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A political race today, even a primary, is $150 million. The whole political system has become obscene in terms of the absurd amount of money that is required to compete. Just put it on ESPN and call it a sporting event.
Some people see ESPN. They see the long shots. They see me scoring the basketball, but they don't show often too many assists - and I've been doing that my whole career, being able to get the ball to the guy at the right time.
I think that there are three incredible brands in the news and information space. I think ESPN owns sports; I think the Weather Channel owns weather, and I want CNN to own news and information in the global digital video space.
TV critics came after me for overhyping LeBron. A lot of people don't know this, but I didn't want to do the game. I told ESPN, 'We're making this kid into something special.' I always follow orders, whatever my people want me to do.
I worked with AXE Hair to do a promo shoot for the ESPYs and ESPN - it's all about having girl-approved hair. They have a newer product out there with the hair stuff - shampoo, conditioner and all the styling products that they have.
I think for me, personally, I'm a guy who has watched ESPN ever since I've been growing up. You turn it on, and it's one of the first stories - the Blackhawks and hockey, which you don't really see on that station. That's cool to see.
From a small market, nobody had heard of me. ESPN had guts, they had courage, they rolled the dice. A guy flew into Portland, we got a rare snowstorm, he was stuck there four days, John McConnell listened to me, and he recommended me.
The experience I've had with Strikeforce kickboxing, K1, Strikeforce MMA, working with ESPN, working with Showtime, working with Japanese television, working with fighter camps from all over the world has given me a unique perspective.
I just knew: first-time female on ESPN, there's going to be some backlash, like any change. There's always going to be resistance. There are going to be people that hear a female voice or see a female figure and are completely against it.
Celebs that hit the West Hollywood/Beverly Hills quadrant and places like the Urth Caffe are not exactly trying to keep a low profile; it's sort of like if LeBron James went to an ESPN Zone and then whined about being hounded for autographs.
To allow our audiences to watch more professionally produced video content, we acquired Major League Gaming - MLG - and we expect MLG to become the 'ESPN of Videogames' with a focus on the celebration of gamers, both amateur and professionals.
For almost 20 years, I've reported on some amazing feats of athleticism for ESPN. But the one thing that stood out, game after game, is that it takes a team to win. When I got cancer, that lesson got personal. And Team Livestrong became my team.
I've been asked a lot about filling Chris Berman's role - to be honest, I don't even allow myself to see it that way. He is a total legend and created so much of what ESPN is known for and specifically our NFL coverage. That's an impossible task.
Stephen A. Smith is the hardest-working man in sports show business. The ubiquitous basketball pundit appears on ESPN about 10 times a day as a regular on the show 'NBA Fastbreak,' a guest commentator on 'Sports Center,' and a pundit on 'ESPNEWS.'
Hard as it is to believe, there were three magazines fighting over me. 'Newsweek' wanted to keep me, 'ESPN The Magazine' was coming into existence and wanted me, and 'SI' wanted to bring me back. Isn't that amazing? I had a choice, like a free agent.
Going to a powerhouse high school, playing on ESPN a couple times a year, playing a nationally ranked schedule and also playing in the best conference in the world in high school, I was lucky. We'd have no less than nine guys go Division 1 every year.
What has truly impeded ESPN from overcoming its financial mistakes and inability to adapt to technological advances? The decadelong culture war ESPN lost to Deadspin, a snarky, politically progressive sports blog launched by Gawker's Nick Denton in 2005.
When the great jazz and blues clubs closed - joints where the cash register rang loudly and there wasn't ESPN on TV over the bandstand, and people smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey and hollered 'Play on!' - When those places closed, I was pretty much done.
I majored in sports and went to law school and focused in sports law, so I always knew I wanted to do ESPN but thought it would be behind the camera. After doing 'Bachelor' and 'Bachelorette,' the media circuit, I thought, you know what - I want to talk about it!
But the rising chorus urging ESPN to change its stripes is missing something: The intersection of sports and politics is natural. And the left-wing lean of ESPN is inevitable. Conservatives bothered by the slant should stop hand-wringing and start their own network.
Fox does the NFL a lot like they program the rest of the network. There's sort of a locker room sense of humor that prevails. With ESPN, it's more like a pat-you-on-the-back kind of comedy. I mean, they'll all get on each other a little bit, but it's never mean-spirited.
There were many times eating ramen noodles and sitting on a friend's couch watching ESPN where I was like, 'This is not what I thought California was going to be like. I thought it was going to be pools and cocktails with umbrellas in them and Maseratis, but this ain't it.'
Ten years from now, we'll still be talked about as the first gay couple that ESPN had in 'The Body Issue.' You might not realize, in the moment, the impact that something like that can have. Every now and then, when you talk to people and hear the reactions, maybe we helped somebody.
I was at an ESPN event in the United States, the awards ceremony, and I got approached by the WWE. I had just retired, and, it's a form of competition, but of course, it's also scripted, so I don't know if I'd be willing to relive that. Perhaps for a special event, so I could taste it.
It's almost out of sight out of mind because there's so many cards. One great fight could happens one weekend and another great fight happens next weekend, you kind of get swallowed up in that pack. So you have to find a way to separate yourself and what better way to do that than on ESPN?
Whenever someone says something to me like 'Oh, another blonde at ESPN,' I would like to crunch the numbers. First, I think we have more brunettes than blondes. And second, there are only three normal hair colors. You're either a redhead, brunette, or blonde. It's really not that complicated.
Cricinfo has developed into a significant cricket brand in its own right, combining huge global popularity with strong commercial success. ESPN is a major sports broadcaster and international rights holder and will provide the perfect environment for Cricinfo to further realize its enormous potential.
Remember one thing about ESPN: People can be critical of them sometimes for being a large corporation but nine years ago I had a stroke and I couldn't talk. That's the way I made my living. ESPN could've dumped me very easy, but they didn't. They helped me and presented me an opportunity to get back on the air.
I have tremendous brand experience. What I do a lot for Disney is manage the great brands of this company, whether it's Disney, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel, 'Star Wars.' And I'm very engaged in technology and its impact on the consumer, either what experience you deliver for them or how to market and sell to them.
For 10 years while I was at ESPN, I lived at the Residence Inn in Southington, Connecticut, near Bristol. I did that because my wife had a great job in New York City, and we had a place in New York City, at 54th and 8th. On Friday, I would come back, and then on Sunday evening I would go back to the Residence Inn.
I got fired - November 8, 1979. And all of a sudden, I got a call, two weeks later, about doing a game on ESPN. And I truly said - Scotty Connal, the head of ESPN production at the time, was the guy that called me - I said, 'Man, ESPN sounds like a disease. What is ESPN? I know nothing about it, never heard of it.'
It is accurate that the Walt Disney Company and ESPN are committed to diversity and inclusion. These are long-standing values that drive fundamental fairness while providing us with the widest possible pool of talent to create the smartest and most creative staff. We do not view this as a political stance but as a human stance.
I was in an ESPN interview and was asked, 'Who would I most want to ride a roller coaster with?' and I said Warren Sapp because every time he giggles, you can hear there's a little girl inside of him. I called him a little girl, and he found me on Twitter and was like, 'Are you the Bert who called me a little girl?' I was like, 'Oh, great!'
The cool thing about Snapchat is you can get a lot of news on there now. There's CNN, ESPN, and I find myself reading the most random articles. I don't know how it actually benefits me, but it's interesting. I like to stay up on current events, so I have to give kudos to Snapchat: they've done a good job of that. But I'm on there way too much.
The '30 for 30' strand started life as a series of behind-the-scenes docs for the sports channel ESPN. It has now spawned an equally fascinating series of podcasts. Like the films, these podcasts don't rely on access, the usual currency of sports journalism, and are strangely excited by stories that are complicated and require telling at length.
Yes, I did move to New York when I was eighteen to do sports broadcasting. I didn't know how I was going to do it, so I got a job at ESPN Zone, thinking I would meet people in the business. People give me a hard time for it, but they don't realize that they shot 'Sports Reporter' there and that folks from ESPN and ABC were in there all the time.
