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By Root 2498 0

relationship with Keith. I wanted him to trust me, and I thought I had a decent relationship with Keith, but Keith lashed out at management and at me. The things that Keith said publicly about John Walsh and Steve Anderson were indefensible and inexcusable. So I finally came to the conclusion that despite his brilliance and talent, we would be better off without Keith. I didn’t fire Keith; I just chose not to renew his contract. He was causing so much damage, it got to the point where nobody wanted to be around him. It was ugly. That was a very difficult decision for me to make, and when I ultimately made it, Keith did not respond to it well—although I’m sure it didn’t come as a surprise.

BOB LEY:

I saw Walsh in the hallway and I said, “Our long national nightmare is over, huh?” Apparently Dan said the same thing to him independently.

We felt not so much relief when Keith left as unrestrained fucking joy. People were thrilled. And it may not be fair to him, because I don’t know what his issues are. Whatever they are, they are. There was a fair amount of “Why did it take so long?” Some of what happened with him back then is romanticized, but there are still people there who remember how people were treated, spoken to, referred to, and no amount of subsequent gentle behavior is going to erase that. I honestly hope he’s happy. He wasn’t happy here.

JOHN WALSH:

We got four and a half great years from Keith, and then it was time for him to leave. Guys like that, it’s their nature; it doesn’t matter where they are, they hate the corporate mentality, they’re at odds with management all the time. One thing we knew from the beginning: SportsCenter was a show that was great when it had fantastic talent. We were much more worried about Chris Berman leaving in the early days, because there weren’t that many personalities. One thing most people don’t know: in a ratings sense, the eleven o’clock SportsCenter’s highest-rated year, in the history of the show, was when Dan Patrick and Bob Ley were hosting—not Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.

STEVE BORNSTEIN:

Dan and Keith were magic. I recognized how big they were, and I also knew that theirs was a one-in-a-hundred pairing. They’ve never been able to replicate that. We tried.

RECE DAVIS:

Keith was tough on everybody. There was a rumor a few years ago that maybe he would come back, and one of our coordinating producers said, “I think it would be a good idea but with one caveat. If we hire Olbermann back, he first has to stand in the reception area and everybody who wants to, gets to come up and punch him in the stomach.”

JUDY FEARING:

Steve Bornstein had taken us to off-sites when Fox was going to come out with their all-sports, twenty-four-hours-a-day programming. Everyone was asking, “What are we going to do?” because this was the first serious attack on ESPN, plus Fox has the resources. And then one day, John [Walsh] came in and said, “We don’t have to worry about Fox.” And we asked, “Why?” and he said, “They’re hiring Keith. That will be their demise. They’ll have internal fighting and internal bickering. They’ll never be able to develop the culture that they want.”

DAVID HILL:

I went off to run the network, and before I knew it, Keith had been hired. I said, “I love Keith’s stuff. I think he’s a genius. I think that he has a way of presenting sports which is totally unique. But he was so tarred by the ESPN brush that, by putting him on camera, we had totally destroyed any chance for Fox to create its own persona.” We were ESPN5 by hiring Keith Olbermann. Now, the executives that did that, none of them are here anymore. Our ratings dropped because, in my opinion, people said, “You know, this is the same as ESPN, it’s not Fox Live, it’s not different. It’s like ESPN. So, you know, I’ll go back to watching ESPN, I won’t watch this new show.” Keith came in here and, to be honest, we hadn’t budgeted enough for the news, and I think Keith got a little frustrated.

GARY MILLER:

Billy Fucking Fairweather from Boston. He was a real party boy. That was originally our bond, and eventually