In the 39-minute sports media podcast, legendary ESPN PR man, Mike Soltys, goes deep about the first days of ESPN, “the believers vs. the crazy idea” folks, a young Chris Berman, top executives shaping the network and how the greatest sports media PR quote in history came to be.
Soltys is one of the producers on “Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN,” that debuts on Monday, April 6th. It’s also an audiobook.
FULL RUNDOWN …
ESPN, ‘Sports Heaven’ & the greatest media success story ever told
What was the feeling around ESPN in 1979 when it launched
The “believers” vs. the “crazy idea” square-off
Bill Rasmussen, who founded ESPN, got fired and …
Why Bristol, CT as ESPN’s headquarters & the advantage of the location
George Bodenheimer & culture
The odd office Soltys started his career in
The story behind how SportsCenter became SportsCenter
The alternative names for SportsCenter
How Rasmussen’s first idea was just to only do Connecticut sports
And then an RCA satellite salesman came by and …
Technical difficulties …
What was Chris Berman like in the early years
Running to the banks to deposit checks to make sure they worked
The NFL and MLB made it feel like ESPN had arrived
George Brett bringing back Chris Berman’s nicknames after an executive killed them
How SC Top 10 is still a big deal
The $51M NFL deal for the Sunday Night package in 1987
Who are the three most important people in ESPN’s history
The Bodenheimer-Jimmy Pitaro comparison
John Skipper was the most fun top exec — and Cuba
Steve Bornstein fought to keep SportsCenter going
The credibility of Chet Simmons as ESPN president
ESPN tried putting business news into its programs, and Soltys wasn’t a fan of it
Richard Branson and the spirit of just trying stuff
The ESPN-ABC Sports war
Rudy Martzke, Phil Mushnick, Richard Sandomir, et. al. …
How Mark Shapiro brought the media attention to another level
All the major newspapers had a sports media columnist and “the straws that stir the drink.”
Martzke’s Sunday greeting to Soltys after church
Soltys, Keith Olbermann and the greatest sports PR quote in history
Soltys liked working with Olbermann
The quote was buried in the USA Today column
“He didn’t burn bridges here, he napalmed them”
The media relations game and Martzke
What’s next for the documentary
The 1979 culture of ESPN is still alive in 2026
“I’ll work for free,” were the magic words
Some Related Podcasts (there are more)
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