In the sports industry, it is rare to find an executive who is both brilliant at business and an exceptional marketer. Dick Ebersol is both, plus an outstanding producer. A legendary storyteller known for his passion, creativity, and execution, he is a superstar in not one field but three.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this business, you never really meet anyone who is all three of those things,\u201d says Fred Gaudelli, producer for the NBC Sports Group. \u201cWith Dick, you are truly working with the total package because he is so equipped at every level. Working with him is a tremendous education, and a real honor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learned From the Master<\/b>
\nEbersol began his television career in 1967, when he temporarily dropped out of Yale University to become television\u2019s first-ever Olympic researcher, working for Roone Arledge at ABC Sports. He spent six years working in production and as Arledge\u2019s executive assistant, contributing to such iconic programming as Wide World of Sports and coverage of three Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of shaping how I have done events \u2014 produced, promoted, and marketed events \u2014 all came from Roone,\u201d Ebersol says. \u201cFrom July of \u201967 until I left in August of \u201974, I had the best front seat at the best finishing school ever invented for sports television: the mind of Roone Arledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ebersol then joined NBC as director of weekend late night programming. He was subsequently named VP of late-night programming, becoming, at 28, the network\u2019s first under-30 VP. He hired Lorne Michaels, and, in 1975, the two created Saturday Night Live<\/i>.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike his mentor and inspiration Roone Arledge, Dick has made a major impact as a producer, creative force, executive, and deal maker,\u201d says sportscaster Bob Costas. \u201cFew people in the history of television have made such an impact in so many different areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gold Standard<\/b>
\nAfter forming an independent production company in 1983, Ebersol returned to NBC in 1989. As president of NBC Sports, he created NBA on NBC, a 12-year partnership that helped revitalize the NBC Sports brand and serves as the gold standard for league-network relationships. From 1989 to \u201991, he also served as senior vice president of NBC News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that makes Dick special is his passion,\u201d says sportscaster John Madden. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t do anything halfway, and he does it with real love. I think you could take any area of broadcasting \u2014 news, sports, or entertainment \u2014 and say Dick Ebersol is a leader in that area. He\u2019s great at everything he does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ebersol has had the good fortune and great skill to work on every event that has ever appealed to him. He has negotiated dozens of landmark rights agreements, garnering for NBC coverage of the NFL, NBA, MLB, the USGA Championships, Notre Dame football, and every Olympic Games since 2000.<\/p>\n
As executive producer of eight Olympic Games, Ebersol has steadily increased NBC\u2019s hours of Olympic coverage. He led its foray into digital and mobile platforms to enhance its Olympic coverage and transformed the network\u2019s Olympic broadcasts into must-see TV.<\/p>\n
\u201cDick has been one of the more unique executives in the history of sports television and has done everything, but at heart, he\u2019s a producer,\u201d says Howard Katz, SVP, broadcasting and media operations, for the NFL.<\/p>\n
Eight of the Top Ten<\/b>
\nIndeed, the Olympic Games that Ebersol has produced account for eight of the 10 most-watched television events in U.S. history. The consummate producer\u2019s efforts have attracted hundreds of millions of viewers to NBC, captivating them with behind-the-scenes stories about the athletes, coaches, and human beings that lie beneath the surface of the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of depth and global breadth, there\u2019s nothing like the Olympics on Dick\u2019s watch,\u201d says NBA Commissioner David Stern. \u201cThere is no facet of any issue that he doesn\u2019t look at. He is an extraordinarily talented executive who comes with an attention to detail and an intensity that make him unique.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the past six years, Ebersol has brought that intensity to Sunday Night Football<\/i>, revitalizing the brand into the No. 1 primetime show of the fall. The agreement he devised in 2005 included the NFL\u2019s first-ever flexible scheduling, as well as two Super Bowls for NBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe revitalized Sunday Night Football<\/i> by building an environment around the show that made it a unique and special event,\u201d explains Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots. \u201cA lot of that is because of his understanding of how to present an entertainment product to a vast array of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as Ebersol took fans behind the curtain of Olympic broadcasts, he is now leading new droves of NFL fans inside the helmet on Sunday nights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that the success of our game is directly related to how our broadcast partners present our game, and Dick has done an unbelievable job of presenting our game to our fans,\u201d says NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. \u201cIn a world that is drastically changing as far as technology is concerned, he has been able to keep fans interested in whatever he\u2019s broadcasting. He had the vision to create the No. 1 show on television right now, Sunday Night Football, and, for that, we will be forever grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Personal Side<\/b>
\nAs professionally talented and driven as Ebersol is, he is equally thoughtful and caring on a personal level. No matter the content of the show, everyone working alongside him gets the sense that they are working on the most important show in television.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is the warmest, most caring chief executive and has the most compassion of any senior executive that I have worked with in 35 years in the industry,\u201d says Michael Meehan, SVP of sports operations for NBC Sports. \u201cCouple that with his demand for the highest level of production performance, and you can see why he is an icon in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodell adds, \u201cHe is a special person. He is a dear friend and someone who cares about people and cares about improving everything that he is involved with. Professionally and personally, he believes that there is a way that everyone should operate, and I admire that a great deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deeply and passionately connected to his past, Ebersol jumps on opportunities to bring that past to life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that his childhood hero was Muhammad Ali,\u201d says Kraft, who is also chairman of the NFL TV committee. \u201cDick orchestrated Ali\u2019s lighting of the torch in 1996 at the Opening Games of the Olympics, which was one of those moments that give you goose bumps. Dick\u2019s visionary way of looking at things, through his loyalty to his roots, put something together that had mass appeal. He is part of a special breed of executive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Currently senior advisor to NBC Sports Group, Ebersol has worked to create a finishing school for production personnel, pairing new recruits with seasoned veterans to refine the art of storytelling. He is dedicated to developing the next class of production experts, and they have at their disposal the greatest inspiration the industry has to offer: Ebersol himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are very few people that have ever done in television broadcasting what Dick Ebersol has done,\u201d Madden says, \u201cand I don\u2019t think there will ever be another person that will do the things that he has done. No one will ever again have the talents that Dick has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":833,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"tags":[25],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees\/471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inductees"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/inductees"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsbroadcastinghalloffame.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}