Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [61]
By October of 1983, ESPN could claim the title of America’s largest cable network, its signal reaching 28.5 million homes. Ad revenue rose 60 percent to $40 million—and yet that was still not enough for the business to show a profit.
SAL MARCHIANO:
I was in my rental car and heard the lyric “happiness was Lubbock in my rearview mirror,” by Mac Davis. Next time I went back to SportsCenter, I introduced “Bristol” instead of “Lubbock” to the guys, and it became such a common phrase in the building that at night when we used to split, we’d be in the parking lot and just yell out to each other, “Happiness.” That’s how common the phrase was.
Chet had given me a good deal, and in fact, my nickname to the young guys at SportsCenter was “Six Figure Sal” because I was the only guy at SportsCenter who made six figures. But I was also doing boxing on their Thursday-night show, which was the reincarnation of those glorious Friday-night fights that used to be on NBC and the Pabst Blue Ribbon series of CBS. I was the only one on SportsCenter who went on the road, and one of my two days off was always a travel day. So now I’m dealing with Scotty Connal, who was great at production but had no people skills. He was a very angry, impatient man. My three-year deal was up, and Connal was making my renegotiation very difficult. My agent, Jimmy Walsh, who also represented Namath, couldn’t make a deal with him, and so I said, “Oh, I’ll go in and talk to him.” Scotty was very abrasive and started the meeting by talking down to me. I said, “Listen, I’m not some prep-school kid and you’re not some dean. Let’s make this adult.” Of course, he had never heard anyone talk to him that way, but I had a background and I had a lot of experience. I said, “Do you want to make a deal or don’t you?” So Connal said, “You’re too expensive for SportsCenter. The most I pay these guys is $35,000 a year and you’re making over a hundred thousand.” Actually I was making $195 including the boxing, which was extraordinary money back then for anybody there. So he said, “Boxing is great, you’re terrific at boxing. How about you just do boxing and then you don’t have to come here and do SportsCenter?” I said, “That’s fine with me.” And so we had a handshake on the deal. He said this to me on a Thursday but added, “You’re still on the schedule this weekend for SportsCenter,” and Sunday was a big-deal show, so I said, “Yeah, no problem. I’ll be in Sunday night.” So I came in, did the show, and at the end, Bob Ley, who was the co-anchor, said, “We have to explain something. You’re going to be here, but you’re not going to be here.” So then I explained the situation, that I wouldn’t be doing SportsCenter anymore, that I’d be doing just boxing, and after my explanation, he said, “Well, I guess there’s only one thing left to say,” and he thought I was going to say good night, and I ad-libbed, “Happiness is Bristol in my rearview mirror.”
It was the first time it was said publicly, so they were falling out of their chairs laughing in the control room, and I had one guy tell me he fell off his couch laughing. The next morning, Jimmy Walsh calls me and says, “You know that deal you made with Scotty?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Well, he’s taking it off the table because of that remark about the rearview mirror. Connal said you ‘shoved it up everybody’s ass who worked at ESPN,’ so he doesn’t want you back.” I tried calling Connal, but he wouldn’t take my calls. Barry Frank at IMG tried to help out by telling Connal, “Nobody heard it. It doesn’t mean shit,” and even suggested a suspension, but Connal just said, “I don’t want him back.” Jimmy was able to get copies of the Bristol Press for the thirty-one days after the remark, and he went over it with a fine-tooth comb, and there was no reference to my ad lib in the local newspaper. So he went to see another attorney, and he told us that we could in fact sue for a year