Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [267]
JOHN EISENDRATH, Writer:
In the beginning, none of us felt like it would be this big controversy, that the NFL wouldn’t like it, or that people would think it was besmirching the image of the NFL, and we were shocked at the reaction it got. I thought, “Doesn’t anybody read the newspapers?” It was crazy. Mark told me he didn’t feel that any show about sports on ESPN, or that had sports as a backdrop on ESPN, could succeed if the audience felt like it was bullshit, like we were soft-pedaling it. It was like, “Of course this stuff goes on in the NFL. What else would one write about?”
ANDREA KREMER:
There had been a bunch of players busted for pot, so we were doing a story on marijuana use in the NFL and drug testing. I managed to find out that Shawn King, who had played for the Panthers and the Colts, had failed a drug test. So I’m on the phone with the guy, and I’ll never forget, my producer was there too, and while I am listening, my hand is over the phone and I’m like mouthing, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” It turns out that when his test came back, it said he was pregnant. He had used substitute urine from a female friend who happened to be pregnant. I guess he hadn’t realized that would show up. I was so excited to find someone who had failed a test and was willing to talk, and then he agreed to talk to me on camera. We went to see him and he told the whole story. You always worry if they’re going to be as forthright on camera as they’ve been on the phone with you. But my point of telling the story is that I remember getting off the phone and being so excited because I love telling stories that nobody else has. On the other side, I took it way too seriously when I didn’t get stuff. I would take it personally and I’d really let it bother me. And that’s a bad thing.
MARK SHAPIRO:
I don’t know how I sold Playmakers, to be honest with you. I went to George and I said we need to make sure the NFL understands this is fictional, it’s a soap opera, but that we were going to be like Law & Order, with stories right from the headlines. Goodell was in the meeting and they were okay with it when I told them about it, but they didn’t have a script. They did make it very clear there was to be no NFL attachment at all, no trademarks, no logos, no helmets.
I was very hands-on with it and it just busted out. I would send Bob Iger sealed scripts for Playmakers, and he would give me great notes. Eisner went to a Wall Street analyst conference and somebody said, “You got a thirty-three- or thirty-four-year-old guy there launching a show that is irritating one of your biggest clients,” and Eisner’s line was “I’ll take a hundred Mark Shapiros if I can find them. I want risk takers. I want communicators. I want bold thinkers. I want decision makers.” It was a great response.
We did have one funny screwup. I remember it was a Saturday morning and I was taking my family to Newport for the day and I got a call from George. His voice was shaking. He told me he needed to see every episode, and I said, “I know you do, and I will give them to you.” He asked me, “Do you have us protected here? Because you know I trust you with everything,” and I told him yes, but I could tell he was concerned. It turns out some PA had sent a rough draft of an episode to me and to George at the same time, and then he says to me, “Hold on, I have to close the door.” Then he whispers to me that he had just read the script, and some guy was getting a blow job in it. I laughed and said, “George, you won’t see that on the screen.