Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [200]
The ABC corporate lawyers were very nervous about exploring areas of cooperation with the nonunion shop of Bristol. And who could blame them? But it was more than that. There was grumbling all around. There was complete and total mistrust. People don’t like change.
HOWARD KATZ:
When I joined ESPN in 1993, it was difficult to get people at ABC Sports to give us what we felt was proper respect, and there was clearly a very difficult, dysfunctional relationship between Steve Bornstein, the president of ESPN, and Dennis Swanson, president of ABC Sports. It was ugly. Steve resented Dennis, and Dennis resented Steve. Not a very good situation.
JOHN SAUNDERS:
Back in ’89, when Dennis Swanson was running ABC Sports, I was in his hotel room in Seattle for the Final Four, and he asked me if I would leave ESPN and host college football on ABC. In one of the scariest moments since I’ve been in this business, I said, “That sounds great. Have you talked to Steve Bornstein about this?” And Dennis just went off. He had been reclining on his bed and he jumped off and started screaming, “This is not the effing Steve Bornstein network. I’ll do what I want to do.” He just went crazy. As it turned out, Steve had his way and said, “No, John, you’re not going to do it,” and so I didn’t.
BRENT MUSBURGER:
I actually ran into people from ABC Sports who would put down the productions at ESPN and say they weren’t up to the gold standard that had been started by Roone Arledge. Most of the time, the folks at ABC would not go out of their way at all to help the ESPN crews that would come in. I’d been at meetings with producers from both entities getting ready to do golf tournaments, and it was clear that the ESPN guys were on their own and would have to round up their own interviews and make their own way. I made sure that I didn’t take any kind of a side and that I would get along with everybody over at ESPN. That was premeditated on my part because anybody who has any understanding of business knew what was coming.
FRED GAUDELLI:
We were going to have a huge college football game on ESPN, and Chuck Howard [ABC producer] called Terry Lingner and said, “Hey, we’d like to do a live shot out of your truck,” and Terry said, “Yeah, I’ll be happy to do it for you, but you’ve got to promote our game.” And Chuck just started in on him: “Who the fuck do you think you are? You fucking cable network, you don’t fucking tell me what to do!” So Terry goes, “Well, if you don’t want the shot, that’s fine, but that’s what it’s going to take to get it.” I’ll never forget that. They ended up having to do it to get the shot.
DON OHLMEYER:
Once ESPN made it into the nineties, there was no reason for there to be an ABC Sports.
The only thing that was in the way was the union, and it took ABC a certain amount of time to shed those contracts.
STEVE BORNSTEIN:
We tried to kill ABC Sports early on, but we couldn’t. There were a lot of union issues. What we didn’t want was to in any way get ESPN contaminated and have any kind of union in there.
MIKE PEARL, Executive Producer:
It’s a definite advantage to be in a union-free shop. I had a show once where we had just one more edit to go, and the tape operator wouldn’t finish the edit because as soon as the second hand hit midnight, he was due an hour break, and sure enough, he left and went off to play cards with somebody. By the time he came back and set up, it was quarter to two in the morning, to do five minutes of work.
STEVE BORNSTEIN:
By 1997 it was game, set, match. For every dollar I’m taking in, sixty-five cents of it is coming from a subscription fee; thirty-five is coming from advertising, and the shmoe next door to me is getting everything from advertising. It’s over. That doesn’t mean it’s a quick death; it doesn’t mean that