Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [303]
BRENT MUSBURGER:
Bornstein came over and became the head of ABC, and then Bodenheimer did. They tried to run it as different shops, but you knew that eventually the accountants would take a look at the books and say, “Why do we need to pay two guys when we can pay one guy and get the same job done?” And management at Disney was absolutely right; there was no question about it. ESPN had experienced a lot of resentment about the way they had been treated for so many years. There was definitely a feeling on the part of ABC Sports that “we are the big guy and we will tell ESPN what to do.” So, believe me, those guys really enjoyed it when they finally took over all of ABC. There’s no question about that.
MARK MANDEL:
Three years after we were “integrated” and supposedly full-fledged ESPN employees, all of the thirty-seven remaining former ABC employees who were now working for ESPN received an ominous e-mail informing us to report to one of two conference rooms the next morning for a very important meeting. It turned out that twenty-five were assigned to a conference room in which they were told they would have to move to Bristol or lose their jobs. The other twelve of us, who were also rounded up in a conference room, were told that we were safe for now and we could remain in New York. It was clear that all thirty-seven of us were different from our fellow ESPN employees. After all, there were many ESPN employees who worked in New York who were not corralled into conference rooms and had to fear for their jobs that morning. Only ex-ABCers were subjected to this pain and suffering. It was clear to those of us who were rounded up only to be told we would keep our jobs in New York: we could be rounded up again, anytime.
ESPN often claims great reverence for the history of ABC Sports but obviously had a collective bias against the ABC Sports employees.
On December 26, 2005, the Patriots and the Jets would collide for the 555th NFL game to air on ABC. It would be the end of a long-standing tradition—the last NFL game on ABC.
DON OHLMEYER:
To me, the legacy of Roone lives on in what ESPN does. But there was no reason anymore for the existence of ABC Sports.
Nearly everyone at ESPN and across the TV sports world assumed that the new Monday Night Football would look just like the old, except it would be on a different network. That would mean the stellar duo of John Madden and Al Michaels would continue to man the booth, backed by popular producer Fred Gaudelli, who joined ESPN in the early eighties and was generally regarded as its top producer, and director Drew Esocoff, Gaudelli’s partner and one of the most highly respected directors in the business.
They obviously hadn’t been talking with Mark Shapiro.
AL MICHAELS:
In October of ’05, in our lame-duck Monday Night year on ABC, Bodenheimer comes to Indianapolis for a game. I’m walking out onto the field with him before the game, and I am hearing from unimpeachable sources that the Monday Night schedule beginning in ’06 will look a lot like the Sunday Night schedule had looked in previous years, and that Sunday Night is going to get the Monday Night schedule. This meant the league wanted to make Sunday Night the primary night.
I knew the guys who were making out the schedules, and I knew Bornstein had an ax to grind, and Howard Katz, who was now at the NFL, had also been let go by Disney. So I’m walking out onto the field and I said, “George, I’m nervous about the schedule next year.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Because I’m hearing the schedule is going to be far inferior to the way it’s been.” He said, “Oh, no, Mark said we’re going to get the Monday Night schedule.” And I looked at him and I said, “I tell you what, here’s the litmus test, George. In all of the years I’ve been on Monday Night Football, save maybe one or two, the defending Super Bowl champion has been on the schedule three times, which was the maximum number of appearances that they could have (this was of course pre-flex). So the litmus test is going to be next year, to make