Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [261]
DAVID STERN:
We are a league, but we are an active brand manager as well. We have learned a great deal through our relationships with CBS, NBC, Turner, and ESPN. In the case of Disney, I’ve been doing business with Bob Iger for probably thirty years, so I know he’s protective over his brand as well. We’ve had to walk through a diplomatic thicket at times in the past. That manifests itself in terms of ESPN’s choice of talent, the way they promote our league, their production values, and, of course, their content. In the case of talent, we have a right to ask, “What does your research show about this person?”
I don’t think it’s a secret that we had hoped arrangements would be made for Marv Albert to work at ESPN, but Mark was very open and honest and told us he had somebody who he thought was better—Brad Nessler. And we said, “Okay, if you think so, fine.”
ADAM SILVER:
And we were being told by others in their organization who knew the league that they disagreed with that choice.
MARK SHAPIRO:
In that very first season, Iger would often take phone calls from Stern complaining about what we weren’t doing right. After working with the same partner, NBC, for so many years, there were bound to be difficult growing pains with a new network, but Stern didn’t have any patience for it.
ADAM SILVER:
Bob [Iger] is married to our former longtime colleague and cohost of Inside Stuff, Willow Bay, so there’s a special place in our hearts for Bob. We’ve heard all the stories about the extent of David’s calls to Bob or Michael and they’re all overstated. Did he ever call Eisner? Yes, but it was probably twice. Has he called Iger out of frustration? Absolutely.
And we feel very close to George too. George is very protective of his guys. Whether they’re wrong or wrong, he stands behind them. That wasn’t an accident. I didn’t say right and wrong, I said whether they’re wrong or wrong, George stands up to protect them. And we respect that.
DAVID STERN:
In terms of when I talk to Burbank, Bob Iger is one of the best managers in the history of media. He’s incredibly busy. So you go to the well only very sporadically.
MIKE TIRICO:
They gave us a tape and said, “Here’s how we want the games.” It was a tape of a 1970s Knicks game—I kid you not—where they put the camera and you followed the players—it was tight. It wasn’t these wide shots where you show the whole court. It was “You’re dribbling up and you’re covering.” And “You don’t need to go that wide.” I mean, how do you react? That’s what we do. Why do they think they know better? Second of all, it’s wrong. “Do you see that? We can teach you, you know.” It’s just humiliating. I mean, it’s patronizing. They wanted to significantly bring in the wide shot and, even more than that, to go tight when guys dribble off the ball. You can’t go, “You’re out of your mind.” You have to be like, “Oh, that’s interesting. Let us look at that.” And you don’t get anywhere by trying to challenge him. You just have to know when to pick your spot. Otherwise you’d be fighting with him all the time.
MARK SHAPIRO:
We as a network weren’t used to a league being so involved in production matters. By contract, they couldn’t tell us what to do, but they certainly carried a heavy stick and they knew what they wanted from a production and marketing perspective. Bottom line is that Stern usually got his way. He’d scream and scream and we’d cave. It was exhausting. One day, he was yelling at George, and I actually witnessed George hang up on him. He said, “I can’t take this,” and he slammed down the phone. I couldn’t believe it. George actually hung up on someone!
TIM LEGLER, Basketball Analyst:
I’ve never had anybody at ESPN directly say to me, “The league would like this, the league would like that.” Obviously I’m not naive. I know those conversations take place and eventually, in some way, shape, or form, it is passed on to us in a meeting or a memo or a show preparation or, maybe without us even knowing it, the on-air changes of