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to the big carriers. We were able to establish an auction between AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, and reached an innovative agreement to license the Mobile ESPN application to Verizon. The deal was lucrative enough to help offset most of the losses incurred by the experience. But far more importantly, the experience gave ESPN a critical edge that it still enjoys today in mobile. There are strong competitors to ESPN.com online, but there is no one close to ESPN’s position in mobile. And as mobile only increases in importance, the Mobile ESPN experience will in the long run prove critical to ESPN’s ability to continue its dominance on all platforms.

JOHN KOSNER, Senior Vice President of Digital Media:

I think it was the right intention, but I think it was a business miscalculation, meaning that we tried to get into a business that was different than what we specialize at. We got into a business built around hardware. We got into a business where the purchase intent is determined by a lot of factors other than what we really do great. So, if you take a look at our success in mobile today, where we have like 65 percent market share on the mobile web for sports, a lot of that was born of the work that went into Mobile ESPN. Some of the work on the product side was quite good. I think overall they took a look at what they thought the idea was and what they thought the business plan was and they decided that they could make it work. Again, this is a company that largely has been very successful at everything that it has tried. I’ve been at other companies where that’s been up and down, and so sometimes when you’ve been involved in some big failures, it gives you hesitation the next time. But this is a company that has always succeeded, and I think that is part of what led into it.

GEORGE BODENHEIMER:

I love it when people want to talk to me about how the phone was a flaw or a mistake or a black mark on my record. I don’t look at it as anything like that. It was a tremendous learning opportunity in a portion of the sports media business that’s going to be huge. If you’re not doing things to learn and try to get out in front, then you’re truly going to diminish your company. We tried, but we were on the wrong business plan; we made a quick correction and shifted gears and now we have the largest sports mobile website that exists. So we’re off to the races. There’s absolutely margin for error here. Any time something like that happens, I think it’s good for the employees and good for all of us. ESPN isn’t bulletproof, and the day we start thinking we are will be a bad day.

BOB IGER:

Companies that don’t take risks don’t grow. We are going to keep trying new things to improve the fan experience, and ESPN’s move to local websites and a 3-D network are just the latest iterations of entrepreneurial thinking that’s smart, and calculated, even if the future isn’t crystal clear.

By 2008, bloggers, online columnists, and instant analyzers were beginning to dominate the newly digitalized world of sports, and ESPN increasingly found itself a target: “Turner was better on basketball”; “Watch Monday Night Football with the sound turned down”; “Joe Morgan sucked on Sunday Night Baseball”; “The network blew it with NASCAR,” and so on, and on.

But for Mark Gross, Norby Williamson’s right-hand man and one of the highest regarded executives at ESPN, none of those things mattered, because Gross was in charge of a show unique to the network—a show prized as if it were the Golden Fleece and the Hope Diamond put together. Above all the whining and bellyaching, one could almost hear Gross and his fellow executives saying, “Thank you, Lord, for College GameDay.” And the Lord said, “You’re welcome.”

GameDay wasn’t just “the show that had everything”; it was the show that defined what “everything” about college football was. That included the best analysis, the best predictions, and the best inside information, all served up amid the excitement and spectacle of a great American celebration.

One big plus was the equivalent of perfect casting in a drama