Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [98]
As Bristol tried to regain its footing after all the upheaval, Roger Werner and Steve Bornstein were still in acquisition mode. By now, ESPN had the NFL, college basketball and college football, but the end of the ’87–’88 season marked the end of its contract with the NHL, and there was still no pro basketball or baseball on the bill.
Baseball was most important to the network’s inventory. Summers on ESPN had been too quiet. The network had been covering the U.S. Olympic Festival—an amateur competition for potential Olympians—and in 1982, began carrying the College World Series, which capped off coverage of collegiate baseball in June, but then the wind stalled. Major League Baseball was clearly the best live product to acquire for the summer, and it, along with the other sports ESPN had rights to, would mean the network would be in good shape for ten of the twelve months of the year.
Broadcast rights to Major League Baseball were coming to the market again, and the suitors were lined up around the block. If ESPN could bring this bounty home, it would become a high-profile force in Major League Baseball at last. Not that college baseball hadn’t provided a nice surprise or two along the way….
LOREN MATTHEWS:
Tug McGraw was a friend of mine from my Mets days, and I always thought he would make a great broadcaster. We weren’t doing major baseball on ESPN yet, but we were doing college baseball, so I talked him into doing a game for us—Mississippi—the Ole Miss. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it or not, and told me he didn’t know anybody, so I said, “Look, I’ll fly you in, we’ll spend some time together, you’ll do the game, and you’ll see if you like it.” So we’re in Oxford, Mississippi, and he says, “Well, we have to go to dinner early because my son’s coming into town tonight, and I have to meet with him.” Now, I knew Tug’s family, so I said, “Oh, Mark’s coming to Oxford?” And he said, “No, no, no. This isn’t Mark. You don’t know about this son ’cause I just found out about him not too long ago myself. It was a spring training fling years ago.” He said he didn’t even know he had fathered a child way back then, but the kid was college age now, and he wanted to become a country music singer. Now, I’m not sure I want to get involved in all this, so I tell him I don’t think I should come along. “No, no,” Tug said. “I want you to help me break the ice; I barely know this guy.” So we go to the Holiday Inn in Oxford, and sure enough this beat-up old eight-cylinder jalopy comes chugging in, and a nice-looking young guy gets out. Tug introduces me to him. Then the kid says he wants Tug to listen to some of his music, so he puts a cassette of his into this old car. Afterward, I pulled Tug aside and said, “Look, Tug, I don’t know anything about music, but I have to say, it sounds like this kid’s got some talent.” He said, “Yeah, he is pretty good, isn’t he?” Long story short, obviously it was Tim McGraw, and he and Tug later became close, but I’ll never forget being in that parking lot, listening to Tim McGraw play his cassettes from this old beat-up jalopy. I mean, who knew?
When ESPN landed the NFL in 1987, it was the debut of professional football on cable television. That, combined with football’s popularity, had enabled ESPN to hit up cable operators for a surcharge. But baseball was different. Because baseball had been on cable in the past—Ted Turner had been airing Atlanta Braves games since 1979—the deal that ESPN made with Major League Baseball held no such prize. Baseball was actually perceived as a cable staple and thus not surcharge-worthy. Besides, there was no way ESPN would be able