LITMIR.BIZ

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innovations prompted Film Comment’s Bruce Berman to name him the “D.W. Griffith of sports TV.” Along these lines, ESPN’s Ralph Wiley called Arledge “the Mark Twain of TV sports. The greatest storyteller that ever was, at least in this country. The author of the book from which all other American sports TV are [sic] made.”⁶³ The producer did not discourage the many designations of him as a savant. A ferociously competitive workaholic behind the scenes, Arledge affected a suave persona punctuated by the glamorous friends he kept, the pipes he smoked, and the pinky rings, safari jackets, and aviator glasses he donned. His carefully curated image—an embodiment of the postwar “good life” that Playboy curated for affluent male professionals—made it no surprise that this was the mind behind a repertoire eclectic enough to include Masterpiece, For Men Only, and NCAA football. When Arledge assumed control over ABC Sports in 1964, he had his name appended to the closing credits of all its productions—whether or not he directly participated in their creation. Like a signature on a painting, this uncommon sports television practice positioned ABC Sports’ programming as polished artworks comparable to films and situated Arledge as an auteur rather than a technician.

      But Arledge was not completely alone in authoring many of the advances for which he is credited. In 1926, radio personality Graham McNamee encouraged sportscasters “make each of your listeners, though miles away from the sport, feel that he or she, too, is there with you in that press stand.”⁶⁴ Arledge’s stated desire to “take the viewer to the game” was therefore in place for decades before he entered the profession. The producer’s contemporaries were also using TV’s expanding palette of technological tools to develop similarly stylized approaches. Arledge hired director Andy Sidaris in 1960 to work the NCAA games after Sidaris sent him a letter of application proposing to use a combination of handheld cameras, halftime highlights, and shots of the atmosphere surrounding the games to create “unusual and exciting” telecasts that would appeal to both men and women.⁶⁵ The practices Sidaris proposed mirror those Arledge laid out in his memo. Sidaris—who wound up working under Arledge for the next twenty-five years—also has the dubious distinction of developing the “honey shot,” a titillating cut to an attractive female spectator designed to pique and sustain male viewers’ interest that is also often credited to Arledge. “I’d rather see a great looking body than a touchdown anytime,” Sidaris, a self-described “dirty old man” admitted. More specifically, Arledge took credit for pioneering the instant replay and slow motion, which NBC’s Tony Verna and ABC’s Robert Trachinger both claim to have conceived. “Roone is like the Russians,” Verna sniped. “He likes to say he invented the hot dog and motherhood.”⁶⁶ While Arledge never claimed to operate in a creative vacuum, he willingly allowed these myths to persist and clearly benefited from them.

      Arledge paired his auteur persona with an evasive but looming management style. He was difficult to reach and sometimes would be inaccessible for days on end. Arledge did not like to deliver bad news and sometimes simply avoided conflicts in hopes that they would resolve without his intervention—a strategy that usually backfired. While generally evasive, he would reportedly give employees hours of undivided attention when they finally caught him. He also insisted on keeping a conspicuous red “Roone phone” at each production site that gave him a direct line to call in suggestions and, perhaps most important, to give the impression he was always scrutinizing his staff. “You knew dad was watching,” ABC director Roger Goodman noted.⁶⁷ Despite these unorthodox practices, Arledge’s staffers were fiercely loyal and many—such as Sidaris; directors Chet Forte and Doug Wilson; engineer Julius “Julie” Barnathan; and producers Chuck Howard, Dennis Lewin, Geoff Mason, and Jim Spence—remained in his employ for decades and became industry icons in their own right. Others, such as Dick Ebersol and Don Ohlmeyer, left ABC to become high-ranking media executives elsewhere after apprenticing under Arledge. As football player turned ABC Sports commentator Frank Gifford said, “Vince Lombardi and Roone Arledge are the two men I’ve known in my life who could make me go the extra yard.”⁶⁸ Like Lombardi, Arledge was a merciless competitor. “The man is totally unscrupulous. A jackal,” said a rival sports TV executive. “Beneath that Howdy Doody face lurks one of the most ruthless, opportunistic guys in the business.” Arledge, who enjoyed toying with competitors and had a reputation for driving up prices for properties that he did not even want, responded to such charges by matter-of-factly acknowledging, “If you don’t have the rights, you can’t do the show.”⁶⁹ The ends, the Machiavellian sports television executive calmly indicated, justified the means.

      SHOW BUSINESS SPORTS

      To lend credibility to ABC’s NCAA broadcasts, Scherick hired established sportscaster Curt Gowdy as play-by-play announcer and former University of Missouri and NFL quarterback Paul Christman as color commentator. Upon Arledge’s urging, Scherick also brought in Bob Neal to serve as network sports television’s first sideline reporter—another innovation that stuck. The night before ABC’s debut game, Arledge delivered a presentation that outlined the network’s production plan to his staff as well as to Gillette and NCAA representatives. An apparently inspired Moore felt moved to join in on the speech: “We do not want a football game like NBC. I want to see the good-looking gals! The chrysanthemums! The cheerleaders! The fans! The players sitting on the bench! I want to see the apprehension of the guy about to go into the game! I want to see the head coach pacing! I want you to capture the story of the game!” “I sure hope in the middle of all this stuff that you get around to showing some football, too,” interrupted Christman—a hardened industry veteran accustomed to more hemmed-in productions.⁷⁰

      ABC’s first game featured Alabama and Georgia on September 17, 1960. Its coverage presented the game as a duel between Alabama’s legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and Georgia’s flashy quarterback Fran Tarkenton. The narrative Arledge created of the wise veteran taking on and ultimately defeating the impetuous and gun-slinging young man reflected the popular westerns that ABC aired in prime time during the week. Arledge expanded on these cinematic practices later in the season by opening a Pittsburgh and Penn State game with a shot from a hospital rooftop near the University of Pittsburgh stadium. The aerial establishing shot emphasized the event’s grandeur in a way that evokes so many epic Hollywood films’ opening moments. ABC also strove to enhance coaches’ and players’ participation in its narratives by having them provide the now-standard halftime interviews—a request the NCAA initially denied. “Our coaches are just that,” huffed NCAA television committee chair Rix Yard, “not actors.”⁷¹ While the coaches may not have been actors, they were quickly becoming characters in the Saturday afternoon sporting dramas ABC built.

      ABC repeatedly made clear its responsibility for this stylized coverage. “The greatest contribution we can make,” Arledge claimed, “is getting people aware of production.”⁷² ABC telecasts called deliberate attention to their inventively crafted status to ensure viewers knew they were not simply watching sports TV, but ABC productions. They would frequently showcase the network’s many camera operators and control room to emphasize ABC’s labors to offer a cutting-edge sports media experience. “It was important for people to understand that we’re trying to do things differently,” Lewin remarked. “If we had the latest slo-mo machine we would make a point of it, if we had the overhead crane we would tell people how high it was and show the guy dangling from it.”⁷³ ABC also made sure that its brand and trademarks were prominent throughout broadcasts. During the first season of its NCAA football package, the network agreed to plug UCLA’s marching band if it played songs and made halftime formations that celebrated ABC and its sponsors—a reflection of ABC’s promotion-friendly deals with Disney and Warner Brothers.⁷⁴

      ABC purchased the contract to televise the upstart American Football League the same year it began broadcasting NCAA football. The AFL was formed by a cadre of millionaires who responded to the NFL’s continual refusals to grant them expansion franchises by starting their own league. The fledgling operation needed television’s revenues and exposure to get off the ground. As with Disneyland, ABC was the only network desperate enough to show interest in the new league. “They told me that if we would take them on they had a chance,” Moore noted.⁷⁵ After negotiating with the AFL owners, who had far less bargaining power than the network’s

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