Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [201]
GEOFF MASON:
In ’98, it was decided we were going to do the World Cup together, which was going to air on ESPN and ABC. It made no sense for us to ship a production team from ABC to Paris and to send another production team from ESPN there as well. As long as we weren’t on U.S. soil, we could combine forces because the union issues wouldn’t come to bear. So they put me in charge of building a team composed of the best that we could find from both ABC Sports and ESPN. I handpicked a group of people that I knew would get along, and we were laughing the whole time. It was great. It worked. And that was the first time both organizations looked at each other and said, “This is the way to do it.”
But when we got off the plane from France, it wasn’t like, “Okay, we’re together now.” Not by a long shot.
Indeed, the battle between ABC Sports and ESPN would continue to escalate, with increased levels of frustration and resentment; unfortunately, it would be years before a solution (albeit a controversial and difficult one) could be forged. Meanwhile, life continued for ESPNers in Bristol and elsewhere.
BRETT HABER:
In ’97, I was at the end of my three-year contract, and I think if you had to summarize it in a nutshell, I was a dumb-ass. I got there when I was twenty-four turning twenty-five—and I think my ability on the air just always outstripped my ability to get along in the workplace. I think I had a chip on my shoulder, and that manifested itself in handling myself poorly with some coworkers, and I ended up paying the price for it. It was entirely my doing. My thing had nothing to do with any of that misconduct, sexual or whatever; I’m sure anyone would tell you that, including my bosses. I had a propensity for being a hothead and for not treating my coworkers with the respect they deserved. And there were a couple of incidents that I paid the price for. One in particular was when I got into an argument with one of our staff photographers at the US Open and used some foul language with him. I got suspended over the phone, told not to come in for three or four days. Beyond that, I don’t think there were any super-flagrant, egregious things. I never got into a fight with anybody, a physical fight. I just was an asshole.
I’d be lying to you if I said that I had no regrets about it and hadn’t wondered how things would have turned out if I was better equipped to handle myself in that workplace, but I walked out of there with the most advanced degree in sports television that anybody could have.
There was probably a year after I left that I couldn’t even watch it [ESPN]. If I had it to do over, I do wish I could go back and apologize to everybody.
BONNIE BERNSTEIN:
There weren’t a ton of women at ESPN during that time, and my boss, Jim Cohen, told me he wanted to have a discussion with me about how I presented myself as a woman. He wanted me to realize that if I wasn’t careful, perceptions about me could change. I really appreciated that, because in my naïveté, that was never on the radar. I was just going about doing my job, be-bopping around, working on establishing a level of trust with athletes and coaches. ESPN was my first network job. I needed to realize I wasn’t working in local TV anymore; I was operating on a national platform. People were trying to get a sense of my credibility. I remember my hair was cut short at the time, and I wore boxy suits because I wanted to make sure people focused more on the information I was gathering and disseminating than on what I was wearing.
I had several really uncomfortable moments with athletes, including one where an athlete literally said to me, “Sure, I’ll do this one-on-one interview with you, but I want you to meet me in my apartment downtown afterward.” I was out-of-my-mind pissed off. I called Bristol and told my producer, “That’s it, I’m done, I’m out.” My poor producer had to talk me off the ledge. But I was much younger