Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [76]
We brought the NFL cost and the surcharge in at eight or nine cents versus that thirteen-cent ceiling. We created an incentive for everybody to play along, for everybody to kick in, and we divided the rights fees pro rata on a per-subscriber basis. That was the premise on which the NFL was sold into cable.
GEORGE BODENHEIMER:
We set a deadline and we told everybody there was a benefit to committing to us then, but those who didn’t sign by midnight of the deadline date would pay a higher price. I remember pleading with one particular cable operator who was my account who said he wasn’t going to agree to sign on. His name was Leonard Tow.
BILL GRIMES:
Tow was a PhD in engineering, a real hard-assed guy, very successful. I said, “Look, I live in the next town. Why don’t I come see you tomorrow for breakfast?” So I go to his house. It was a mansion that was just being finished. Incredible landscaping; there must have been twenty-five Mexican workers out there. I ring the bell, and a butler opens the door, takes me to this gigantic room. “Tea, coffee, sir?” Then Leonard comes in, and you know what the first thing he says about the deal was? “We can’t afford to do this.” I said, “People not seeing the games aren’t going to like it.” Leonard said, “I know football’s popular, but we’re already paying you guys a subscriber fee. We’ll just put on some other local programming the night of the game.” I reminded him that if he changed his mind after tomorrow, he would have to pay a 20 percent incremental fee, a premium, but he just kept saying nope. On the way out I said, “Leonard, look, we’re really successful now and we’re going to be more successful in the future. It would be awful not having you a part of this, but I really believe you’re going to wind up changing your mind. Just wait until people find out you won’t have the games.” He disagreed and we said good-bye. One week later, he called and signed on. And, oh yeah, he paid the extra 20 percent.
From the time that ESPN made its initial presentation to the NFL to the network’s first game, almost two years had gone by, along with dozens and dozens of meetings. It would be time well spent.
ESPN won the rights to nine Sunday-night games, two exhibition games, and the Pro Bowl, all part of a three-year deal that would cost ESPN $153 million—an audacious expenditure for the company at the time. From their base rate of approximately twenty-seven cents per subscriber, the network wound up adding an NFL surcharge of eight or nine cents per subscriber.
CHRIS BERMAN:
Man, do I remember our first preseason game. Chicago Bears at the Miami Dolphins, August 10, 1987. Every engineer we had who’d ever plugged in a plug was on duty that night—just in case something went wrong. I tripped over the guys getting in the studio, there were so many of them. I bet we had every technical person on the payroll that night working to make sure this game got on. We did a little pregame thing. I got Marino. Then I thanked all the viewers. I think I said, “You’ve been with us for the Wonder-bread years; that’s all about to change. I now present on ESPN for the first time, the National Football League.” I’m going to tell you right now, I almost cried.
ESPN aired its first regular season NFL game on November 8, 1987. It attributed about 700,000 new subscribers to the NFL package; indeed, by the time ESPN started airing games, the Bristol upstarts had found their way into 45 million homes, becoming the first cable network to achieve 50 percent penetration in the U.S. television market.
Bristol wanted to look like a big-time operation, not cheesy in comparison to the broadcast networks the viewers were accustomed to watching. Accordingly, big-time talent was signed up. Guest commentators for the 1987 season would include Larry Csonka, Jim Brown, Ed Marinaro, Tom Jackson, Roger Staubach, and O. J. Simpson. And on December 6, 1987, when ESPN aired Chicago at Minnesota, the network was rewarded