On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 7:36 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
> Something about the timing of it bugs me. After the takeover Comcast > announced that Ebersol would continue to be the head of NBC Sports. So > if they were unhappy about revenues from the Olympics the takeover > would be a natural time to announce the separation. Comcast was > involved with the NHL deal so they couldn't simply blame Ebersol. > Whatever happened to cause Comcast to lowball Ebersol on a new > contract came after the NHL deal. My gut feeling is that Ebersol > wanted a financial commitment from Comcast for either the NBC Sports > budget or possibly bidding for upcoming Olympics and Comcast wouldn't > commit, so he walked. > Well, the timing came from Ebersol, and I don't know that Comcast was low-balling him, but I think you are basically right. Ebersol went into extend his contract into a long term deal, and probably used it to gauge Comcast's valuing of him. I think he set a high price, but also no doubt included commitments regarding the Olympics. He timed it for now because he thought he had the upper hand going into the Olympic negotiations. He drew a line in the sand, Comcast called his bluff, so had had to walk. Ebersol is really good at producing sports telecasts - especially pro football. He is not as good at making money for the corporations that own television networks. He sucks at producing late night television comedy shows. And he was an asshole for dumping on Conan and repeating the lie that Conan lost money on the Tonight Show for the first time, just as he (Ebersol) was losing $200M on the winter Olympics. Peter King, the SI columnist and NBC SNF contributor, has nice things to say about Ebersol online this morning. He also added positive quotes from others in the sports world, including the two below that I found particularly interesting: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/05/22/mmqb/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_sports *Peyton Manning, Indianapolis quarterback:* "The thing I always felt about Dick was he was all in. We'd have the Sunday night game, and Friday at our facility, there'd not only be Al Michaels and John Madden -- or Cris Collinsworth now -- and the crew, but Dick would be there. Every single production meeting. He never missed, and that never happens in TV from what I've seen. It's always just the announcers and the crew. And Dick being there, you could tell how important it was. It was like a playoff-game feel. It's like, *My name's on this show, and it's going to be the best show it can be, every week.* And he'd have questions, just like John and Al would have questions. "The other thing about those production meetings: He'd have great gadgets for us every time. You know, flip video cameras, iPods, whatever. It got to the point where we [players] wondered,' What's Dick going to have for us this week?' I remember a few times around those meetings we'd have conversations about philanthropy. He was very interested in the charities I was involved with, in my Peyback Foundation -- I think for a lot of reasons, but one was obviously to honor the loss of his son. You could just tell he and his wife had a lot of other interests in the world other than sports on TV, and they wanted to leave their mark in a positive way.'' (SNIP) ** *John Madden, former Sunday night game analyst:* "The years with NBC were the best years I ever worked in the business. Dick made it that way. We'd be together from Thursday night at dinner, to Friday at production meetings and practice, to Saturday watching film and doing more meetings with the visiting team, to the game. We spent so much time together, all of us, that we got pretty doggone close. In all the years I did the NFL, we had more owners come to practice on Friday in whatever city we were doing the game at NBC than all the others combined -- because Dick was there. He really understood partners. He'd get a lot of business done with those owners on the field and in their offices. To see the chairman out at practice every week ... it was a great thing. "I remember on one of our road trips, we're staying in the same hotel as the Boston Celtics. You look at the marquee at the hotel and it says, 'NBC, film session, 9 a.m.,' and 'Boston Celtics, film session, 10 a.m.' Doc Rivers is such a good friend of everyone. He told us, 'If you guys want to come over and watch with us, come on in.' So I'm all excited about that -- breaking down film with the Boston Celtics! Dick goes over a little bit early, and I go over there around 10, and there's one player in there -- that Big Baby guy. They got all this food, and there's only one player, and I'm expecting to hear Doc talk about doubling this guy, trapping that guy, you know, watch one of the great basketball coaches teach his players something important. And I look over, and there's all the Celtic coaches at a table, and Dick's there, telling them all stories about the Olympics. That was a big deal for them.'' "This isn't the last you'll hear of Dick Ebersol,'' Madden said. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
