August 4, 2022 • 55 mins
On this episode of Off the Beat: Sports, Brian is joined by the President of Programming for NBC Sports, Jon Miller. Jon tells Brian all about the last 45 years of sports television, the unlikely origin story of the National Dog Show, and reveals the secret trophy room for NBC failures hidden inside 30 Rock.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I told these guys, you know, get that out of there.
But I made the inadvertent comment of shoot the the item,
so the director immediately panned over and shot it, and
you get rid of it, shoot it, said no, no, no no, no,
get off that shot. And unfortunately, once it appears on television,
it lives on Google and YouTube and places forever. Hi.
(00:29):
I'm John Miller, President of Programming for NBC Sports, and
I can't wait to be on Off the Beat. Hello everybody,
and thanks for joining us here today on another episode
of Off the Beat Sports. As always, I am your
(00:51):
host Brian Baumgartner. Today one of my oldest friends at NBC.
I am bringing on the person who has currently been
at NBC the longest forty four years, most of which
at NBC Sports, John Miller, one of the most influential
(01:11):
voices in sports and of course at NBC, and one
of the only people in the world who can say
that they have literally changed sports television. I mean, have
you ever turned on the National Dog Show on Thanksgiving?
John invented that? Have you ever watched the Winter Classic
(01:31):
from the NHL? Well, John invented that are you happy
that the US Open coverage was back on NBC. Have
you ever watched the American Century Championships from Lake Tahoe. Well,
John invented that to one man, and he's here today now.
When I saw John a couple of weeks ago in
Lake Tahoe, I just knew that I had to bring
(01:54):
him onto the podcast. In fact, I started doing background
research with some of the golf analysts there at NBC.
I wanted to do my research because I wanted John
to be able to effectively tell his story. You know,
there is truly a little more inspiring to me than
(02:16):
hearing the journeys of people who have risen to greatness
in their field. So sit back, take a listen. I
am very happy to introduce to every one of you
my good friend and someone I can honestly say that
I admire in the world of entertainment, John Miller. Bubble
(02:42):
and Squeak. I love Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker
Cookie at every month left over from the nub before.
(03:04):
Hi John, Hi Brian, how are you. I'm so good. Oh,
I'm so happy that you're here. You don't know this,
but before you agreed to do this, almost inadvertently had
a background research session on you with Steve Sands one
day after the tournament. Um, John and I were just
(03:27):
in Like Tahoe for the American Century Championship, one of
his many babies, which we're going to talk about in
a little bit. Uh, my favorite week of the year.
How was the week for you? First off? It was
Now that I'm a little more than a week away
from it, Brian, it it all starts to sink in
when you're in there and you're living in the moment,
(03:47):
you kind of lose sight of all the things that
are happening. And because the team does such a good job,
you know, led by Gary Quinn and David Muller, you
it's all become so seamless. But I tell a few moments,
you know, on the way home or the day after,
and think about everything and realize just how far we've come.
This was far and away our best event ever on
(04:13):
a whole bunch of different metrics. Um. You know, this
is our thirty third year and we had over sixty
seven thousand people to show up in Lake Tahoe over
four days. UM. By way of comparison, for those people
who remember when we started this event, this was gonna
(04:34):
be a one and done, and we lost a lot
of money our first year, and we had thirty people
people over the four days we let people in for
free Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we charged I think ten
dollars for the weekend. And we were so excited, we
were so proud of ourselves that we got people. And
now you know, thirty three years later, with this has
(04:57):
become But we also got the highest ratings on television
that we've gotten since two thousand nine. But the other
thing is the social media reach was multiple billions with
a B. We've never had that before either. And that's
due in large part to people like you and Steph
(05:17):
Curry and Justin and and Pat Mahomes and Travis Kelsey
all contributing in such a big way, but then turning
around and posting stuff on social media sites that get
picked up that. But you know, to answer your question,
it was it was a great week. Yeah, it certainly was.
I want to talk some more about that, and it's
it's inception and its history and a little bit. I
(05:40):
wanted to start by going back in your history. I mean,
I feel like you're only like fifty two years old,
but you've been at NBC now for what forty four years?
I mean, it feels like your entire life in uh
in October, it will be forty five years. I started
when I was in sixth grade, but now that's that's
just what i've uhm, it'll be forty It'll be forty
(06:05):
five years. And I've really had this front row seat
to watch the business, you know, change and evolve and whatnot.
So it's been a lot of fun. You know, when
I first started with NBC, it was just NBC, CBS
and ABC. You know, the people who I work with
love to say that I was around when it was
just black and white television, not quite but close. But
(06:27):
there was no cable, there was no satellite. There was
certainly nothing like streaming or any of the things that
we have now. But you know, you get to watch
all this stuff unfold and have a front row seat
for it, and it's and it's fun. And what it
what you learned is that content is still the most
important thing, and if you have a good product, people
will find it and watch it and and do all that.
(06:49):
So that, to me is is a lot of fun. Yeah,
you grew up in Bethesda, is that right? Bethesda, Maryland?
Bethesda Maryland. My my mom was originally from Washington, d C.
When my dad was from New York who moved down
to the d C area in the mid fifties and
and they got married in fifty five. And I have
(07:10):
a brother and a sister. But that's where our family
was from. So growing up in the d C area
my whole life until I went to college. Were you
interested in sports? Were you interested in entertainment or both? Oh? Yeah,
I was. I was a sports junkie as a kid.
You know, I I followed, you know, at that time,
I followed the Washington Redskins. The Washington Senators were my
(07:32):
baseball team that got taken away from me when I
was thirteen years old and was at that final game
at RFK Stadium where we stormed the field and got
tear gassed and the Senators lost in a forfeit. We
didn't have a hockey team, the Capitals didn't come until
much later, um, and we didn't really have a basketball
team to the Washington Wizards were the Baltimore Bullets. But
(07:54):
I wasn't really in the basketball. The sport I actually
played a lot as a kid was tennis, and I
was at this junkie and spent a lot of time,
you know, following pro tennis, never really followed golf much
at all until I met my wife, and her father
and her brother kind of turned me onto golf and
basically said, if you're going to ever succeed in business,
(08:15):
you better learn this game. So but that's I was
a big sports junkie as a kid growing up. Yeah,
but never, I'll be honestly, Brian, I never thought that
my career would lead me to this. I mean it
was This has been such a great ride. It's been
so much fun. You you mentioned this. I I did
(08:35):
not know this story until some some research was done.
You and your little brother, you were taken away by
security after storming the field. You just mentioned that how
old were you at this point? So this is nineteen
seventy one, So I was like thirteen or fourteen years
old and my little brother was ten. And it was
the last Senators home game against the Yankees, and the
(09:00):
Senators had this great big star named Frank Howard who
was known as the Washington Monument. He was six ft
eight and he waved a baseball bat like a toothpick.
Senators were down I think three to two in the
bottom of the seventh or whatever, and they groove to
pitch to Howard. He hits a three run home run
and the place goes crazy and we stormed the field,
(09:23):
and you know, the game never finished, and they had
police come out on horseback and herded us all to
the right field bullpen and held us all there. And
there was no subway or anything like that. We lost
the guys who we were with, So you know, I
didn't get home until two o'clock in the morning. Needless
to say, my dad was not too happy with me
because I was responsible for my little brother. But that
(09:47):
was that was a very fond memory. Yeah, you head
off to Ohio and go to Miami University and your
degree is a business at illustration. When does your interest
start turning to entertainment to media? So when I was
in college, I went to Miami. I did all four
(10:07):
years there and I um. I was involved my junior
and senior year, well senior year really with a program
that was an advertising and marketing based program that really
opened up my eyes to the marketing and advertising world.
We handled two different brands. The first semester we worked
on boarding foods or the Cromorra Brand, and the second
(10:29):
semester we worked for Wendy's. And I was really fascinated
with the advertising and marketing world, and when I got
out of college, I knew I wanted to come back East.
I had a cousin at the time who was representing
television for Metromedia, and he was selling local advertising for
those television stations, but he was based in Chicago, and
(10:50):
that to me sounded like a lot of fun. You
could sell advertising time, So I pitched a bunch of
jobs in d c um didn't get any of them.
Finally got an offer from Channel four w r C,
which was an owned NBC station, to become what was
called the Maven, which was somebody they would train in
all the different aspects of local television. And I was
(11:13):
twenty one years old and I took it, and I
spent time learning sales, service and research and all the
different things that go on behind the scenes in the
television station. And then I wanted to sell. I got
kind of bored with doing all that, and they already
had a salesforce, so I said, give me the Yellow
Pages and let me have the city of Baltimore. Because
(11:35):
nobody ever wanted to go up to Baltimore to call
on potential advertisers and the Yellow Pages, and I kind
of created my own list and I did that for
three years and then eventually, you know, took that and
moved to New York to sell for NBC in New York. Wow.
So w r C. That was your first job out
of college. Yeah, pretty much. When I was in college,
(11:56):
I was involved in importing a game that you play
on the each called smash ball with two big wooden
paddles in a lot bit ball, and I did that
in summers to kind of put my myself through school.
But yeah, my first real job with you know, a
serious weekly paycheck was was working for NBC starting in
October of nine. Wow. So you I understand there you
(12:20):
cross path with George Michael and I don't know if
this this is the story that I hear that that
you were playing kind of a precursor to to fantasy
baseball with your friend at this time. Well, you've really
done some homework, Brian. I mean these are well, listen,
(12:41):
I've got a great team. And this was occurring to
me too because I think a lot of people, you know,
think of sports Center and ESPN as being the first
like highlight show, stats shows or whatever. But George Michael,
which ultimately became the Sports Machine started and part of this,
(13:01):
as I understand, it started out of your playing fantasy
baseball and there was no way to get stats, right,
that's right. I had two really good friends down in
d C. And this is in nineteen. We would go
to Orioles games and we would come back, and this
is really a precursor to fantasy baseball. We would play
Strato matic base Strata Matic Baseball was this board game
(13:24):
and we would play for hours and hours and hours
and we had a blast doing it. And then we
obviously followed Major League Baseball very closely. We were all
baseball junkies and the only way we could get scores
would be to call King Wally's sports phone in New
York and it was like a nine number and every
time you called it cost you fifty cents. And I said,
(13:45):
this is nuts. So George Michael comes to work at
w r C as the local sports anchor in Washington,
and you know, I was the youngest guy on the
staff by a lot, and it comes to me as
his and you help and find ways to drive new
value here, and so we wanted to create our own
(14:07):
version of a sports phone, and we were told that
w r C was not licensed. You had to have
special permission from the FCC to do a sports phone.
So what we decided to do is create a fifteen
minutes Sunday night highlight show, and we piggyback the highlight
show and basically set the phone up that way so
(14:29):
that you could almost hear the broadcast on the sports phone.
We finally got permission for it, and it became George
Michael's Sports Line to go along with George Michael's Sports
Final and we would do a fifteen minute highlights show.
And that's quite honestly, George Michael was so far ahead
of his time because he was doing highlights of NASCAR
and wrestling and bull riding long before anybody really followed
(14:54):
these sports along with your regular baseball, basketball, NFL highlights
and stuff like that. And then our phone, our phone,
we had a phone bank of a hundred lines, and
we saw it. We couldn't sell advertising on the phone,
but we sold it for the show, and then we
branded people on the phone, and that's how it all
got started. And that really was the precursor to what
(15:15):
Sports Center is now. It was all the George Michael
Sports Final, which became the Sports Machine. That is crazy.
I mean, this seems like such a long time ago.
In two thousand five, even the only way to get
ratings from the night before was to call a hotline
phone number and from the makeup trailer. Every morning, I
(15:38):
would call the line and we would find out where
we did the night before, and I would try to
offer just like George, I would try to offer analysis
as to why we were up or down the night before.
As I said to Mike, sure like, well last night
there was an NBA a very special Lakers Celtics came on.
So that's why our number might be a little up anyway.
(15:59):
That But it's crazy now when you can access everything
with just you know, your finger on your phone. That
that that's where we started. But yeah, I mean people
people give it to Sports Center or think of Sports
Centers as the first, but really that Sports Machine that's
for you. George Michael was that was the first. You know,
(16:19):
highlights show was weekly Sunday night, and he had these
big fake tape machines that he would stand in front
of the pretended to push the button. Had the widest
knot on his tie that you would ever see. Um,
but he was crazy. But a lot of people, you know,
Lindsay Zarniac, who's now you know, all over television, was
on ESPN and does some stuff for NBC. She started
(16:40):
out there. A lot of really bright young stars got
their start working for George Michael at w r C
in Washington. Well, clearly you have an innovative spirit and mind.
You join NBC and seventy eight, how how are you
hired by NBC? So I was jobs and I finally,
(17:02):
you know, I got into uh see the people at
w r C, and the head of sales, you know, said, look,
we don't hire anybody who doesn't have experience, but they're
starting this new program called the Maven Program. I'm gonna
send you up to New York and let you interview
for the Maven Program. So I drove to New York
(17:22):
City and stayed in a hotel and went in and
interviewed with a man named Bud Hirsch, who at the
time I didn't know much about, but it turned out
he was a legend in the business. And I went
in and pitched him on why he should hire me,
and I brought him a smash ball set and we
played smash ball in his office. He happened to love tennis,
(17:44):
so he enjoyed that and he said, you know what,
I'm going to give you a shot. So he hired
me as the first NBC maven, and basically that was
to learn all the different aspects of how a local
television station runs in our rates, with an idea that
I would eventually grow up through the ranks and become
(18:05):
a general manager of an NBC owned television station. And
that was what my initial career path was supposed to
be when I started with NBC in nineteen seven day
(18:33):
and then in one you moved to New York. Why
go to New York? How did the path change for you? So?
I was selling locally for the NBC station in Washington,
which is where I worked with George, and then I
realized that if I wanted to grow my career, I
needed to get to New York. So I was twenty
four and I moved to thirty Rock, and I sold
(18:54):
national advertising for all of the NBC owned television stations,
and at that time, NBC owned five television stations New York, Chicago,
l a Washington and Cleveland. So I sold all the
all the local advertising to national advertisers that were based
in New York UM. And I did that for about
(19:15):
three three years and enjoyed it, but realized that spot
television and the station's business was really not where I
saw my career heading. And I saw other opportunities out there.
And I found out about these guys who sell network sports,
and I thought, Wow, what an incredible job that must be.
(19:39):
You know, if you love sports and you like television,
and you're and you enjoy selling, that's the perfect combination.
And so I there was a man named Jim Burnett
who was a legendary sports sales figure who I was
introduced to, and I basically stalked him. And I'm not
kidding you, Brian. He would take the bus in and
(20:01):
I would arrange to be on the corner when his
bus would let out in the morning. I would three
or four busses would go by, and then Jim Burnett
would get off the bus right at the corner of
fifty and sixth Avenue, right at thirty Rock, and I
would walk in the building with him. I would go
up to the commissary on the seventh floor. We would
sit and have breakfast and I would pitch him and
(20:23):
pick his brain. And for three months I would do this,
you know, two or three days a week, until finally
I think he got tired of me badgering him and
he said, I want you to come work for us,
which did not go over very well with the group
that I was currently working for, but I made the
decision that that was the way I needed to go.
So I ended up going and working. I went to
(20:45):
work for NBC Sports sales in and that's how I
got into the sports side of the business. And was
that tied to that childhood passion for you for sports?
Was that the most fun thing that you could think
about doing. Yeah, I mean I you know, at the
time in so that was the year that the Bears
(21:09):
had this dominant NFL team that was you know, Jim McMahon,
Walter Payton, you know, Chicago Bears. The Redskins still had
a strong team, and the Giants. So the NFL was
very strong. And I was a big baseball fan. And
here's NBC Sports that has the a f C package
in football that has Major League Baseball and the World Series,
(21:32):
which they alternate with ABC. They have Wimbledon, they have
the French Open, they have a modest golf package. They
don't have the Olympics yet. The Olympics didn't come along
until but they had a big college basketball offering, and
they had a bunch of New Year's Day Bowl games.
And to me, this was what a great thing to
(21:56):
be able to go out and sell all these different
properties that I fill. It is a fan that I
could talk passionately about and hopefully get other people excited
about it as well. So I did that for about
three three and a half to four years UM, and
then I moved over into programming. Fast forwarding a little bit.
(22:18):
You created the Sports Ventures unit uh at NBC. Can
you can you? Can you describe to me and to
our listeners a little bit about about what that was
and how that was fairly unique. I would love to
tell you that it was a moment of brilliance and inspiration.
(22:39):
That wasn't it at all. In nineteen nine, actually we
lost Major League Baseball UM in what was an incredibly
disappointing and hard pill to swallow. Because baseball had been
in the walls at NBC for forty years. We had
done the game of the Week, you know, with Tony
Kubeck and Joe Karagio. Uh, you know, it's where Bob
(23:01):
Costas got his start, etcetera. But CBS came in and
made a bid and kind of knocked us out of
the baseball business. And so in the spring of nine,
knowing that that was gonna be our last year doing baseball,
NBC had been sold to General Electric. They were owned
by our c A. They've been sold to General Electric,
(23:22):
and General Electric decided to put a new head of
NBC Sports in and they replaced my boss guy named
Arthur Watson, with Dick Eversol. Now, Dick Eversol was a
legendary figure and entertainment. He created Saturday Night Live with
Lauren Michaels, he created Friday Night Videos. He's really a
(23:43):
a television impresario. UM. And they put him in charge
of NBC Sports and I remember he came into UH
to meet with us and he UM, he basically let
a lot of people go. And he basically brought me
into office and said, I can't let everybody go. So
(24:04):
I'm gonna give you a year, but you have to
replace thirty weeks of baseball. Um, but you have no
money to spend. So it was, you know, on the
one hand, so my wife and I we had a
three year old son at home and my wife was
five or six months pregnant with our next son, and
(24:27):
I was sure I was going to be at work.
So I came home and I said the jam, Well,
the good news is I'm not losing my job. The
bad news is I've got to find thirty weeks of
programming and I have no money at all to spend.
And so we created this Sports Ventures unit um and
we did things like the NFL Quarterback Challenge and the
(24:48):
NFL Run to Daylight and the NFL's Fastest Man and
the Escape from Alcatraz. And we made a deal with
Miller Lite to bring the a VP Pro Beach Volleyball
to television. And one of the things that we decided
to do was to create our own golf tournament that
we would own. And that's how the NBC Sports Ventures
(25:08):
Unit came about. Now NBC Sports Ventures is still around
and we own obviously the American Century. We are partners
on the p n C Championship in December that Tiger
and Charlie Woods plays in. We on the National Dog
Show on Thanksgiving Day and other events. We created the
All American High School Football Game in January and San Antonio,
(25:31):
so we have a bunch of different properties that fall
under that umbrella. But it was all started because we
had to come up with programming and we didn't have
any money to spend. So that's how we got sponsors
to underwrite the shows, and that's how we did it.
I mean, this is where I think probably likely right,
your sales experience and expertise from early on coming to play.
(25:56):
So you not only have to acquire event or or
create events, but because you have no money, you have
to marry sponsors with those events, people that will pay
for it in order to just get it made and
then and then hope it does. Right. I mean, that's
that's that's the entire that's exactly right. And you know,
(26:19):
I my father was a salesman. His father was a salesman.
I've always you know, kind of feel nothing happens until
you sell something. And my feeling is if you have
a product that you believe in and you can deliver
good value, UM, you should never be ashamed of of
of going out there and asking people to support it. UM.
(26:41):
And there have been things that I've had to sell
that I didn't love, obviously, but the stuff that you
create that you feel passionate about, you you you know,
you go all out to make it work, and that's
how you know, Tahoe kind of got started. Yeah, so,
I mean, certainly. One of the other properties we haven't
mentioned much is the National Dog Show. Um, I want
(27:06):
to start by reading what Pure Dog wrote about this event.
John Miller, president of Programming at NBC Sports, is the
mind behind what's been called one of the most perfect
pieces of television programming ever. I mean, I haven't read that.
It's dogs and it's Thanksgiving, it's family. It's like, you know,
(27:30):
there's a couple of NFL games on that day and
other than that, I mean, I don't know how many
times I've done it. You watch the Dog Show and
you pick a dog and you argue with your family
about it and it's a lot of fun. And the
research indicates that jan your wife brought home best in show.
Is this true? Yeah, It's it's absolutely true. Brian So's
(27:52):
January of two thousand two, and it was a really
nasty January Saturday night and we had some friends coming
over for pizza, and we had a couple of bottles
of wine, and Jan had gone to Blockbuster. I don't
know if anybody remembers Blockbuster, but she brought home the
movie Best In Show. I'm a big Eugene Levy fan.
(28:15):
I'm ahead of the Sid Dialers fan club for those
of you who watched SCTV. But so we watched Best
in Show. I thought it was hysterical. Everybody goes home.
I stay up. I watched it a second time. I
thought it was so funny. So on Monday, I go
into work and I grab one of our interns and
(28:39):
I said, hey, Danny, find out for me what the
second oldest dog show in America is, because I had
obviously thought that Westminster in New York was the oldest
dog show in America. Right. She comes into the office
about forty five minutes later, and he says, well, the
second oldest dog show in America is the Westminster Keunel Club.
I said, well, what's the oldest? He says, well, the
(29:00):
oldest is the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. It pre dates
the Westminster show by five years. And I said, wow,
I've never even heard of that. Does it still exist?
And he says well, there's a phone number and a
guy named Wayne Ferguson is listed as the president of
the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. So NBC had lost football,
(29:21):
and we lost football at that time, and we were
kind of in the wilderness on Thanksgiving Day, and you know,
it was you know, I didn't know that we were
gonna end up that day, but so I called. I
called called Wayne Ferguson, and I introduced myself to him
over the phone, and I think he thought it was
probably a crank call. I said, this, John Miller, I'm
(29:42):
with NBC. I'd like to talk to you about your show.
And he kind of laughed and he said, well, we
have a bench show. He's got a very deep voice,
you know, he's very very deep. Well, John, you know
we're a bench show, which is I didn't know what
a bench show was. A bench show is a four
day show and the dogs who show up have to
be there all four days. So I said, well, we
(30:04):
don't want all four days. We'd just like to take
one of your days. And he says, well, it's a
little bit more complicated. I said, well, can I come
down and see you. So Kevin Monaghan, who worked with me,
at NBC, and I went down to Philadelphia and we
took Wayne Ferguson to lunch and we told him that,
you know, did he ever have any interest in having
(30:24):
his dog show on television? Now I'm doing this all freely.
I don't have permission to do this. Now told me
to do this. I'm just doing this right. You'd watch
Christopher guests this movie twice and now it's like, oh no,
this is what we're gonna I love this. Okay, keep going, Sorry,
go ahead. So he said, yeah, if you want to
take one of the days, you can, if as long
(30:45):
as you cover the cost of doing the show that day.
I said, that won't be a problem. So then so
we kind of make it. We shake hands, and we
come back to New York and I called Michael Crawford,
who Michael Crawford I knew from his days at Nestley
had gone to run He was the CMO, the chief
marketing officer Purina, and I knew that Purina was shut
(31:06):
out of the Westminster show because that was owned by Pedigree,
which is a competing dog food brand. So I called
Michael up and we connected and I said, hey, Michael,
if we ever put a dog show on NBC. Do
you think Purina would sponsor it? And he said, John,
if you could put a dog show on NBC, we
would absolutely be there. So now I have a dog
(31:27):
show and I have a sponsor. So I go in
to see Dick Eversol and Dick, to his credit, had
heard me come up with some crazy ideas, you know,
obviously Tahoe and all this other stuff. And I go
in to see him and I said I have an
idea and he says what is And I says, I
want us to do a dog show. And he points
to his door and he said get out, and said,
(31:49):
what do you mean? He said, I'm not We're not
doing a dog show. We've lost the NFL, there's a
good chance we're probably not going to renew the NBA.
We're out of the baseball business. People are gonna write
that NBC Sports is going to the dogs. That was
his line to me, and I said, well, Dick, I'm
not going to brand it as NBC Sports were branded
just as NBC. He said, I don't know, John, you
(32:13):
think people would ever watch a dog show. I said, yeah,
I think they would. He said, when do you want
to run it? And I said, and I thought about it,
and I said, why don't we put it on Thanksgiving
Day after the parade we're running. It's a wonderful life.
Everybody's seen it a million times. We're doing one rating maybe,
and it's kind of in the public domain, so let's
(32:33):
try something different. He says, Well, give Jeff Zucker a
call and go up and see him and see what
he thinks. So I go up to see Zucker and
I present the idea and I tell him when I
want to do it, and he says, well, let's try
it for a year and see if it works. So
we did it that first year. We got John oh Hurley,
Remember the phone call I made do a hurly? He
answers the phone, I go wolf Wolf and that's a
(32:56):
running joke today, and he uh agreed to do it.
And we got David I, who was a unbelievable expert
on dogs, to be our host and co host. So
we get it done. January November of twenty two of
two thousand two was our first year UM and the
show runs. I'm actually out in Canton, Ohio, because that's
(33:18):
where my wife's family is from, and it's Thanksgiving weekend
and I've taken the boys to go see the movie
jackass Uh that Friday morning, to stay away from the
shopping malls, right and to get him out of the house.
And my phone ring and it's ever So it's Dick
and he says, where are you. You have a good Thanksgiving?
And I'm saying yeah. I said, why is he calling
(33:39):
me on the Friday after Thanksgiving? It's usually not good
when your boss calls you on a Friday morning at
like eleven eleven thirty. He said, John, have you seen
the numbers from the Dog Show yet? And I said no, Dick,
I don't have my computer here and I haven't seen
any overnights. He said, okay, just sit tight, Jeff Sucker
is gonna be calling you. So I'm now out in
the lobby of this theater. And if anybody listening has
(34:01):
ever been in one of these big ten plex movie theaters,
you know, the carpeting has all these crazy patterns on
the floor. I paced that carpeting for what seemed like forever.
I memorized the pattern on that carpeting at that theater,
and sure enough, like four minutes later, the phone rings
and it's Zucker and he said, hey, John, How are
you doing? I said, I'm good. Jeff, how are you
(34:23):
happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving? It? He said, um, you see
the numbers on your dog show and I'm thinking to myself,
oh my god, this thing bombed. I said, no, I
haven't seen it. And it says, what were you? What
did you think it was gonna do? I said, well,
it's a wonderful life. Was doing a one rating. Research
came back and told me that maybe we would do
like a one four or one five. He said, remind
(34:45):
me to talk to the research folks. So I'm like, oh,
this is not good. I said, what did it do?
He said, it did a seven and a half rating.
Other than the parade and some NFL playoff games, it's
the highest rating on NBC for the How much longer
do we have it? I said, what do you mean?
He says, well, how long a deal did you make?
(35:07):
And I said, Jeff, we created it. We didn't We didn't,
you know? We we made it up. He said, you
mean the National Dog Show hasn't been around forever. I
looked at that logo. It looked like it had been
around forever. I said, well, at the Countel Club of Philadelphia,
has been around forever, but this show, this was the
first year, and he laughed and so so twenty someone
(35:27):
years later, you know it's um here. We are regularly
over twenty million viewers watched the National Dog Show. It's unbelievable.
(35:57):
We talked a little bit about before. I certainly want
to hit it again. The American Century Championship, as you said,
UM created when you you lost baseball and needed to
fill thirty weeks. UM. It has morphed into an enormous success.
A fuel good story, UM for you. Your most fun
(36:21):
week of the year. Oh, easily. Yeah, it's a lot
of fun, it's a lot of work. I'll tell a
couple of little anecdotes or stories about the event. So
if you notice you see the same faces working the
driving range, the putting green, the bag drop, the facilities secured,
the whole thing. You see the same faces every year.
(36:41):
Most of those guys are my former interns who have
worked as interns at NBC Sports and have gone on
to really big jobs, but always take a week off
and come back and work this event. Mike Millthorpe Um
runs the event for US and has been involved with
the events since day one. Has been the tournament director
(37:01):
for thirty two years, does a spectacular job. I don't
think there's anybody who runs as tight as ship running
an event as Mike Millthorpe does. But you know, that's
one of the reasons that runs so well. I have
there are a couple of rules that we have. You
can have as much fun as you want. You can
stay out and do whatever you want to do. But
we have a six fifteen am meeting every morning and
(37:25):
you better be there and be ready to go. And
nobody ever misses misses it, and guys are ready to go.
And you know, most of the guys are in bed
by not at ten o'clock at night. I'm not one
of them. But but it's uh, but but it's I
think one of the reasons why it runs so smoothly,
and because everybody has everybody else's back. And I think
(37:47):
the thing that you notice when you're in Tahoe, everybody
is smiling, everybody is having a good time. One of
the things that I've started to notice more the past
four or five years is how many young boys and
girls show up. You know, I love nothing more than
to see a family show up with their young kids.
And this is their first introduction to golf, and they're
(38:08):
they're not because they know anything about golf, but because
they're an Aaron Rodgers fan, or they're at Pat Mahomes fan,
or they're Travis Kelsey or Steph Curry or Justin Timberlake
or Nick Jonas or whoever it may be. But they
get to see their idols or their their superstars very
close up. The guys all are nice. We don't allow
(38:29):
any jerks. We have a no jerk policy. Um. And
they see these guys playing golf and all of a sudden,
for them, Wow, if Justin timber Lake is playing golf,
if Pat Mahomes is playing golf, Steph Curry is playing golf,
golf must be pretty cool. Maybe I should try to
play golf. And I think that helps grow the game.
And at the end of the day, NBC has an
(38:50):
enormous interest in golf, not only with the Golf Channel,
but all of our PGA Tour, U S g A,
r AN A, lpg A, you know, writer cop relations ships.
So for us, that's a good thing if we can
help grow the game. Yeah, you know, look during an
NFL game or NBA game, where you're focused, you have
(39:13):
to perform in a certain way, and this is your
job and means a lot. There's something about the game
of golf that strips all of that stuff away and
it becomes just a group of people who are trying
their best to play this game that is so difficult.
(39:34):
There's no booing that there really isn't. It's really like,
we're happy to be out here. We're happy to see
you struggling, and we are ready to celebrate a great
shot you know that you hit because we acknowledge this.
You aren't a pro, right, That's that's exactly right. And
everybody there, I think everybody cheers for everybody, and it
(39:57):
becomes a golf tournament on the back nine on one
day and we all get that. And we've got really good,
highly skilled golfers like Tony Romo and Mark Mulder and
who can play and play at a very high level.
But for for everybody else there, they're doing something that
you're right, is not natural to them. It's very hard.
They're doing it on a big stage. I am so
(40:18):
impressed with the guys who show up, you know, eight
to twelve handicaps, put their games on display and for
the first time that Fairway is lined with five thousand
people on either side. That's a lot different than a
Sunday morning five dollar nassau at at your country club. Yes, no,
for sure, Well I love it. It certainly is a
(40:40):
part of your your legacy and major celebrity events, major
sports events that everybody knows about. Everybody knows about the
American Century Championship and Lake Tahoe, and I get asked
about it all year long. You talked a little bit
ago about some guys that we've talked about on this
podcast in a different context, Jeff Sucker, Dick Ebersol. I
(41:05):
will share with you briefly a story in case you
haven't heard it that Kevin Riley talked about when the
office numbers started coming in. He remember, he tells the
story of Dick Ebersol, with his hands pounding on the table,
wanted the office killed early on. Kevin obviously convinced Dick
(41:29):
and the aforementioned Mr Zucker to keep it around a
little bit longer. Were you aware of the show? Oh, yeah, no,
I was. I was a fan early on. I've been
a you know, I've been a watcher. I mean, it's amazing,
how how much bigger it's gotten since it stopped. You
know that that feeling about the office initially. You know,
(41:49):
in television there are two things that everybody's got a
quick trigger. If it doesn't work right away, it's done.
There is a trophy room at thirty Rock, and if
when you're back in New York, I will take you
to it. In this trophy room are some of NBC's
great mistakes. And by that I mean there is a
letter from Steven Spielberg asking to become an intern, where
(42:12):
he's rejected. There's Bob Hope wanting to do a television
show and he's told no, there's not a space for you.
But my favorite, my favorite of all of them, is
that the guy who was head of research at NBC
in the late eighties early nineties was a man named
George Hooper and Bill Rubens and these guys very smart guys,
(42:35):
and they had been pitched a show by a guy
named Rick Ludwin, you know, innovative guy. And he brought
this concept to NBC called the Seinfeld Chronicles, and they
tested it a few times and the research came back
and said, this show will never make it. This is
we don't waste our time don't put any more effort
(42:55):
into it. And Rick Ludwin, to his credit, was like
a pit bull, and they continue to push for it.
And obviously we now know the story of Seinfeld. But
in this trophy room is the research letter that was
written to all the different senior executives at NBC after
the screening and after the testing, where they strongly recommend
(43:18):
that they not go forward with this show. It's unbelievable.
I have not you are you are the first person
who has told me about this. I want the tour there.
I'll give you the tour. There's some great stuff at
their luck that you'll get a kick out of. Um.
Something that I talked to Steve Sands about the important role, John,
(43:39):
that you've had in the acquisition of some of NBC's
biggest sports franchises. My understanding as you have led the
acquisition of NASCAR, Formula One, U s G, a Premier League, UH,
n h L. In fact, you can talk about it
or not, but I understand and if they'd let you
(44:00):
get more involved with NBC, would still have the NHL today.
Well that's you know, you can't you can't look back
on that. But you know, one of the things I'm
proud of. With the NHL. We had a great run
with the NHL for almost sixteen years. We first acquired
it in two thousand and six and two thousand twenty
one was our last year. But one of the things
(44:23):
that I was able to create was the NHL Winner
Classic on New Year's Day, which still exists even though
it airs someplace else. So that's my gift to Gary
Bettman NHL fans. I guess, um, but yeah, I mean, look,
being in the role I'm in, I've had a chance to,
you know, be part of acquiring and also losing properties.
(44:44):
I mean, we had Formula One. It's now on ESPN.
ESPN recently renewed it. They do a terrific job with it.
It's a great sport. But you know, I was involved
in acquiring Notre Dame football back in when we first
got it. Um, the U S g A is obviously
some thing I'm very proud of, and the Ryder Cup,
and obviously our PGA Tour relationship has been something that's
(45:05):
been ongoing that is just before I got there. But
I like to think that our team really helped enhance
our golf presence and relationship. And then Obviously, when Comcast
acquired NBC in two thousand eleven and they brought the
golf channel along, that really elevated our golf investment to
where it is now. So it's that that part has
(45:26):
been a lot of fun. And then I think one
of the things that I'm most proud of is that,
you know, we brought the English Premier League to NBC
back in two thousand twelve, and we just recently this
past winter renewed it for six more seasons. And that's
a great property that we really feel is continuing to
grow and thrive, and I've been very lucky to be
(45:48):
involved with that. Notre Dame Football. Should they stayd independent
and keep their contract here with NBCOR Should they join somewhere, John,
I certainly hope so, I mean, they like being independent.
They've certainly shown that they're probably the only school out
there they could survive as an independent. They have tremendous
leadership with father Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick. They have a
(46:11):
great new young coach and Marcus Freeman who's doing a
spectacular job of recruiting. We've enjoyed a thirty two year
relationship with them that has been you know, as good
as any partnership we have, and I certainly hope they
maintain their independence. I know there's a lot of noise
in the college football space with the super conferences being
(46:32):
formed with the SEC and the Big Ten, and Notre
Dame is going to have some decisions. But that's the
nice thing about Notre Dame is that they've put themselves
in position where they have choices. Yeah, and the and
the other thing about Notre Dame that I have found
in dealing with them, they will always do the right thing.
That's what's great about Notre Dame. Yeah, that's awesome. Obviously,
(46:53):
at the American Century Championship, when we finished on Sunday afternoon,
everybody got on a plane and had to fly over
to Scotland and immediately begin working and broadcasting live from St. Andrews.
What an incredible tournament, and certainly laughed. I was so
proud Tommy Roy and his team and Tom Randolph who
(47:17):
produces Tahoe, and you know Joe Martin, the director, and
Molly Solomon and Mark Loomis who run that part of
our business. They did such a great job and you know,
it was such compelling television. I'm a huge huge Roy
McElroy fan. I think he is an exceptional golfer and
an even better person. I think the way he stepped
up into this leadership role has been so impressive. And
(47:40):
I've watched him. I remember following him when he won
the US Open at at Congressional in two thousand eleven,
um and uh, you know, and I was rooting hard
for him. But Cam Smith, I mean shooting thirty on
the back nine with how many one putts, I mean
we all would love to be able to put like
that under pressure at the biggest moment at the home
(48:00):
of golf. I mean that that that's a performance that
will go down, you know, in history. You know, this
has been a great year for majors with Scottie Scheffler
winning Augusta and Matt Fitzpatrick, you know, winning the US
Open at Brookline where he won the Amateur in thirteen.
I mean, if you're a golf fan, there's really good, good,
high end golf out there to watch. So it's it's
(48:21):
great PGA tour. These some of these young players are outstanding. Yeah,
It's it's really fun. And I know that you and
I have talked about I play in the event on
the corn Ferry Tour in the BMW in Greenville, South Carolina,
and I remember, you know, you play with those guys
and you you you leave shaking your head, going how
(48:43):
are these guys not on the big tour? And then
you realize, like fifteen seconds later, they are, you know,
I mean, playing with guys who are immediately and you're like, Okay, Well,
this is just part of the process and part of
the work that they have to put in to get there.
The state of golf after the pandemic, it's as strong
as ever. Are you optimistic about golfs future? I am. Look,
(49:05):
there's a lot of noise out there about about live golf,
and I have my own personal opinions about about it um.
But I think that the PGA tour um has great leadership.
I'm a big j Monahan fan. I think that the
quality of of of good golfers out there, between Roy
McElroy and Justin Thomas and Jordan's speech and John rom
(49:28):
And and and guys like that. I think that this
is obviously a difficult time that that everybody is navigating.
But I I feel very good about the product and
the quality of the product. I feel strongly about our
US Open. I still feel very bullish about the game awesome,
and the ratings for the PGA Tour, the ratings for
(49:50):
the Open this past weekend, ratings for American Century. I mean,
people are watching and following golf, So I feel really
good about that. Yeah, well, it certainly feels like whenever
you're trying to get a tea time anywhere, golf is
is is as big as big as it's ever been.
I want to close, John, I want to talk go
(50:11):
back to Tahoe one time in the story that you
told me this last weekend and the kind of pressure
that John is under even an environment where we're we're
trying to have a little fun. Um the seventeenth hole
at Lake Tahoe. It's it's on along the beach and
by the way, there are now multiple thousand people on
(50:32):
this little part three hole. And uh, you told me
about the time you started getting word John's plugged into
the broadcast we're going live on NBC. UM where there
was a there was a certain doll that was there
in the in the crowd. There was an inflatable um sex.
(50:54):
There was an inflatable sex doll. Right, it was about
uh six to seven ft in length and probably two
ft in diameter, and it appeared on the on THEE
Green on Saturday afternoon. Uh In during the Michael Jordan's
(51:15):
Jerry Rice I believe Ray Allen match and I noticed it.
Somebody pointed it out to me and I um told
these guys, you know, get that out of there. But
I made the inadvertent comment of shoot the the item.
So the director immediately panned over and shot it, and
(51:38):
you get rid of it. I said, no, no, no,
get off that shot. And unfortunately, once it appears on television,
it lives on Google and YouTube and places forever. So
the next morning they had patrols out there with armed
guards looking to make sure that we didn't have an
incident like that. Again. The young lady who had brought
(51:58):
the item up to the mean immediately jumped on it
and swam out to a bachelorette party where she was
chased by the Lake Tahoe Coast Guard and they took off.
But you know, those are the kind of things you
don't expect. They don't. That's never put in the job description.
So no, it's it's not live TV. Uh. John. I
want to thank you so much for coming and talking
(52:21):
to us. Your career starting in the sixth grade, uh
NBC and now being at NBC for forty four years. Um,
it speaks for itself. Are you the longest tenured NBC employee? Yeah,
I think I am. I'm you old man, I'm the
old man of the building and I keep my head down,
but yeah, I'm I'm I'm the longest serving senior executive there.
(52:44):
So as long as they keep me around, I don't
want to go anywhere. So I'm very happy there, so
hopefully they'll keep me around a little while longer. One
of my favorite people by far, well certainly my favorite
person who is still at NBC, John mell Er, Um, well, Brian,
thank you. You've become such a big part of the event,
(53:04):
so it's great having you there. I always get that
big hug when I see you. It makes the whole
week get off to a great start. Great. Thank you, John,
Thanks so much for coming on my pleasure, Brian. Take care. John.
(53:28):
I can't thank you enough for dropping in today and
having a conversation with me. It was a pleasure as always,
and I personally will be looking forward to what you
come up with next for n b C. Thank you
all out there for listening and uh for coming back
(53:50):
week after week. You're the greatest. Well maybe not say
the Grand Puba of NBC Sports greatest, but you're the greatest. Nonetheless,
I'm joking, I get because I love Next week we're
gonna be back with another fantastic guest that well, you're
just gonna be so excited about How do I know that? Well,
(54:12):
I just know, and you're just gonna have to trust me.
We'll see you next time. Off the Beat is hosted
an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive
producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris,
(54:35):
and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary,
and our intern is Sammy Katz. Our theme song Bubble
and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and
the episode was mixed by seth Olandski m
I told these guys, you know, get that out of there.
But I made the inadvertent comment of shoot the the item,
so the director immediately panned over and shot it, and
you get rid of it, shoot it, said no, no, no no, no,
get off that shot. And unfortunately, once it appears on television,
it lives on Google and YouTube and places forever. Hi.
(00:29):
I'm John Miller, President of Programming for NBC Sports, and
I can't wait to be on Off the Beat. Hello everybody,
and thanks for joining us here today on another episode
of Off the Beat Sports. As always, I am your
(00:51):
host Brian Baumgartner. Today one of my oldest friends at NBC.
I am bringing on the person who has currently been
at NBC the longest forty four years, most of which
at NBC Sports, John Miller, one of the most influential
(01:11):
voices in sports and of course at NBC, and one
of the only people in the world who can say
that they have literally changed sports television. I mean, have
you ever turned on the National Dog Show on Thanksgiving?
John invented that? Have you ever watched the Winter Classic
(01:31):
from the NHL? Well, John invented that are you happy
that the US Open coverage was back on NBC. Have
you ever watched the American Century Championships from Lake Tahoe. Well,
John invented that to one man, and he's here today now.
When I saw John a couple of weeks ago in
Lake Tahoe, I just knew that I had to bring
(01:54):
him onto the podcast. In fact, I started doing background
research with some of the golf analysts there at NBC.
I wanted to do my research because I wanted John
to be able to effectively tell his story. You know,
there is truly a little more inspiring to me than
(02:16):
hearing the journeys of people who have risen to greatness
in their field. So sit back, take a listen. I
am very happy to introduce to every one of you
my good friend and someone I can honestly say that
I admire in the world of entertainment, John Miller. Bubble
(02:42):
and Squeak. I love Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker
Cookie at every month left over from the nub before.
(03:04):
Hi John, Hi Brian, how are you. I'm so good. Oh,
I'm so happy that you're here. You don't know this,
but before you agreed to do this, almost inadvertently had
a background research session on you with Steve Sands one
day after the tournament. Um, John and I were just
(03:27):
in Like Tahoe for the American Century Championship, one of
his many babies, which we're going to talk about in
a little bit. Uh, my favorite week of the year.
How was the week for you? First off? It was
Now that I'm a little more than a week away
from it, Brian, it it all starts to sink in
when you're in there and you're living in the moment,
(03:47):
you kind of lose sight of all the things that
are happening. And because the team does such a good job,
you know, led by Gary Quinn and David Muller, you
it's all become so seamless. But I tell a few moments,
you know, on the way home or the day after,
and think about everything and realize just how far we've come.
This was far and away our best event ever on
(04:13):
a whole bunch of different metrics. Um. You know, this
is our thirty third year and we had over sixty
seven thousand people to show up in Lake Tahoe over
four days. UM. By way of comparison, for those people
who remember when we started this event, this was gonna
(04:34):
be a one and done, and we lost a lot
of money our first year, and we had thirty people
people over the four days we let people in for
free Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and we charged I think ten
dollars for the weekend. And we were so excited, we
were so proud of ourselves that we got people. And
now you know, thirty three years later, with this has
(04:57):
become But we also got the highest ratings on television
that we've gotten since two thousand nine. But the other
thing is the social media reach was multiple billions with
a B. We've never had that before either. And that's
due in large part to people like you and Steph
(05:17):
Curry and Justin and and Pat Mahomes and Travis Kelsey
all contributing in such a big way, but then turning
around and posting stuff on social media sites that get
picked up that. But you know, to answer your question,
it was it was a great week. Yeah, it certainly was.
I want to talk some more about that, and it's
it's inception and its history and a little bit. I
(05:40):
wanted to start by going back in your history. I mean,
I feel like you're only like fifty two years old,
but you've been at NBC now for what forty four years?
I mean, it feels like your entire life in uh
in October, it will be forty five years. I started
when I was in sixth grade, but now that's that's
just what i've uhm, it'll be forty It'll be forty
(06:05):
five years. And I've really had this front row seat
to watch the business, you know, change and evolve and whatnot.
So it's been a lot of fun. You know, when
I first started with NBC, it was just NBC, CBS
and ABC. You know, the people who I work with
love to say that I was around when it was
just black and white television, not quite but close. But
(06:27):
there was no cable, there was no satellite. There was
certainly nothing like streaming or any of the things that
we have now. But you know, you get to watch
all this stuff unfold and have a front row seat
for it, and it's and it's fun. And what it
what you learned is that content is still the most
important thing, and if you have a good product, people
will find it and watch it and and do all that.
(06:49):
So that, to me is is a lot of fun. Yeah,
you grew up in Bethesda, is that right? Bethesda, Maryland?
Bethesda Maryland. My my mom was originally from Washington, d C.
When my dad was from New York who moved down
to the d C area in the mid fifties and
and they got married in fifty five. And I have
(07:10):
a brother and a sister. But that's where our family
was from. So growing up in the d C area
my whole life until I went to college. Were you
interested in sports? Were you interested in entertainment or both? Oh? Yeah,
I was. I was a sports junkie as a kid.
You know, I I followed, you know, at that time,
I followed the Washington Redskins. The Washington Senators were my
(07:32):
baseball team that got taken away from me when I
was thirteen years old and was at that final game
at RFK Stadium where we stormed the field and got
tear gassed and the Senators lost in a forfeit. We
didn't have a hockey team, the Capitals didn't come until
much later, um, and we didn't really have a basketball
team to the Washington Wizards were the Baltimore Bullets. But
(07:54):
I wasn't really in the basketball. The sport I actually
played a lot as a kid was tennis, and I
was at this junkie and spent a lot of time,
you know, following pro tennis, never really followed golf much
at all until I met my wife, and her father
and her brother kind of turned me onto golf and
basically said, if you're going to ever succeed in business,
(08:15):
you better learn this game. So but that's I was
a big sports junkie as a kid growing up. Yeah,
but never, I'll be honestly, Brian, I never thought that
my career would lead me to this. I mean it
was This has been such a great ride. It's been
so much fun. You you mentioned this. I I did
(08:35):
not know this story until some some research was done.
You and your little brother, you were taken away by
security after storming the field. You just mentioned that how
old were you at this point? So this is nineteen
seventy one, So I was like thirteen or fourteen years
old and my little brother was ten. And it was
the last Senators home game against the Yankees, and the
(09:00):
Senators had this great big star named Frank Howard who
was known as the Washington Monument. He was six ft
eight and he waved a baseball bat like a toothpick.
Senators were down I think three to two in the
bottom of the seventh or whatever, and they groove to
pitch to Howard. He hits a three run home run
and the place goes crazy and we stormed the field,
(09:23):
and you know, the game never finished, and they had
police come out on horseback and herded us all to
the right field bullpen and held us all there. And
there was no subway or anything like that. We lost
the guys who we were with, So you know, I
didn't get home until two o'clock in the morning. Needless
to say, my dad was not too happy with me
because I was responsible for my little brother. But that
(09:47):
was that was a very fond memory. Yeah, you head
off to Ohio and go to Miami University and your
degree is a business at illustration. When does your interest
start turning to entertainment to media? So when I was
in college, I went to Miami. I did all four
(10:07):
years there and I um. I was involved my junior
and senior year, well senior year really with a program
that was an advertising and marketing based program that really
opened up my eyes to the marketing and advertising world.
We handled two different brands. The first semester we worked
on boarding foods or the Cromorra Brand, and the second
(10:29):
semester we worked for Wendy's. And I was really fascinated
with the advertising and marketing world, and when I got
out of college, I knew I wanted to come back East.
I had a cousin at the time who was representing
television for Metromedia, and he was selling local advertising for
those television stations, but he was based in Chicago, and
(10:50):
that to me sounded like a lot of fun. You
could sell advertising time, So I pitched a bunch of
jobs in d c um didn't get any of them.
Finally got an offer from Channel four w r C,
which was an owned NBC station, to become what was
called the Maven, which was somebody they would train in
all the different aspects of local television. And I was
(11:13):
twenty one years old and I took it, and I
spent time learning sales, service and research and all the
different things that go on behind the scenes in the
television station. And then I wanted to sell. I got
kind of bored with doing all that, and they already
had a salesforce, so I said, give me the Yellow
Pages and let me have the city of Baltimore. Because
(11:35):
nobody ever wanted to go up to Baltimore to call
on potential advertisers and the Yellow Pages, and I kind
of created my own list and I did that for
three years and then eventually, you know, took that and
moved to New York to sell for NBC in New York. Wow.
So w r C. That was your first job out
of college. Yeah, pretty much. When I was in college,
(11:56):
I was involved in importing a game that you play
on the each called smash ball with two big wooden
paddles in a lot bit ball, and I did that
in summers to kind of put my myself through school.
But yeah, my first real job with you know, a
serious weekly paycheck was was working for NBC starting in
October of nine. Wow. So you I understand there you
(12:20):
cross path with George Michael and I don't know if
this this is the story that I hear that that
you were playing kind of a precursor to to fantasy
baseball with your friend at this time. Well, you've really
done some homework, Brian. I mean these are well, listen,
(12:41):
I've got a great team. And this was occurring to
me too because I think a lot of people, you know,
think of sports Center and ESPN as being the first
like highlight show, stats shows or whatever. But George Michael,
which ultimately became the Sports Machine started and part of this,
(13:01):
as I understand, it started out of your playing fantasy
baseball and there was no way to get stats, right,
that's right. I had two really good friends down in
d C. And this is in nineteen. We would go
to Orioles games and we would come back, and this
is really a precursor to fantasy baseball. We would play
Strato matic base Strata Matic Baseball was this board game
(13:24):
and we would play for hours and hours and hours
and we had a blast doing it. And then we
obviously followed Major League Baseball very closely. We were all
baseball junkies and the only way we could get scores
would be to call King Wally's sports phone in New
York and it was like a nine number and every
time you called it cost you fifty cents. And I said,
(13:45):
this is nuts. So George Michael comes to work at
w r C as the local sports anchor in Washington,
and you know, I was the youngest guy on the
staff by a lot, and it comes to me as
his and you help and find ways to drive new
value here, and so we wanted to create our own
(14:07):
version of a sports phone, and we were told that
w r C was not licensed. You had to have
special permission from the FCC to do a sports phone.
So what we decided to do is create a fifteen
minutes Sunday night highlight show, and we piggyback the highlight
show and basically set the phone up that way so
(14:29):
that you could almost hear the broadcast on the sports phone.
We finally got permission for it, and it became George
Michael's Sports Line to go along with George Michael's Sports
Final and we would do a fifteen minute highlights show.
And that's quite honestly, George Michael was so far ahead
of his time because he was doing highlights of NASCAR
and wrestling and bull riding long before anybody really followed
(14:54):
these sports along with your regular baseball, basketball, NFL highlights
and stuff like that. And then our phone, our phone,
we had a phone bank of a hundred lines, and
we saw it. We couldn't sell advertising on the phone,
but we sold it for the show, and then we
branded people on the phone, and that's how it all
got started. And that really was the precursor to what
(15:15):
Sports Center is now. It was all the George Michael
Sports Final, which became the Sports Machine. That is crazy.
I mean, this seems like such a long time ago.
In two thousand five, even the only way to get
ratings from the night before was to call a hotline
phone number and from the makeup trailer. Every morning, I
(15:38):
would call the line and we would find out where
we did the night before, and I would try to
offer just like George, I would try to offer analysis
as to why we were up or down the night before.
As I said to Mike, sure like, well last night
there was an NBA a very special Lakers Celtics came on.
So that's why our number might be a little up anyway.
(15:59):
That But it's crazy now when you can access everything
with just you know, your finger on your phone. That
that that's where we started. But yeah, I mean people
people give it to Sports Center or think of Sports
Centers as the first, but really that Sports Machine that's
for you. George Michael was that was the first. You know,
(16:19):
highlights show was weekly Sunday night, and he had these
big fake tape machines that he would stand in front
of the pretended to push the button. Had the widest
knot on his tie that you would ever see. Um,
but he was crazy. But a lot of people, you know,
Lindsay Zarniac, who's now you know, all over television, was
on ESPN and does some stuff for NBC. She started
(16:40):
out there. A lot of really bright young stars got
their start working for George Michael at w r C
in Washington. Well, clearly you have an innovative spirit and mind.
You join NBC and seventy eight, how how are you
hired by NBC? So I was jobs and I finally,
(17:02):
you know, I got into uh see the people at
w r C, and the head of sales, you know, said, look,
we don't hire anybody who doesn't have experience, but they're
starting this new program called the Maven Program. I'm gonna
send you up to New York and let you interview
for the Maven Program. So I drove to New York
(17:22):
City and stayed in a hotel and went in and
interviewed with a man named Bud Hirsch, who at the
time I didn't know much about, but it turned out
he was a legend in the business. And I went
in and pitched him on why he should hire me,
and I brought him a smash ball set and we
played smash ball in his office. He happened to love tennis,
(17:44):
so he enjoyed that and he said, you know what,
I'm going to give you a shot. So he hired
me as the first NBC maven, and basically that was
to learn all the different aspects of how a local
television station runs in our rates, with an idea that
I would eventually grow up through the ranks and become
(18:05):
a general manager of an NBC owned television station. And
that was what my initial career path was supposed to
be when I started with NBC in nineteen seven day
(18:33):
and then in one you moved to New York. Why
go to New York? How did the path change for you? So?
I was selling locally for the NBC station in Washington,
which is where I worked with George, and then I
realized that if I wanted to grow my career, I
needed to get to New York. So I was twenty
four and I moved to thirty Rock, and I sold
(18:54):
national advertising for all of the NBC owned television stations,
and at that time, NBC owned five television stations New York, Chicago,
l a Washington and Cleveland. So I sold all the
all the local advertising to national advertisers that were based
in New York UM. And I did that for about
(19:15):
three three years and enjoyed it, but realized that spot
television and the station's business was really not where I
saw my career heading. And I saw other opportunities out there.
And I found out about these guys who sell network sports,
and I thought, Wow, what an incredible job that must be.
(19:39):
You know, if you love sports and you like television,
and you're and you enjoy selling, that's the perfect combination.
And so I there was a man named Jim Burnett
who was a legendary sports sales figure who I was
introduced to, and I basically stalked him. And I'm not
kidding you, Brian. He would take the bus in and
(20:01):
I would arrange to be on the corner when his
bus would let out in the morning. I would three
or four busses would go by, and then Jim Burnett
would get off the bus right at the corner of
fifty and sixth Avenue, right at thirty Rock, and I
would walk in the building with him. I would go
up to the commissary on the seventh floor. We would
sit and have breakfast and I would pitch him and
(20:23):
pick his brain. And for three months I would do this,
you know, two or three days a week, until finally
I think he got tired of me badgering him and
he said, I want you to come work for us,
which did not go over very well with the group
that I was currently working for, but I made the
decision that that was the way I needed to go.
So I ended up going and working. I went to
(20:45):
work for NBC Sports sales in and that's how I
got into the sports side of the business. And was
that tied to that childhood passion for you for sports?
Was that the most fun thing that you could think
about doing. Yeah, I mean I you know, at the
time in so that was the year that the Bears
(21:09):
had this dominant NFL team that was you know, Jim McMahon,
Walter Payton, you know, Chicago Bears. The Redskins still had
a strong team, and the Giants. So the NFL was
very strong. And I was a big baseball fan. And
here's NBC Sports that has the a f C package
in football that has Major League Baseball and the World Series,
(21:32):
which they alternate with ABC. They have Wimbledon, they have
the French Open, they have a modest golf package. They
don't have the Olympics yet. The Olympics didn't come along
until but they had a big college basketball offering, and
they had a bunch of New Year's Day Bowl games.
And to me, this was what a great thing to
(21:56):
be able to go out and sell all these different
properties that I fill. It is a fan that I
could talk passionately about and hopefully get other people excited
about it as well. So I did that for about
three three and a half to four years UM, and
then I moved over into programming. Fast forwarding a little bit.
(22:18):
You created the Sports Ventures unit uh at NBC. Can
you can you? Can you describe to me and to
our listeners a little bit about about what that was
and how that was fairly unique. I would love to
tell you that it was a moment of brilliance and inspiration.
(22:39):
That wasn't it at all. In nineteen nine, actually we
lost Major League Baseball UM in what was an incredibly
disappointing and hard pill to swallow. Because baseball had been
in the walls at NBC for forty years. We had
done the game of the Week, you know, with Tony
Kubeck and Joe Karagio. Uh, you know, it's where Bob
(23:01):
Costas got his start, etcetera. But CBS came in and
made a bid and kind of knocked us out of
the baseball business. And so in the spring of nine,
knowing that that was gonna be our last year doing baseball,
NBC had been sold to General Electric. They were owned
by our c A. They've been sold to General Electric,
(23:22):
and General Electric decided to put a new head of
NBC Sports in and they replaced my boss guy named
Arthur Watson, with Dick Eversol. Now, Dick Eversol was a
legendary figure and entertainment. He created Saturday Night Live with
Lauren Michaels, he created Friday Night Videos. He's really a
(23:43):
a television impresario. UM. And they put him in charge
of NBC Sports and I remember he came into UH
to meet with us and he UM, he basically let
a lot of people go. And he basically brought me
into office and said, I can't let everybody go. So
(24:04):
I'm gonna give you a year, but you have to
replace thirty weeks of baseball. Um, but you have no
money to spend. So it was, you know, on the
one hand, so my wife and I we had a
three year old son at home and my wife was
five or six months pregnant with our next son, and
(24:27):
I was sure I was going to be at work.
So I came home and I said the jam, Well,
the good news is I'm not losing my job. The
bad news is I've got to find thirty weeks of
programming and I have no money at all to spend.
And so we created this Sports Ventures unit um and
we did things like the NFL Quarterback Challenge and the
(24:48):
NFL Run to Daylight and the NFL's Fastest Man and
the Escape from Alcatraz. And we made a deal with
Miller Lite to bring the a VP Pro Beach Volleyball
to television. And one of the things that we decided
to do was to create our own golf tournament that
we would own. And that's how the NBC Sports Ventures
(25:08):
Unit came about. Now NBC Sports Ventures is still around
and we own obviously the American Century. We are partners
on the p n C Championship in December that Tiger
and Charlie Woods plays in. We on the National Dog
Show on Thanksgiving Day and other events. We created the
All American High School Football Game in January and San Antonio,
(25:31):
so we have a bunch of different properties that fall
under that umbrella. But it was all started because we
had to come up with programming and we didn't have
any money to spend. So that's how we got sponsors
to underwrite the shows, and that's how we did it.
I mean, this is where I think probably likely right,
your sales experience and expertise from early on coming to play.
(25:56):
So you not only have to acquire event or or
create events, but because you have no money, you have
to marry sponsors with those events, people that will pay
for it in order to just get it made and
then and then hope it does. Right. I mean, that's
that's that's the entire that's exactly right. And you know,
(26:19):
I my father was a salesman. His father was a salesman.
I've always you know, kind of feel nothing happens until
you sell something. And my feeling is if you have
a product that you believe in and you can deliver
good value, UM, you should never be ashamed of of
of going out there and asking people to support it. UM.
(26:41):
And there have been things that I've had to sell
that I didn't love, obviously, but the stuff that you
create that you feel passionate about, you you you know,
you go all out to make it work, and that's
how you know, Tahoe kind of got started. Yeah, so,
I mean, certainly. One of the other properties we haven't
mentioned much is the National Dog Show. Um, I want
(27:06):
to start by reading what Pure Dog wrote about this event.
John Miller, president of Programming at NBC Sports, is the
mind behind what's been called one of the most perfect
pieces of television programming ever. I mean, I haven't read that.
It's dogs and it's Thanksgiving, it's family. It's like, you know,
(27:30):
there's a couple of NFL games on that day and
other than that, I mean, I don't know how many
times I've done it. You watch the Dog Show and
you pick a dog and you argue with your family
about it and it's a lot of fun. And the
research indicates that jan your wife brought home best in show.
Is this true? Yeah, It's it's absolutely true. Brian So's
(27:52):
January of two thousand two, and it was a really
nasty January Saturday night and we had some friends coming
over for pizza, and we had a couple of bottles
of wine, and Jan had gone to Blockbuster. I don't
know if anybody remembers Blockbuster, but she brought home the
movie Best In Show. I'm a big Eugene Levy fan.
(28:15):
I'm ahead of the Sid Dialers fan club for those
of you who watched SCTV. But so we watched Best
in Show. I thought it was hysterical. Everybody goes home.
I stay up. I watched it a second time. I
thought it was so funny. So on Monday, I go
into work and I grab one of our interns and
(28:39):
I said, hey, Danny, find out for me what the
second oldest dog show in America is, because I had
obviously thought that Westminster in New York was the oldest
dog show in America. Right. She comes into the office
about forty five minutes later, and he says, well, the
second oldest dog show in America is the Westminster Keunel Club.
I said, well, what's the oldest? He says, well, the
(29:00):
oldest is the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. It pre dates
the Westminster show by five years. And I said, wow,
I've never even heard of that. Does it still exist?
And he says well, there's a phone number and a
guy named Wayne Ferguson is listed as the president of
the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. So NBC had lost football,
(29:21):
and we lost football at that time, and we were
kind of in the wilderness on Thanksgiving Day, and you know,
it was you know, I didn't know that we were
gonna end up that day, but so I called. I
called called Wayne Ferguson, and I introduced myself to him
over the phone, and I think he thought it was
probably a crank call. I said, this, John Miller, I'm
(29:42):
with NBC. I'd like to talk to you about your show.
And he kind of laughed and he said, well, we
have a bench show. He's got a very deep voice,
you know, he's very very deep. Well, John, you know
we're a bench show, which is I didn't know what
a bench show was. A bench show is a four
day show and the dogs who show up have to
be there all four days. So I said, well, we
(30:04):
don't want all four days. We'd just like to take
one of your days. And he says, well, it's a
little bit more complicated. I said, well, can I come
down and see you. So Kevin Monaghan, who worked with me,
at NBC, and I went down to Philadelphia and we
took Wayne Ferguson to lunch and we told him that,
you know, did he ever have any interest in having
(30:24):
his dog show on television? Now I'm doing this all freely.
I don't have permission to do this. Now told me
to do this. I'm just doing this right. You'd watch
Christopher guests this movie twice and now it's like, oh no,
this is what we're gonna I love this. Okay, keep going, Sorry,
go ahead. So he said, yeah, if you want to
take one of the days, you can, if as long
(30:45):
as you cover the cost of doing the show that day.
I said, that won't be a problem. So then so
we kind of make it. We shake hands, and we
come back to New York and I called Michael Crawford,
who Michael Crawford I knew from his days at Nestley
had gone to run He was the CMO, the chief
marketing officer Purina, and I knew that Purina was shut
(31:06):
out of the Westminster show because that was owned by Pedigree,
which is a competing dog food brand. So I called
Michael up and we connected and I said, hey, Michael,
if we ever put a dog show on NBC. Do
you think Purina would sponsor it? And he said, John,
if you could put a dog show on NBC, we
would absolutely be there. So now I have a dog
(31:27):
show and I have a sponsor. So I go in
to see Dick Eversol and Dick, to his credit, had
heard me come up with some crazy ideas, you know,
obviously Tahoe and all this other stuff. And I go
in to see him and I said I have an
idea and he says what is And I says, I
want us to do a dog show. And he points
to his door and he said get out, and said,
(31:49):
what do you mean? He said, I'm not We're not
doing a dog show. We've lost the NFL, there's a
good chance we're probably not going to renew the NBA.
We're out of the baseball business. People are gonna write
that NBC Sports is going to the dogs. That was
his line to me, and I said, well, Dick, I'm
not going to brand it as NBC Sports were branded
just as NBC. He said, I don't know, John, you
(32:13):
think people would ever watch a dog show. I said, yeah,
I think they would. He said, when do you want
to run it? And I said, and I thought about it,
and I said, why don't we put it on Thanksgiving
Day after the parade we're running. It's a wonderful life.
Everybody's seen it a million times. We're doing one rating maybe,
and it's kind of in the public domain, so let's
(32:33):
try something different. He says, Well, give Jeff Zucker a
call and go up and see him and see what
he thinks. So I go up to see Zucker and
I present the idea and I tell him when I
want to do it, and he says, well, let's try
it for a year and see if it works. So
we did it that first year. We got John oh Hurley,
Remember the phone call I made do a hurly? He
answers the phone, I go wolf Wolf and that's a
(32:56):
running joke today, and he uh agreed to do it.
And we got David I, who was a unbelievable expert
on dogs, to be our host and co host. So
we get it done. January November of twenty two of
two thousand two was our first year UM and the
show runs. I'm actually out in Canton, Ohio, because that's
(33:18):
where my wife's family is from, and it's Thanksgiving weekend
and I've taken the boys to go see the movie
jackass Uh that Friday morning, to stay away from the
shopping malls, right and to get him out of the house.
And my phone ring and it's ever So it's Dick
and he says, where are you. You have a good Thanksgiving?
And I'm saying yeah. I said, why is he calling
(33:39):
me on the Friday after Thanksgiving? It's usually not good
when your boss calls you on a Friday morning at
like eleven eleven thirty. He said, John, have you seen
the numbers from the Dog Show yet? And I said no, Dick,
I don't have my computer here and I haven't seen
any overnights. He said, okay, just sit tight, Jeff Sucker
is gonna be calling you. So I'm now out in
the lobby of this theater. And if anybody listening has
(34:01):
ever been in one of these big ten plex movie theaters,
you know, the carpeting has all these crazy patterns on
the floor. I paced that carpeting for what seemed like forever.
I memorized the pattern on that carpeting at that theater,
and sure enough, like four minutes later, the phone rings
and it's Zucker and he said, hey, John, How are
you doing? I said, I'm good. Jeff, how are you
(34:23):
happy Thanksgiving? Happy Thanksgiving? It? He said, um, you see
the numbers on your dog show and I'm thinking to myself,
oh my god, this thing bombed. I said, no, I
haven't seen it. And it says, what were you? What
did you think it was gonna do? I said, well,
it's a wonderful life. Was doing a one rating. Research
came back and told me that maybe we would do
like a one four or one five. He said, remind
(34:45):
me to talk to the research folks. So I'm like, oh,
this is not good. I said, what did it do?
He said, it did a seven and a half rating.
Other than the parade and some NFL playoff games, it's
the highest rating on NBC for the How much longer
do we have it? I said, what do you mean?
He says, well, how long a deal did you make?
(35:07):
And I said, Jeff, we created it. We didn't We didn't,
you know? We we made it up. He said, you
mean the National Dog Show hasn't been around forever. I
looked at that logo. It looked like it had been
around forever. I said, well, at the Countel Club of Philadelphia,
has been around forever, but this show, this was the
first year, and he laughed and so so twenty someone
(35:27):
years later, you know it's um here. We are regularly
over twenty million viewers watched the National Dog Show. It's unbelievable.
(35:57):
We talked a little bit about before. I certainly want
to hit it again. The American Century Championship, as you said,
UM created when you you lost baseball and needed to
fill thirty weeks. UM. It has morphed into an enormous success.
A fuel good story, UM for you. Your most fun
(36:21):
week of the year. Oh, easily. Yeah, it's a lot
of fun, it's a lot of work. I'll tell a
couple of little anecdotes or stories about the event. So
if you notice you see the same faces working the
driving range, the putting green, the bag drop, the facilities secured,
the whole thing. You see the same faces every year.
(36:41):
Most of those guys are my former interns who have
worked as interns at NBC Sports and have gone on
to really big jobs, but always take a week off
and come back and work this event. Mike Millthorpe Um
runs the event for US and has been involved with
the events since day one. Has been the tournament director
(37:01):
for thirty two years, does a spectacular job. I don't
think there's anybody who runs as tight as ship running
an event as Mike Millthorpe does. But you know, that's
one of the reasons that runs so well. I have
there are a couple of rules that we have. You
can have as much fun as you want. You can
stay out and do whatever you want to do. But
we have a six fifteen am meeting every morning and
(37:25):
you better be there and be ready to go. And
nobody ever misses misses it, and guys are ready to go.
And you know, most of the guys are in bed
by not at ten o'clock at night. I'm not one
of them. But but it's uh, but but it's I
think one of the reasons why it runs so smoothly,
and because everybody has everybody else's back. And I think
(37:47):
the thing that you notice when you're in Tahoe, everybody
is smiling, everybody is having a good time. One of
the things that I've started to notice more the past
four or five years is how many young boys and
girls show up. You know, I love nothing more than
to see a family show up with their young kids.
And this is their first introduction to golf, and they're
(38:08):
they're not because they know anything about golf, but because
they're an Aaron Rodgers fan, or they're at Pat Mahomes fan,
or they're Travis Kelsey or Steph Curry or Justin Timberlake
or Nick Jonas or whoever it may be. But they
get to see their idols or their their superstars very
close up. The guys all are nice. We don't allow
(38:29):
any jerks. We have a no jerk policy. Um. And
they see these guys playing golf and all of a sudden,
for them, Wow, if Justin timber Lake is playing golf,
if Pat Mahomes is playing golf, Steph Curry is playing golf,
golf must be pretty cool. Maybe I should try to
play golf. And I think that helps grow the game.
And at the end of the day, NBC has an
(38:50):
enormous interest in golf, not only with the Golf Channel,
but all of our PGA Tour, U S g A,
r AN A, lpg A, you know, writer cop relations ships.
So for us, that's a good thing if we can
help grow the game. Yeah, you know, look during an
NFL game or NBA game, where you're focused, you have
(39:13):
to perform in a certain way, and this is your
job and means a lot. There's something about the game
of golf that strips all of that stuff away and
it becomes just a group of people who are trying
their best to play this game that is so difficult.
(39:34):
There's no booing that there really isn't. It's really like,
we're happy to be out here. We're happy to see
you struggling, and we are ready to celebrate a great
shot you know that you hit because we acknowledge this.
You aren't a pro, right, That's that's exactly right. And
everybody there, I think everybody cheers for everybody, and it
(39:57):
becomes a golf tournament on the back nine on one
day and we all get that. And we've got really good,
highly skilled golfers like Tony Romo and Mark Mulder and
who can play and play at a very high level.
But for for everybody else there, they're doing something that
you're right, is not natural to them. It's very hard.
They're doing it on a big stage. I am so
(40:18):
impressed with the guys who show up, you know, eight
to twelve handicaps, put their games on display and for
the first time that Fairway is lined with five thousand
people on either side. That's a lot different than a
Sunday morning five dollar nassau at at your country club. Yes, no,
for sure, Well I love it. It certainly is a
(40:40):
part of your your legacy and major celebrity events, major
sports events that everybody knows about. Everybody knows about the
American Century Championship and Lake Tahoe, and I get asked
about it all year long. You talked a little bit
ago about some guys that we've talked about on this
podcast in a different context, Jeff Sucker, Dick Ebersol. I
(41:05):
will share with you briefly a story in case you
haven't heard it that Kevin Riley talked about when the
office numbers started coming in. He remember, he tells the
story of Dick Ebersol, with his hands pounding on the table,
wanted the office killed early on. Kevin obviously convinced Dick
(41:29):
and the aforementioned Mr Zucker to keep it around a
little bit longer. Were you aware of the show? Oh, yeah, no,
I was. I was a fan early on. I've been
a you know, I've been a watcher. I mean, it's amazing,
how how much bigger it's gotten since it stopped. You
know that that feeling about the office initially. You know,
(41:49):
in television there are two things that everybody's got a
quick trigger. If it doesn't work right away, it's done.
There is a trophy room at thirty Rock, and if
when you're back in New York, I will take you
to it. In this trophy room are some of NBC's
great mistakes. And by that I mean there is a
letter from Steven Spielberg asking to become an intern, where
(42:12):
he's rejected. There's Bob Hope wanting to do a television
show and he's told no, there's not a space for you.
But my favorite, my favorite of all of them, is
that the guy who was head of research at NBC
in the late eighties early nineties was a man named
George Hooper and Bill Rubens and these guys very smart guys,
(42:35):
and they had been pitched a show by a guy
named Rick Ludwin, you know, innovative guy. And he brought
this concept to NBC called the Seinfeld Chronicles, and they
tested it a few times and the research came back
and said, this show will never make it. This is
we don't waste our time don't put any more effort
(42:55):
into it. And Rick Ludwin, to his credit, was like
a pit bull, and they continue to push for it.
And obviously we now know the story of Seinfeld. But
in this trophy room is the research letter that was
written to all the different senior executives at NBC after
the screening and after the testing, where they strongly recommend
(43:18):
that they not go forward with this show. It's unbelievable.
I have not you are you are the first person
who has told me about this. I want the tour there.
I'll give you the tour. There's some great stuff at
their luck that you'll get a kick out of. Um.
Something that I talked to Steve Sands about the important role, John,
(43:39):
that you've had in the acquisition of some of NBC's
biggest sports franchises. My understanding as you have led the
acquisition of NASCAR, Formula One, U s G, a Premier League, UH,
n h L. In fact, you can talk about it
or not, but I understand and if they'd let you
(44:00):
get more involved with NBC, would still have the NHL today.
Well that's you know, you can't you can't look back
on that. But you know, one of the things I'm
proud of. With the NHL. We had a great run
with the NHL for almost sixteen years. We first acquired
it in two thousand and six and two thousand twenty
one was our last year. But one of the things
(44:23):
that I was able to create was the NHL Winner
Classic on New Year's Day, which still exists even though
it airs someplace else. So that's my gift to Gary
Bettman NHL fans. I guess, um, but yeah, I mean, look,
being in the role I'm in, I've had a chance to,
you know, be part of acquiring and also losing properties.
(44:44):
I mean, we had Formula One. It's now on ESPN.
ESPN recently renewed it. They do a terrific job with it.
It's a great sport. But you know, I was involved
in acquiring Notre Dame football back in when we first
got it. Um, the U S g A is obviously
some thing I'm very proud of, and the Ryder Cup,
and obviously our PGA Tour relationship has been something that's
(45:05):
been ongoing that is just before I got there. But
I like to think that our team really helped enhance
our golf presence and relationship. And then Obviously, when Comcast
acquired NBC in two thousand eleven and they brought the
golf channel along, that really elevated our golf investment to
where it is now. So it's that that part has
(45:26):
been a lot of fun. And then I think one
of the things that I'm most proud of is that,
you know, we brought the English Premier League to NBC
back in two thousand twelve, and we just recently this
past winter renewed it for six more seasons. And that's
a great property that we really feel is continuing to
grow and thrive, and I've been very lucky to be
(45:48):
involved with that. Notre Dame Football. Should they stayd independent
and keep their contract here with NBCOR Should they join somewhere, John,
I certainly hope so, I mean, they like being independent.
They've certainly shown that they're probably the only school out
there they could survive as an independent. They have tremendous
leadership with father Jenkins and Jack Swarbrick. They have a
(46:11):
great new young coach and Marcus Freeman who's doing a
spectacular job of recruiting. We've enjoyed a thirty two year
relationship with them that has been you know, as good
as any partnership we have, and I certainly hope they
maintain their independence. I know there's a lot of noise
in the college football space with the super conferences being
(46:32):
formed with the SEC and the Big Ten, and Notre
Dame is going to have some decisions. But that's the
nice thing about Notre Dame is that they've put themselves
in position where they have choices. Yeah, and the and
the other thing about Notre Dame that I have found
in dealing with them, they will always do the right thing.
That's what's great about Notre Dame. Yeah, that's awesome. Obviously,
(46:53):
at the American Century Championship, when we finished on Sunday afternoon,
everybody got on a plane and had to fly over
to Scotland and immediately begin working and broadcasting live from St. Andrews.
What an incredible tournament, and certainly laughed. I was so
proud Tommy Roy and his team and Tom Randolph who
(47:17):
produces Tahoe, and you know Joe Martin, the director, and
Molly Solomon and Mark Loomis who run that part of
our business. They did such a great job and you know,
it was such compelling television. I'm a huge huge Roy
McElroy fan. I think he is an exceptional golfer and
an even better person. I think the way he stepped
up into this leadership role has been so impressive. And
(47:40):
I've watched him. I remember following him when he won
the US Open at at Congressional in two thousand eleven,
um and uh, you know, and I was rooting hard
for him. But Cam Smith, I mean shooting thirty on
the back nine with how many one putts, I mean
we all would love to be able to put like
that under pressure at the biggest moment at the home
(48:00):
of golf. I mean that that that's a performance that
will go down, you know, in history. You know, this
has been a great year for majors with Scottie Scheffler
winning Augusta and Matt Fitzpatrick, you know, winning the US
Open at Brookline where he won the Amateur in thirteen.
I mean, if you're a golf fan, there's really good, good,
high end golf out there to watch. So it's it's
(48:21):
great PGA tour. These some of these young players are outstanding. Yeah,
It's it's really fun. And I know that you and
I have talked about I play in the event on
the corn Ferry Tour in the BMW in Greenville, South Carolina,
and I remember, you know, you play with those guys
and you you you leave shaking your head, going how
(48:43):
are these guys not on the big tour? And then
you realize, like fifteen seconds later, they are, you know,
I mean, playing with guys who are immediately and you're like, Okay, Well,
this is just part of the process and part of
the work that they have to put in to get there.
The state of golf after the pandemic, it's as strong
as ever. Are you optimistic about golfs future? I am. Look,
(49:05):
there's a lot of noise out there about about live golf,
and I have my own personal opinions about about it um.
But I think that the PGA tour um has great leadership.
I'm a big j Monahan fan. I think that the
quality of of of good golfers out there, between Roy
McElroy and Justin Thomas and Jordan's speech and John rom
(49:28):
And and and guys like that. I think that this
is obviously a difficult time that that everybody is navigating.
But I I feel very good about the product and
the quality of the product. I feel strongly about our
US Open. I still feel very bullish about the game awesome,
and the ratings for the PGA Tour, the ratings for
(49:50):
the Open this past weekend, ratings for American Century. I mean,
people are watching and following golf, So I feel really
good about that. Yeah, well, it certainly feels like whenever
you're trying to get a tea time anywhere, golf is
is is as big as big as it's ever been.
I want to close, John, I want to talk go
(50:11):
back to Tahoe one time in the story that you
told me this last weekend and the kind of pressure
that John is under even an environment where we're we're
trying to have a little fun. Um the seventeenth hole
at Lake Tahoe. It's it's on along the beach and
by the way, there are now multiple thousand people on
(50:32):
this little part three hole. And uh, you told me
about the time you started getting word John's plugged into
the broadcast we're going live on NBC. UM where there
was a there was a certain doll that was there
in the in the crowd. There was an inflatable um sex.
(50:54):
There was an inflatable sex doll. Right, it was about
uh six to seven ft in length and probably two
ft in diameter, and it appeared on the on THEE
Green on Saturday afternoon. Uh In during the Michael Jordan's
(51:15):
Jerry Rice I believe Ray Allen match and I noticed it.
Somebody pointed it out to me and I um told
these guys, you know, get that out of there. But
I made the inadvertent comment of shoot the the item.
So the director immediately panned over and shot it, and
(51:38):
you get rid of it. I said, no, no, no,
get off that shot. And unfortunately, once it appears on television,
it lives on Google and YouTube and places forever. So
the next morning they had patrols out there with armed
guards looking to make sure that we didn't have an
incident like that. Again. The young lady who had brought
(51:58):
the item up to the mean immediately jumped on it
and swam out to a bachelorette party where she was
chased by the Lake Tahoe Coast Guard and they took off.
But you know, those are the kind of things you
don't expect. They don't. That's never put in the job description.
So no, it's it's not live TV. Uh. John. I
want to thank you so much for coming and talking
(52:21):
to us. Your career starting in the sixth grade, uh
NBC and now being at NBC for forty four years. Um,
it speaks for itself. Are you the longest tenured NBC employee? Yeah,
I think I am. I'm you old man, I'm the
old man of the building and I keep my head down,
but yeah, I'm I'm I'm the longest serving senior executive there.
(52:44):
So as long as they keep me around, I don't
want to go anywhere. So I'm very happy there, so
hopefully they'll keep me around a little while longer. One
of my favorite people by far, well certainly my favorite
person who is still at NBC, John mell Er, Um, well, Brian,
thank you. You've become such a big part of the event,
(53:04):
so it's great having you there. I always get that
big hug when I see you. It makes the whole
week get off to a great start. Great. Thank you, John,
Thanks so much for coming on my pleasure, Brian. Take care. John.
(53:28):
I can't thank you enough for dropping in today and
having a conversation with me. It was a pleasure as always,
and I personally will be looking forward to what you
come up with next for n b C. Thank you
all out there for listening and uh for coming back
(53:50):
week after week. You're the greatest. Well maybe not say
the Grand Puba of NBC Sports greatest, but you're the greatest. Nonetheless,
I'm joking, I get because I love Next week we're
gonna be back with another fantastic guest that well, you're
just gonna be so excited about How do I know that? Well,
(54:12):
I just know, and you're just gonna have to trust me.
We'll see you next time. Off the Beat is hosted
an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive
producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris,
(54:35):
and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary,
and our intern is Sammy Katz. Our theme song Bubble
and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and
the episode was mixed by seth Olandski m
Host
Brian Baumgartner
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