Navigating Network Sports
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When you work for one company for 27 years and another for 23, you learn how your business works.
The good and the not so good.
What makes one special and the other one, perhaps, to put it delicately, ‘corporate’.
I wound up my wonderful career after 27 years with Fox Sports. Believe me, if I hadn’t decided it was time, I would have gone on.
That’s how I felt about them. Fortunately, that’s how they felt about me.
When I called CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks in 2021 to tell him I decided to retire, he tried to talk me out of it. But I knew I was ready. Fifty-plus years is a long time to do anything, even the joyous job of being an on-air broadcaster. Especially spending practically all of it in sports, which only meant everything to me.
When I left broadcasting, I had the benefit of spending the final nearly 30 years of my work with a peace of mind that can’t be measured.
It was the ideal way to go out. Far better than the situation at CBS, where I worked 23 memorable years, but due to circumstances enumerated further on, led to concerns, doubts, and questions which dominated my thoughts.
My first employer was Group W, Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, which owned many radio and TV stations from coast to coast. I worked at many of them in cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Boston. During my time in Pittsburgh, the Rooney family, which owned the Pittsburgh Steelers recommended me to CBS Sports President Bill MacPhail as a youngster worthy to watch. CBS hired me to work NFL telecasts in a pre- and post-game role. That was the start. I still did the sports segments on the nightly news programs, but I had the chance to develop in a network setting.
I left both Group W and CBS to become the play-by-play telecaster of Boston Red Sox games for four years. During that time, I was given the opportunity to do games for HBO, which was just getting started with only 8,000 subscribers in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, PA. After my Red Sox tenure, I decided network life was for me and rejoined CBS, in 1978.
That triggered the rest of my career between them and Fox.
My CBS time began as the host of the CBS Sports Spectacular, the network’s answer to ABC’s famous Wide World of Sports. We used to joke, and still do, that our show was neither sports, nor spectacular. It was a stepchild to the big anthology show on ABC which owned the rights to all the major events from the World Figure Skating Championships, the World Gymnastics Championships, to the Harlem Globetrotters show which amassed remarkably high ratings. We, at CBS, had to create events such as Mixed Pairs Gymnastics, and the World Roller-Skating Championships. You get the idea.
Two years later I was back to play-by-play on NBA, NFL, and March Madness.
Carl Lindemann, who had been the chief at NBC Sports brought me along after my work on the 1975 World Series and NFL and college hoops games.
But the man I worked most closely with was the Executive Producer, Ted Shaker.
There, we worked those terrific NBA games including the playoffs and Finals for nine seasons. We had it all during that time, including NFL games, and the NCAA tournament games CBS wrested away from NBC.
The games were fun and enjoyable, but corporate politics entered the equation and the uneven manner the department was run, dampened a good deal of the joy.
CBS had five separate men running the various sports under the leadership of the division president. So, the NFL guy was going to have his chosen announcers leading the pack, and the voices leading other sports taking a backseat.
Assignments were made mostly with political rationale. When I joined the network the second time around, there was one broadcaster who was favored by the men at the top. They called him the 800-pound gorilla. In essence, he called all the shots. The fact is, they allowed it all to happen. Thus, there were strange ways decisions were made at CBS for years.
Today, I understand the division is run in a different style. Much better, for sure.
CBS lost out to NBC for the NBA rights after the 1990 season, and then were outbid by Fox for the NFL, which proved to be crippling developments for CBS. They regained NFL coverage later, but when Fox took the big package from under them, I accepted an offer to leave CBS and join Fox Sports in 1994 to do NFL games.
David Hill, a big-time executive producer in Australia was given the assignment of creating Fox Sports NFL coverage by Fox chief Rupert Murdoch. Hill was hardly knowledgeable of American football but hired the right people to get the project underway. Hill established the mantra of Fox’ coverage by claiming, ‘Same Game, New Attitude’. And how right he was.
Immediately Fox Sports encouraged a relaxed, almost fun-loving treatment of game that was centered on an ultra-serious, intense approach to the telecasts.
John Madden, and his special, often humorous, and fun way of doing games was brought over from CBS to team with Pat Summerall, the best duo ever to work NFL contests. They brought me over to team with another light-hearted analyst, Matt Millen to form the second team behind Summerall and Madden.
They also set up a prominent studio presentation for pre, halftime, and post-game shows bringing in Terry Bradshaw from CBS, former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson, former Raider Howie Long, later ex-Giant Michael Strahan, and the steady host Curt Menefee. All of the ex-players and coaches on the panel were Super Bowl champions.
Fox went out of the box to bring in the sons of established and renowned broadcasters.
Joe Buck, Kenny Albert, Kevin Harlan and Thom Bennaman were hired to virtually start their careers. Joe was the son of legend Jack Buck, Kenny’s father Marv was a national icon, Thom’s dad, Marty, was the voice of the Cincinnati Reds for decades, and Kevin’s father was Bob Harlan, who ran the Green Bay Packers.
Everyone connected with this brand-new enterprise was encouraged to let it all out, do the games in their own particular style, and have fun doing it. The same declaration was given to the producers and directors of the telecasts.
After Hill departed, Eric Shanks took over as the leader of Fox Sports. At 38, he became the youngest to head a network sports division in history.
Shanks was a loyal leader who, along with his key underlings allowed everyone to do their jobs without the added pressure of second-guessing anything you did on the broadcasts. No one ever had to look over his shoulder wondering if you were going to hear from the front office. You never did. Nor were you expected to call in and contact them if you had a complaint. Whatever game you were assigned, it was understood you would accept it and do the best you could. If the executives wanted to hear from you, they would call. It was as simple as that.
If you had problems in a particular game, there would be no criticism coming your way.
If you had an exceptional broadcast, there would be no call of congratulations.
That’s the way it worked, and it was refreshing and calm.
Fox really hated anyone going to the media to air their misgivings.
Unfortunately, this has been the case for Greg Olsen, the talented former Carolina Panther who had been the #1 expert-analyst, then moved to #2, with the arrival of Tom Brady. Olsen expressed his disapproval on several occasions to the media.
Suffice to say, Greg has changed his tune and has become more of a team guy.
That’s the way Fox wants it, and it was also good for Greg who has a bright future.
They let you do your job, and no one ever felt the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, even if they were advanced in age, and it might seem time for them to make a change. They were loyal. And they expected the same.
I recall one time when my position in the pecking order was dropped a couple of notches.
I expressed my displeasure but was reminded that I was still working NFL games, one of a select few in all the networks doing them. I got the picture quickly and settled into my new role with my good attitude still intact.
I am grateful for all the networks who asked me to broadcast for them, and that also includes Turner Sports where I spent 16 years at the mike for NBA and Major League Baseball, but the last 27 at that one glorious place, Fox Sports, provided the best memories I have.
