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By Root 2159 0

symbol of sports. What they do is spectacular. I mean, I’m in awe of it. It is the most monumental undertaking in the history of the world of television, and they do it day in and day out. And I understand that the time they can spend dealing with any one product as a production matter, or even one commissioner, is necessarily limited, and the amount of attention one gets sometimes may relate to how—what’s the right word, what gets the most oil? The squeaky wheel. Okay. And so there’s some combination of the two. We’re respectful of what they do and we let them know how we feel. And each year, when the finals come around and you realize they’re going to win the night for ABC—five games and five ratings wins—you feel pretty good, even if it happens to be an ESPN time buy on ABC.

BOB IGER:

We are very confident that ESPN will remain a vibrant company in every way. The reason is quite simple: they have proven to be very adept at marrying new technologies with unparalleled content to serve fans. ESPN has a very simple but powerful mission—serve sports fans. Everyone who works there starts their day with that in mind. You can’t just issue a mission statement one day and have it become ingrained in the minds of nearly six thousand employees the next. It is a part of ESPN’s culture that has developed over many years, which again goes to the competitive advantage ESPN has created for itself. And as we’ve seen, it works quite well.

Incredibly, sports—and sports media—continue to rapidly evolve in ways we could not have anticipated, and as a result, everything surrounding sports has become a much more integral part of the cultural landscape, both in the U.S. and in many ways around the world. We have new technologies, new mediums, paradigm shifts, global expansion, and the number of new ideas we see each day is truly amazing.

You tell me what fans will want in the next five years and ESPN will be there. If past is prologue, we know that will be true. Certainly there is room for growth in the digital arena, and in international markets. There is room for growth creatively on ESPN’s biggest engine, domestic television. I could go on, but here’s all you need to know about this topic: ESPN has deals with several leagues that call for content distribution on platforms that have yet to be invented.

JOHN SKIPPER:

George defines the culture now. Steve Bornstein was respected, admired, followed—and feared. George Bodenheimer is respected, admired, followed—and loved. George has been at his job since 1998. At some point, 1999 or 2000, he created this once-a-year strategy meeting. He gathers the top people, and what does he do? He says we as a group are going to decide our priorities as a company. And we now have this annual thing we do about shared success—it’s team-team-team. By nature, I’m a cynic and even a slight elitist—I moved to New York, I studied satire. That’s what I was studying at Columbia—eighteenth-century satire—so I’m of a sardonic turn, and I can tell you this culture is not cynical. It’s “team.” It’s complete enthusiasm, Moonie-ism in a positive sense. People believe in it. And that priorities thing, which you can make fun of—it’s a little goofy, a little corny—we go together, we say the following four, five things are our priority. One year our priority is “Make ratings go up.” One year it was “we have to make dot com work.” So the whole company has been told, you might work in event production and operating camera and traveling around the country, but we’re also looking to you to help us figure out how to make ESPN.com work.

You get a little card. We print cards with the priorities on them. You carry your card around. On the back is the mission and the company values. Really simple stuff, easy for a smarty-pants cynic who likes living in New York. But you can’t make fun of it, because it works.

There is a cult of George in our company. George would hate that. George is the most influential person in sports; he actually doesn’t care and actually doesn’t like it—he’d be happy if it went away. To the rank and file,