• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2451 0

which made them giants—and everybody thought I had the best radio show that they had up there. I forget who was in the room, but I know Anderson and Walsh were there. Anderson gave me a letter that basically said I was suspended and the worst employee in the history of ESPN—the most troublesome. And this is after Olbermann! It also said if I did anything else wrong again, I would be fired with cause. When Shapiro heard about it, I said, “Do you want to see the letter? You’re welcome to see it.” He said, “Get the fuck out of here—you have it with you?” I told him I had made twenty copies and carried it with me all the time in my briefcase, and that I read it if I ever start feeling a little too high.

I was so hurt by Walsh. I felt he had stabbed me in the back. He fuckin’ hung me out to dry. When Anderson was talking to me, I was looking at Walsh and he didn’t say anything. I was really furious and hurt. I didn’t talk to him for about a year. Steve Anderson used to send me Christmas cards afterward, and I would mark them “return to sender.” It hurt me so much because I love his father, Dave Anderson, and grew up with him at the New York Times. How could Steve Anderson be such a dope when his father is such a great man? But the hurt from Walsh was the most. I was suspended because of a personality conflict with Eric—that’s ultimately what it was about—who went in the archives and dug up a bill of particulars of things that I had done wrong, which Steve Anderson then signed off on. It was a terrible week, what a terrible week. I left ESPN Radio because of that. I left a million dollars on the table. I could not get out soon enough. I hated it. And when they hired Bruce Gilbert, whom I loved and could have worked for easily, the bridges had all been burned, the water was all disgusting. I got hosed. I got totally hosed.

Just so you know, all the press was on my side, so that was good. And Mark Shapiro saved me, returned all the money from my suspension, and said, “I’ll be your rabbi and this will never happen again.”

MARK SHAPIRO:

Wimbledon was my very first rights-fee deal, in 2003. George and I did it with [IMG chairman and sports agent] Mark McCormack. We were the last ones to meet with McCormack before he died. He did all his deals on a paper napkin: when he died, there was no record of anything we had agreed to, so I almost lost the deal. IMG sent in Bill Sinrich to clean it all up. We met at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Beach during Super Bowl week. We spent over two hours in the lobby lounge. It was a bit contentious, given that I was adamant that they stick to the terms agreed upon by McCormack, but because Bill had no record of the terms, it turned into a heated negotiation.

The All England Club wanted more money than what they were getting at HBO, which was an outrageously rich deal, but I knew HBO’s desire for the property had waned and they simply couldn’t match the multiplatform, 360 degrees of programming and marketing that we had developed for this acquisition. I wanted Wimbledon badly because it was a Tiffany product that would enhance the image of ESPN yet simultaneously be an innings eater—two weeks, lots of hours, particularly in the morning. Bill and I cut a five-year deal at six million per year. What I’ll remember most about closing that deal was that after Bill and I finished our slugfest, he got up to leave and the back of his shirt was completely drenched, from the collar on down. It was as if he just got out of a pool. I felt such a sense of satisfaction and victory.

ROSS GREENBURG, President, HBO Sports:

There was pre–Mark Shapiro ESPN and post–Mark Shapiro ESPN, and in between it was sometimes very odd. I really have a lot of respect for Mark; he was a shoot-from-the-hip, creative programmer. But he developed a certain mean-spirited kind of competitiveness that was a little irksome. I’ll give you an example: if we did a high-profile piece on Real Sports, he would tell his troops, “Hey, go see if you can get that interview so we can sabotage HBO and put the guy on our Sunday Conversation before