Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [407]
Allan B. “Scotty” Connal served as executive vice president and CEO of ESPN after following Chet Simmons over from NBC. Connal started at NBC as a page in 1947 and became one of the most influential leaders of ESPN’s pioneer days. He died of a heart attack at the age of sixty-eight in 1996.
It Wasn’t All Games. Aerobics instructor Denise Austin needed to get her own sponsor before ESPN would air Keeping Fit with Denise Austin, her bouncy and friendly exercise-to-music series that stayed on the schedule for years. She even produced the daily program.
America’s Cup ’87. A triumphant moment for ESPN, when live coverage from Australia, including shots from cameras on board the boats, turned viewers on to the spectacle of yacht racing. David Letterman would send a telegram congratulating the team.
NASCAR and ESPN did a lot of growing up together and enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship throughout the eighties and nineties—until NBC and Ted Turner stole NASCAR away with an irresistibly huge offer in the year 2000. Many ESPN staffers regarded the loss as one of the most devastating in the network’s history.
The debut of the ESPY Awards in 1993 proved unforgettable, all because of this man: Jim Valvano, basketball coach turned ESPN analyst and the first person to receive the annual Arthur Ashe humanitarian award. Though suffering tremendous pain and exhaustion from terminal cancer and its treatment, Valvano stunned the audience with a true demonstration of courage—a speech that turned out to be his farewell. Cancer would take his physical abilities, Valvano told the tearful crowd, but “it cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.” ESPN established a hugely successful cancer research foundation in Valvano’s memory.
Cue Talent! But first, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, the funniest duo ever to host SportsCenter, have to check each other’s “rouge” in a men’s room mirror. The scene is not from backstage preparations at all, but a shot from one of the great, funny promos keyed to the theme “This is SportsCenter” as concocted by the Wieden + Kennedy ad agency and performed by the ESPN Players, with additional appearances by superstar athletes. The campaign was such a success and the promos so popular that ESPN showed a solid hour of them in prime time, back-to-back-to-back.
ESPN’s version of The Mod Squad: anchors for the 6:00 p.m. SportsCenter in the midnineties. From left, Charley Steiner, Robin Roberts, and Bob Ley. While Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann may have received more attention outside Bristol, on the inside these three were incredibly popular and much easier to handle.
Everything that had made SportsCenter smart and funny seemed to make SportsNite dumb and lame. An attempt to duplicate the style, and success, of the original show, SN was just one of the calamities to beset “The Deuce” on ESPN2. Keith Olbermann, who had been talked into wearing a leather jacket, was joined by newcomer Suzy Kolber and columnist Mitch Albom as co-anchors. Olbermann’s first remark on opening night—not in the script—was “Good evening, and welcome to the end of my career.”
Tom Mees, the much admired and effortlessly amiable SportsCenter anchor, died tragically at the age of forty-six while apparently attempting to rescue one of his young daughters from a neighbor’s backyard swimming pool. Anchors, producers, and even management wept upon hearing the news.
ESPN’s X Games was a solid hit and thriving moneymaker right out of the gate, creating overnight stars like Tony Hawk, shown here in action, and later, Shaun White. Considering all the money that ESPN usually had to fork over for rights fees, it was a great relief to create a property of their own.
No executive in ESPN history had a more meteoric