them know what it is you want, they will use it against you in some way.” Well, all I wanted was to go back and do SportsCenter. Remember, part of the promise was, “get this started for us and, if it’s successful or if it’s not, then you can come back, if you want to, or you can stay if you want to, whatever is your choice at that point.” And they said, “Well, you know, we’re not going to pay you the same amount of money just to go back and do the eleven o’clock SportsCenter.” So really, faced with the option of being stuck on this show, whatever the demand was, $25,000 less per year, and add another two years to the contract, whatever it was, I had no choice. And I wasn’t happy about it but I just said, “All right, let me just get out of it.”
STUART SCOTT:
Suzy Kolber and I were hosting together and since it was ESPN2, we were supposed to dress kind of funky, not a suit-and-tie thing. So we both were wearing a very similar colored shirt and a tie kind of loosely knotted. Casual shirt, casual tie, similar color. And so when we went back to do our fixes for the show, we changed ties. We do fixes for different segments and if you watched the show—it was maybe just an hour then because it shrunk from three to two to one—but the first segment, second segment, third segment we have different ties, and about four or five viewers caught it. We did it just to see if anybody would notice.
KENNY MAYNE, Anchor:
Keith went crazy and went back to ESPN, Stuart moved up to sit next to Suzy, and so they needed one more guy. The funny part about coming to ESPN2 was I remember distinctly being told, “Don’t have any great aspirations of being on SportsCenter or moving over there. It’s not like you come here and you immediately go there or even anytime soon.” I really didn’t care. My checks still had ESPN on them; so what if I’m on their second channel?
BILL WOLFF:
Chris Berman was the first guy not to take it so seriously; he was the first guy to pull