The Bill Simmons Podcast - Ep. 117: James Andrew Miller

Episode Date: August 18, 2016

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons brings on acclaimed author James Andrew Miller to discuss his new book, 'Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency'; Ari Emanuel and power struggles within agencies (23:00); the CAA connection to LeBron's 'Decision' special (36:00); the importance of live events in television (51:00); and the highs and lows of the John Skipper era (56:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Jim Miller, a.k.a. James Andrew Miller, a.k.a. James Miller. You have multiple pseudonyms. Well, different code names for different parts of the world. I call you Jim. All right, there you go. Author of the ESPN book, The Oral History with Tom Shales. Author of the SNL book, Oral History with Tom Shales.

Two of my favorites. And now the author of Powerhouse. The book, An Oral History of CAA, which I'm surprised your car didn't blow up like halfway through. You must have feared for your life a couple of times. No? No, but I think people told me that I should be pretty secure with my internet and computer stuff. Really? Like people thought they were going to hack into the...

Maybe not the current regime, but maybe people from previous eras or I don't know, whatever. Really? It was one of those weird things where somebody mentions it and you just laugh about it. And then like two months later, somebody in a different part of the business mentions it to you. And then another person mentions it to you. And I just thought... I mean, it wasn't like, you know, with the ESPN book, Deadspin said, you know, by the way, we're going to we're going to break into your place. But we'll get the book beforehand.

I mean, which was kind of funny and cool and everything else. This is much more like, you know, dark shadowy. Ovitz is the star of the book. Mike Ovitz, legendary agent. I'm living in Boston in the 90s. I know nothing about anything with agents other than what I read on Spy Magazine. Because Spy Magazine used to go after CIA a little bit. So I kind of knew he was a somewhat dangerous guy.

And then the Late Shift movie came out about Letterman and Leno. And Treat Williams plays Ovitz. And it's one of the great only a couple minutes in a movie cameos. Anyone's done. He comes in. He's just perfect. He lays it out for Letterman. And that's always been the ovitz in my head and then i read your book and now i don't know what to think he's this super complex um borderline crazy person you know it's he's one

of those people that um even for people who have traveled around the world and met lots of people you you do come away from spending time with Michael Leibovitz thinking, well, I haven't met that before. I mean, he is a total outlier in part, and it comes back to the word you just used, which is complex. He's very complex, and he has a very unusual combination of qualities. The most power-hungry guy. You've done three books. Is he the most power-hungry guy you've covered in any of those three? Of the three power hungry guy you've done three books to

see the most power hungry guy you've of the three books you've covered i don't even know who's second yeah i mean and it's not to say that you know like the pools of snl and espn were you know filled with amish people right i mean no but there's i mean he's he's just like he's in a different you know remember what uh m McEnroe said about Borg? Yeah. We're all playing tennis. He's doing something else. Yeah.

I mean, it's one of those things. Well, on the one hand, he's a genius because you look at all this stuff that CAA did. I read your book in like three nights. I just, I love oral histories. This one I didn't know a lot of. Like SNL and ESPN, it was, I'm reading those, almost wondering. I'm reading it going, I wonder if this is going to be in. This I knew nothing.

But some of the stuff CAA did, the packaging, it was the first agency that thought, oh, we have this star and this star and this director. We're just going to get all three of them together and make a movie that way. The back end, can't we say that they kind of created that? We'll give up the salary but you give us the points on the back end and then all of a sudden people are making tons of money from these movies

yeah i mean i think you know some studio executives like tom pollack who's a genius deal maker i think he was involved as well but you know they they did do those things i mean one of the great things that they did also was i mean it used to be like in william mor Morris in the 60s and early 70s, you called an agent and the studio said, you know, can so-and-so do a part? And then the agent would ask the actor or actress and they'd say no. And they'd call back the studio and say, you know, no, you know, she doesn't want to do it. Like, see, hey, everybody knew the information. So you're never going to call back with a no. You're going to say who else in the agency can do it? So you're calling back and you're saying, no, Sylvester Stallone can't do this, but Michael Douglas can. Or just things that kind of make sense now, but they just, very old school how these agencies worked.

And then they just uprooted it, not just some of the deals they were making, but just how aggressive they were with poaching people. Were people always that aggressive with poaching before that or did they kind of take it to another level? No, not as aggressive. And that for me, that was one of the through lines for SNL, ESPN and CA. I mean, obviously, everyone knows the initials SNL and ESPN, but outside of Hollywood, maybe CA isn't. But there were so many through lines between all three, and one of them was, you know,

Lorne Michaels with SNL, disruption. ESPN, you know, in the birth of cable sports, total disruption. CA, 1975 and beyond, disruption. I mean, just like literally blowing up the existing ecosystem that had been there and uh and that's pretty cool and it's probably why like more than 40 years later we're still talking about you know these companies places because they really they were so disruptive and they were so powerful that they had long legs but the the thing that you know i i

didn't know a lot about ovitz i thought thought I did, but I really didn't. He was so good at what he did. And it's like somebody had a quote in there, he'd just never be happy. It was like you reach a point, you look around, and you're like, I'm the most powerful person in Hollywood. That's what I wanted to get to. I've made incredible amounts of money, and I'm just sitting here, and I'm still not happy.

I think one of the people who didn't like him probably said that about him. But he kind of lost his way. And there's a clear tipping point. I don't want to ruin people's enjoyment of the book by stepping on it. But he had a chance to take a job that was like a dream job. And he just wanted more and he wanted more and he wanted more. And that's clearly the tipping point when his career cratered. Everybody knows he ended up going to Disney and that was a disaster.

But it's funny that somebody has a quote about he was his own worst agent. The best agent probably of that entire generation was a terrible agent for himself. Right. And I think, I mean, look, he flew too close to the sun and he, as much as he had an understanding of what his clients needed and things to do for them he didn't have that sense about himself and i think that you know he probably needed just like presidents and other people uh sometimes celebrities you you need somebody around that has that sixth sense about you that you don't have but he kind of had that person and ron meyer who was like kind of put on

earth to be that person well i should say then say then that you sometimes have to listen to that person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to have that listen person. You know, those two, you know, I say at the beginning, CA would not have been what it was if there were two Ovitz's or two Meyers. They like literally, literally matched up so well, like Lennon and McCarthy like so many others that combinations um and it was it was vital to the success of the place the partnership thing I remember I wrote a whole column I'd read Eisner's book in 2010 and it was right when LeBron joined Miami and I went to the first Miami game and then I think I went to the second one too when they're together and it

was so awkward LeBron and Wade trying to figure out how to play together and I wrote a whole piece about partnerships with Eisner and Frank Wells and he's pretty candid about like Frank Wells we were perfect because Eisner admits like I have a giant ego I'm power hungry all these things but Wells wasn't like that and we were it was there was some good cop bad cop side to it and it seemed like ovitz had that with with uh ron meyer and then it just then he just wanted everything yeah and you know it was all the more shakespearean when ovitz doesn't take that universal job and meyer is the one who takes it that was unbelievable and so uh yeah i mean I'm getting together with both of those guys on September 7th. Oh, yeah. What are you doing?

You're doing like a... The three of us in conversation, quote unquote. And it's the first time they're going to be together in public in like 21 years. I didn't realize they had a real estate feud that then kept the other kind of bad blood thing going. So do they talk? They don't talk. They've recently talked and they kind of both blame me for that um they blame you well i mean my whole thing is well i just i mean as i got to know each of

them over the period of the last two and a half years i just thought it was kind of uh bizarre that in a small town like hollywood if you walk into a restaurant it's like uncomfortable to see somebody that you worked with for 30 years i mean it doesn't mean you have to start singing Kumbaya and be best friends, but, you know, get over it at least to the point where, you know, you can have some sort of modicum of, you know, civility and relationship with them. Are you talking about me and ESPN or Ovitz and Ron Meyer? I think that we need to take you and Skipper and put that on the... But Ron Meyer ended up... He's also had this

second life. Not only did he run Universal, but then his daughter married Tobey Maguire, right? Wasn't that his daughter? And now he's... I don't know. He's almost had a more interesting... It's not almost. He's had a more interesting second chapter, whereas Ovitz just cratered.

What is the sports equivalent to what happened to Ovitz? Like Tiger Woods? Probably, because, I mean, look, Meyer is on a sixth owner as chairman of Universal. Who survives six owners? I mean, like Switzerland couldn't do that. That's unbelievable that's that's crazy right and he's now been at universal longer than he had been at ca but but as i mean your book over and over again and i know you're probably trying to play it as neutral as you

possibly can when you're reporting something like that and you come away from the book reading like wow ron meyer seems like a great guy yeah you know You know, one of the, one of the first indications of that was like, literally, I think I had like 20 people say when I was interviewing them, by the way, you know, uh, Ron Meyer is my best friend. Ron Meyer and I are best friends. And I, you go to another interview, you know, by the way, you know, I'm, I'm Ron's best friend. And then all of a sudden you think, wait a second.

It's like, what the heck is going on here? How does somebody have this many best friends? And it's not like we're friends or we're buds. Like everybody used the operative word was best. Yeah. I mean, that's just that. Pulling that off is kind of crazy. So you presented that side of the picture,

but then there was also this other Ron Meyer side where he's military, and he's like, oh, but he'll rip your throat out in a second if you're in a bar. You want Ron Meyer at your side. He'll fight the whole bar, and he'll win. Oh, Michael Douglas told me this great story and Joel Silver backed it up. They were there too. You know, they're in the islands and, you know, they're at some casino and all of a sudden they looked over and, you know, Ron Meyer's like literally jumping across the craps table to beat the crap out of two guys, including like one guy who was really big and a guy that was ron's size and ron talked about the story and said well the key is going after the really big guy first right you gotta

you gotta take him out you know so then the smaller guy he really can't hurt you except that he wound up like having his ribs broken in that fight right but he's like you know so which is it is it like he's the nice jewish guy who talked to his mom every day when she was alive and everybody loves him or is it the guy p.s he's in the Jewish guy who talked to his mom every day when she was alive and everybody loves him? Or is it the guy, P.S., he's in the Marines and, you know, his body's covered in tattoos and he's probably the last guy that you want to piss off because, you know, he plays for keeps. I mean, that's like a duality that you don't see all the time. I like that. He had some quote in there like, hey, I, you know, I really miss fighting. I loved a good fight. It's like, who misses fighting?

He's like a congenial there. I haven't done it in a while. I haven't been in a big fight in a while. It's like Floyd Mayweather. I hadn't laced him up in a while. Totally fearless. I mean, look, he did get into, and he talked about it very openly. There was a period of time where he owed some big gambling debts.

This is like a movie. You need he owed some uh big gambling deaths yeah this is like like a you know a movie like you know you need like frank sinatra like big gambling debts like yeah we're talking like eight figures and uh he actually went by himself to meet the guys to tell them that he didn't have the money for them i mean that's you know um that's not something that a lot of people you know would do um you wound up paying them off but i mean it's kind of like i mean i hate to use the word legendary but it's these stories i mean as i kept on hearing them i'm thinking to myself wait a second is there like some screenwriter behind the scenes here who's like coming up with this stuff but it was all true oh and by the way ali mcgraw i mean yeah i never knew that part ron meyer did he can we say he dumped his wife for ali mcgraw like he'd seem like i think they were breaking up and he found ali mcgraw but i I mean Yeah I never knew that part Ron Meyer Did he Can we say he dumped his wife For Ally McGrath Like he seemed like

No I think Or they were breaking up And he found Ally McGrath But I mean But Ally McGrath I mean now People nowadays May not understand

What that means But No they understand If they saw the Bob Evans documentary The Bob Evans documentary She was the best piece of ass I ever had Ally McGrath

I mean like Or just look at Goodbye Columbus For a nanosecond. So, I mean, he goes to the top of the food chain, even in the, you know, female department. Well, it seems like he didn't have a lot of trouble in that area. Ovid's, though, this might just be me overthinking it, but I felt like you held back a little bit.

There are probably, what, five Ovid stores you could have printed? I mean, didn't everyone? Well well i do have three children right you know i'm no i'm just kidding i mean look you know um i think that there are uh i was trying to figure out where you're going with that you know but i mean like you can connect into dots uh like ovid's by all accounts did horrible things and you portrayed that but you could have gone a little further i'm guessing you had more ammo against them well there's also um you know we live in there is a legal process going on that's uh you know that's why i brought this up the vetting of the book and all that stuff and uh i also feel like, you know, these books, I mean, look at ESPN when I did those guys of all the fun, there was a lot left on the editing room floor. You don't I mean, it's not about character assassination or hitting like you tell a couple stories about here's all the bad stuff this guy would do.

He'd threaten people. You're never going to work in this town again. I will ruin your agency tomorrow, all this stuff. But this is how he operated for, what, six, seven straight years. Once he reached a certain amount of power, he just used that power to threaten everybody every day, day after day. Longer than that. And that's why everybody hated him. And that's why he could never get another job.

I mean, you know, at the same time, he was doing, he was transforming the business and doing an incredible job for his clients. So, again, it's not just one dimensional. It's not, you know, there's just not one narrative where he's just all of a sudden going on this mad streak of insanity. He was also doing things that had never been done before and making deals with japanese and you know trying to buy an nfl franchise yeah he was he was like what 20 years ahead of stan kranke with his la idea and

that was one of the revelations i couldn't believe that yeah and i actually saw that whole 25 years ahead what was that like like 1990? Yep. He's basically going to build his own version of LA Live? Bigger than it is now. Yeah. And I interviewed Roger Goodell. I saw that. And your pal.

And we went pretty deep about what Ovitz was like. Lo and behold, Roger was the person that Ovitz was working with on that because that's what his area of responsibility was back then. Well, the people who are wired that way, they all kind of stick up for each other. Because Goodell was like flattering to Ovitz. Like, oh, you know, the guy's a visionary. He'll do what it takes to get a deal done. Well, I think, you know, that was clear, except he couldn't pull it off. At the end of the day, he just didn't have enough money. Do you think that Ovitz, did you get a feeling that he regrets his behavior now?

Because I think he's the go-to story that everybody has about somebody that became super powerful in Hollywood and just took it too far. No, I didn't get that feeling at all. Really? No, not at all in fact i think he um i think that when michael ovitz talks about 75 to 95 he's uh you know he's incredibly proud uh of what they built um i also think he's incredibly proud of what he did for others look there's a ton of people who worked at ca from 75 to 95 who made a lot of money and had a lot of influence and, um, you know, may not have enjoyed that afterward. I mean, he, you know, he lifted a lot of boats. So I think

he, that's a big thing that he recognizes and talks about. Um, and I think that, you know, he, he's very, uh, he seems like a guy who on one level is very proud of, of what he accomplished and then probably frustrated and pissed off about some of the things that happened afterwards yeah but you know has has explanations for it and uh people to blame for it and uh well what's weird is how magnanimous he was with how they left caa to you call them the Young Turks, the five younger up-and-coming guys. I mean, you mentioned Letterman. I mean, Michael Ovitz put that together,

and Letterman went on to be on the air for another 20-plus years. One of the great deals ever made in TV. Dave was making, like, what, $32 million a year at some time? Well, Ovitz came up with the penalty, the $100 million if he's not on 1130, which is one of the smartest single tv moves ever and they created the opening for letterman's career but my only point is uh that 32 million dollars obitz wasn't getting 10 of that i mean michael crichton was a close client

of his i mean jurassic park so jurassic world opened last year you know one of the biggest openings that year obitz meyer and haber they didn't get a penny of that. I mean, that was the deal that those five guys were able to engineer on buying the company was one of the worst deals that Ovitz ever made. The Seinfeld one was probably even worse. Oh, yeah, that's a Ron Meyer deal. I mean, Ovitz had made that,

but I couldn't believe Seinfeld. I mean, CAA somehow doesn't get recurring commissions on the $4 billion and counting that Seinfeld has made. $400 million, basically. And counting. Right, and counting. Streaming, I mean, that's going to keep going up and going up. Ron Meyer was the one who who you know basically took CA out of it because Howard West and George Shapiro Jerry's managers wouldn't

have been able to be part of the show right and they asked him as a favor and you know Howard West had been but first of all remember it was called the Seinfeld Chronicles back then it was just a pilot who knew but I think Ron to this point like even given the success of Seinfeld,

doesn't regret it because he did a solid for his buddies, George and Howard. Well, they made 500 other deals that were awesome. So you're going to have a few that you miss on. I couldn't believe... What I didn't realize as I was reading the book was how involved CA was

in basically every single movie and tv show that i liked for for like a 17 year span and say you just kept oh and tom hanks and michael douglas and it was like well i like every michael douglas movie and oh all these tv shows and it just it never ended i mean you look at their client list and it was unparalleled i mean they represented basically everybody almost everybody who was important and you know, that was part of the reason why I wanted to do the book, because not a lot of people know the, you know, like I was saying, the initials. But C.A. intersects with your past life in terms of what you used to watch and what you love. And nowadays, I mean, you know, whether it's J.J. Watt or, you know, Game of Thrones or... The Decision.

The Decision. Listen, when you go into a Chipotle, C.A. is involved or, you know, Game of Thrones or... The Decision. The Decision. Listen, when you go into a Chipotle, CA's involved. They do the marketing. I mean, so it's like, wait a second. We don't know a lot about them, but they're with you every single day. Yeah.

Well, don't you feel like... Well, first of all, I got to mention, I mean, I know Ari a little bit, so it's not totally... I'm a tiny bit biased, but his quotes were fantastic. I think he was... Ovitz is the MVP of the book, but Ari is like best supporting actor

because every time he comes in, it's just fire. And he's just taking shots left and right at CAA. And there's this one part near the end when he's so happy that CAA's new mission was, we're going to try to represent everybody. It's like, this is great. They've turned from Tiffany's to Sears. This is the best thing that ever happened to our business.

But he does not hold back in the book. No, I think that's one of the things that people really like about him. He's totally transparent. He's unvarnished. I mean, he's co-chair of this incredibly big company now, right? I mean, they just laid out $4 billion for the UFC. I mean, he's the co-chair of it, and yet he's not like walking around

with this like manicured talking points. No. I mean, he shoots in the hip, and you know, there's a great story he tells in the book about when he was at CA and he wanted to leave, you know, he threatened to throw a chair over it. I mean, and he's like...

I couldn't believe that. You know, I mean, he's totally fearless, and I think that, you know, the interesting thing is it's the exact opposite of the way the ca guys are you know they don't really they don't speak in soundbites they don't want a high profile they don't have those kind of personalities so you have like two diametrically opposed um styles of leadership you know in hollywood right now ari has a treadmill desk does that make you think more or less of him

no i i mean i think it it totally fits first of all i mean the guy works you know every single minute every single day so he's in his in the suit with his jacket off put sneakers on and just does phone calls and i don't know how he does it no i don't know if he sleeps he's got it i don't think so um you know but my only point is he's got to somehow stay in shape so that makes perfect sense he's not going to take an hour away from the phone and you know and to work out i mean no way also the best phone call person i've ever been involved with gets to the point no small talk it's over it's it's almost like to have the filet mignon is the best steak cut Ari's phone calls are just like what are the three things

we're going to hit and I'm out it's a science next one okay great it's a science I mean Doug Ellen who created

you know Entourage tells a great story in the book about it was originally going to be you know modeled after somebody

and then he was in a meeting with Ari and it's like oh wait a second forget it we're changing the whole we're changing the whole thing here. I got my guy.

Well, he modeled it. The original Ari was modeled after Jeff Jacobs, which I do not think that would have worked. That would have been a weird choice. Well, it certainly wouldn't have needed to be an HBO show. Let's put it that way. I mean, that could have been broadcast. No offense against Jeff Jacobs. But that could be an NBC show.

Yeah, he said Jeff Jacobs isn't dropping F-bombs and doing crazy shit. The moment you go from Jeff to Ari, then you're talking cable. Let's take a quick break to talk about Sonos, the smart speaker system that streams all your favorite music to any room or every room. Control your music with one simple app and fill your home with pure, immersive sound. It brings you all your music in one simple app. And it's the same app that brings together all your favorite music services and lets you control everything from songs to volume

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slash BS. Blue Apron, a better way to cook. And now back to Jim Miller. So what's been the reaction to the book in Hollywood and stuff? Because it's been out for a few days and I know it had to be, I mean, it was like top secret. There weren't copies getting out of it and the whole thing. Like, what were they worried about? What were they worried was going to get out? Or it was just trying to build suspense toward the book?

No, no, no, no. I mean, the books are embargoed. I mean, the ESPN book was embargoed, and I think ESPN was concerned for a time there. I think that you don't know what's going to be in the book. So I think if I'm CA, you're kind of curious. And I think people were—there was, you know, some pent up demand. And it's been great because a lot of people did go out and get it. And, you know, I mean, it's not an easy, quick read.

And yet I'm kind of blown away by how many people have already finished it. I mean, they're like literally texting or calling or tweeting about things that are, you know, in different parts of the book. So it's not like they just read one section and liked it. So oral history is like M&Ms. You just can kind of keep going. And at some point you just have to have the willpower to stop. Or you can open it up at any place too. That's the thing.

You can, you can stop, come back. I mean, they're just so easy to read. There's a reviewer who like kind of decided to take on the oral history format. And, uh, you can talk to Studs turkle or you know i mean i don't know but it's like format it's a great format but it's like going into a japanese restaurant and wanting matzo ball soup i mean this is what it is man i mean you know if you don't like it then that's fine but i personally think i mean this definitely was the case with snl and espn and i think it's a skink case here you You can't replicate the way these people talk.

I mean, you know, when you, for Bill Murray in the SNL book or Will Ferrell or Tina Fey, I mean, that's, oral history is so transparent and it's so palpable and you get to see these people in a way that you just can't. I mean, Chris Berman, you know, starts off by saying, you know, I was born on John Wilkes' birthday. And who can, if you're, Hemingway couldn't come up with that, I was born on John Wilkes' birthday. Hemingway couldn't come up with that.

I was like, what? Can we go back? Every sentence reveals who they are. I love the form. Bill Murray's secret Best Supporting Actor nominee for this book. I didn't expect so many good Bill Murray anecdotes and jokes. He is.

And texting me saying, hey, man, if you want to. Several times. I mean, but then you like to get a text from Bill saying, hey, man, I just thought of something else. If you're interested, I go, oh, no, let me think. Am I interested in talking to Bill Murray again? Who says he's got a really cool story? No, I'm not.

I'm too busy today. I'm good, Bill. I don't need any more info. No, I mean, it's just fantastic. And Sylvester Stallone. Oh, I'm not. I'm too busy today. I'm good, Bill. I don't need any more info. No, I mean, it's just fantastic. And Sylvester Stallone. Oh, he was incredible. I mean, come on. You forget how it reminded me.

I mean, I didn't need to be reminded because he's probably one of my three favorite actors of all time. But to have a point when you hit a point as an A-lister where they just save you a slot for the next summer, which I never knew they did with him. And they were like, all right, so July 1986, Sly movie. We don't have a script yet, but we know we're going to make one. And Sly gets his pick of projects, and he'll tell us what he's going to make, and then it'll come out. And it's like planes over our hair. Nobody has that now.

No. Not one person. The Fast and Furious franchise might have that. That's it. I mean, it was amazing. And, you know, Ron Meyer talked about, you know, they used to have to block off streets for like blocks when they would be coming out of a restaurant, but then also they were over in, uh, for a Rambo first blood. It's like the far East, like Thailand or some job.

Yeah. And it's like, everybody's yelling Rocky. I mean, you know, I mean, it's not quite Ali status, but Sylvester Stallone, I mean, he was a huge blip on the radar and people forget about it. I do think we when I interviewed Caitlyn Jenner for my show, I asked her something that she didn't answer. We didn't put it in the shows on like the deleted scenes. But I asked her who is more famous, her in 1976 or Kim and Kanye now. And she was like, oh oh that's a great question but then she was like clearly the answer is me like the the olympics had a 70 share right you know we had three three network channels and like four extra chain everybody had like seven channels it was like you watched the olympics and it was like if you didn't know who bruce jenner was in 1976 you were like in a log cabin somewhere and he and

bruce jenner did it without snapchat and twitter all the other engines that the kardashians have massive fame and sly was kind of at the tail end of that before things started as splinter but like sly in the 80s and arnold in the 80s I don't think there's there's actors that are famous like that now. No. And he but but my only point is like he he said, you know, when we talked about when Ron called him up to say he was going to be leaving as an agent and taking this job at Universal. Yeah. I mean, like Stallone goes into this like almost poetic discourse about them crying. Oh, he's devastated. He wrote Ron a poem with about mountains about mountains when two mountains siege like who okay uh i mean i don't know if i put that in a script

and the studio would say yeah it's a good scene but you know this idea of like sylvester stallone writing poems to another guy let's uh cut that out i don't think that's gonna fly with the audience and it's like unbelievable well you know i love all the Hollywood stuff. I mean, there are so many small tidbits that I love, but like one of them was about how they kind of didn't know what to do with Redford for the stretch in the 80s, which is crazy when you think about it, because this was one of the five biggest actors of my lifetime. But he hit this point where he was a little too old to be like in a rom-com or be like in some of those Tom Cruise roles,

the underdog who turns it around. But he wasn't quite old enough to be the older role, so it's like, what do you do with them? And they end up doing that Legal Eagles CA package, which was a terrible movie. No, but how about the deal on Indecent Proposal? Well, but that's what I never realized. That led to Indecent Proposal.

And it was like, and I had evenecent Proposal and it was like and I had even forgotten that movie happened but it was a huge movie and it was a big deal that he was in it but they got him in because of the budget in the movie they basically said okay here's a little bit up front

but you have a big back end and you wind up north of 30 million on that movie and that's like he was in like 5 scenes and that's back when 30 million up north of 30 million on that movie. And that's like, that's a couple. He was in like five scenes. And that's back when 30 million was really like 30 million. And they got, didn't they get Hanks right when his career, he was frustrated with his old agency because they kept giving him the same parts. Yeah. The same ideas for the same parts and sequels to parts he's done.

And he flips over and they catch Hanks for the great. They caught Hanks and Douglas for the two, one of the two of the best runs of all time but they had so many i mean in the in the late 80s and early 90s ca had so many gross participants for clients i mean that's real money first dollar gross and back ends i mean that's unbelievable because almost like the studios didn't totally know what they were doing. Now they've limited some of that stuff, right? Well, yeah. There's more checks and balances.

Yeah, and it's, I mean, there's fewer studios, fewer movies being made. It's a, you know, buyer's market, not a seller's market. I mean, there's a lot of, look, Ovitz and Meyer were lucky that they were in the movie business back then because they had much more influence and

many more clients working. It's a tougher business now. You know, you mentioned near the end, you talk about how they got into CAA sports, which became a big thing, but they also got into the sports media side too. Not nearly the kind of money maybe you make from Tom Hanks and Sly Stallone and all these people, but that turned into a really good side business for what their business was, right? No, actually, the surprise for me, and it was really cool to kind of report this,

was that in 2015 CA Sports made more money for the first time in CA history than movies or television. Was that in the book? Yeah. See, that's the first time I've slipped. You could tell I read every page of the book. No, it's a big book.

I must have been trying to get to the end at that point. It's a big book. CA sports made more than CA movies? For the first time, more revenue. Wow. So that sports media advisory business, which Skipper has a quote in the book where he's like, That was a good quote. I don't really get that, you know?

You need a third party to advise you how much to spend. Right. Or how much money you should command. Or to make me spend more is the subtext of that. Yeah. Right? But, I mean, that, yeah, CA Sports is now king of the hill. So you, but in general, it's very splintered right now.

I don't think, do you feel like there's an alpha dog with agencies? Since they all bring different things to the table. Yeah. I mean, look, if you're just going to go on in terms of size and breadth, then CA is obviously right up there. And WME, it's the two of them because of sheer size. I mean, CA believes in its dominance. They think that they are dominant in every sector. And WME, IMG should only hope to be what they are.

And meanwhile, WME IMG seems pretty happy with what they're doing. I mean, they're both backed by private equity. So these agencies are not self-owned now for the first time. I would say WME IMG looks like they're more determined to be building toward a massive public opening would be my guess uh look they they've been on i mean just i'm just kind of adding giant assets yeah big big i mean you know over eight billion dollars and just those two acquisitions and that's crazy um so i i i definitely think you know those private equity firms um particularly wme they may wind up going public uh sooner rather than later didn't you think it was interesting that a recurring theme in the book was how agents eventually get tired of being agents that they

hit a point where they're just like there's got to be more in life than just me getting a commission and having to constantly babysit people and worry about them. And, and they just all burned out on it over and over again. It was the same kind of sentence. Well, it's for a reason, right? I mean, like if I, if I like literally took 25 year old bill and said to you, I'm going to park you in an office and you're going to like literally work harder than you've ever worked before. And you're going to have to be totally responsive to all these people who are going to be calling you. Seven days a week.

Seven days a week. There's no such thing as off time. And you're going to have to be in a very, very, very, very competitive world. And P.S. at the end of the day, they owe you nothing. And they might leave. That's another recurring theme. At any second, they might leave. Eva Longoria, I interviewed her maybe five six months ago and she's in the book talking about

how great you know ca was and all the things that and you know she left last month seriously she left i mean you know it's like uh so you just change that for the paperback i mean you know no i want to go back and interview her now for the paperback and say, you know, why did you leave? But I mean, there's there's you know, there's no guarantees. And so, I mean, just think about all the agents in town who work at smaller agents who have, you know, agencies and have worked with these student directors who have like, you know, tried and tried and tried to get a movie made. And then they finally get a movie made and it's a really successful movie. And all of a sudden, the next thing that's happening is they're calling up saying hey i'm sorry man like thanks for the last six years sticking with me i'm signing with uh ca now and it's like and you're sitting there at that other agency and you're just you're just toast i mean unlike sports

agents and some other agents they can't just lock somebody up to the long-term deal where they know they're going to get the commission all the time if it's movie by movie well that was the cool thing about the lebron quote too which was you know when he left ca i mean you know i mean they had done they had tried to be really good to him but you know once rich paul was going out that was it goodbye you know i've still never it's always felt like there was more meat on that bone. Everybody's kind of still quiet about that whole thing for the most part. You got more than I've seen anyone get. But I don't know. There's a lot more.

That whole group was pretty tight. I will say this about the oral history format. You do reach a point where people are willing to say something, and then they're going to go on background. And I try and use some of that background with the interstitials and so i did talk about you know worldwide west and some of the other yeah aspects of that but um truth is i could probably write 50 pages on it if it wasn't the oral history format are you offering to do this for the ringer? A lot of people were very open with me about things.

And, you know, that was a very tight knit group. You know, Leanne was a big part of that whole thing. So was Wes. And I don't know. In general, I kind of feel like it's been glossed over as a major sports story where you have LeBon as a vested interest in this agency that not only is he a client of but other players people that he plays with people on other teams i've never does he get does he get like if the equity of the company comes up that's good for him i i've never told i don't it's kind of the story adam silver doesn't ever want anyone to talk about well that's

one of the reasons why it's a huge conflict of interest i wanted to uh you know at least get it get into it in the book at least you know the seeds of it because i felt like it it hadn't been talked about a lot but um there's a lot of a lot of repercussions to that story a lot of meat on that bone and when you think about the fact that CA, you know, just right before it, had Wade, Bosh, and LeBron. So they're in the room, right? And they got three. I mean, Pat Riley talked to me about it.

Well, Henry Thomas had two of them and Leon had LeBron. Right. But it was all coordinated. It was beautifully choreographed years before. Leon Rose, I mean, like really smart chess player. Yeah. Like, I mean, you kind of, oh, that's going to happen in two years. So you do a two-year deal.

You don't do a three-year deal. And I mean, Carmelo was the one who kind of like didn't play by the timetable. He had the other agent, right? Yeah, to max the leverage. I told him though in 07 to do three-year out. And I think that other agent was worried. You know, he's trying to lock Carmelo up

for as many years as possible, probably for the commission. But Carmelo stays the extra year, doesn't time it right. But, I mean, the repercussions are great. What ifs? Because if those four decided, screw it, let's all play on the same team, we'll all take discounts, like, holy shit, now the whole decade of the

NBA is different. But in general, the LeBron thing's fishy to me. Maybe fishy is the wrong word. It's something. He's a stakeholder in a company that represents other NBA players that he plays with and competes against. It seems strange. I mean, the good news is at least ESPN got the decision out of it. So they had that going for them, which is nice.

Do you think the decision was a success or a failure in retrospect? It certainly raised LeBron's profile. I think it raised his profile and the fact that he went. I mean, obviously, the fact that he went i mean obviously the fact that he went there was that was huge it was was huge it got a huge rating for espn yep it got a huge rating for espn and i think the next day everybody at espn was firing shots at each other just because it was one of those unique moments by the way in, in Bristol culture. I was so glad I wasn't involved. In Bristol culture where, I mean, usually, you know, there are certain, as you know, certain covenants to life in Bristol.

Yeah. And one of them is don't shoot your own troops. And the next day, it was like Warren's Eve on time. Send Laurie's guns and money because everybody was really firing away at each other. That was one of the bloodiest aftermaths of the last you know decade it's well i think the big regret was having jim gray in there who wasn't technically really an espn person like i think what wasn't that part of it that it was like well if we're going to do this don't why isn't one of our own people the person that was that was that was a huge part of it yeah yeah and i think that you know, for Skipper and John Wildhack, who's part of it, like, you know, it was a Faustian bargain, which is OK.

It's coming as a package deal. So, you know, we got to do it. Did I ever tell you? I swear to God this happened. I swear on my kids. A reader had a mailbag question joking that LeBron should do the decision. Like it was the going into that last season that LeBron should do after the year, do it like his free agency, like it's the bachelor and just vote people off every week.

And I thought it was a really good idea. And when we were at all-star weekend in 2011, which I think was Dallas, me and Skipper and Connor met with Maverick and we talked about the idea. And then it just kind of, i don't know what happened it's was just out there and then we assumed we were going to follow we all thought he was going to make the finals remember it was oh so it was 2010 right um so that that's i think the all-star game was maybe it wasn't dallas wherever the nba all-star game was that year um but um so we go and we're like well after the playoffs lebron's going to make the final it wasn't Dallas, wherever the NBA All-Star Game was that year.

So we go, and we're like, well, after the playoffs, LeBron's going to make the finals. But when he lost to Boston, I was like, well, he'll never do that idea. And I never even pursued it, thought about it, anything. And then all of a sudden, it was like, Jim Gray had this great idea. And I was like, I mean, maybe he came up with it independently. I mean, he probably did. But I was always amazed that that idea happened when not only was it in my mailbag, but we actually met with Maverick. Wow.

I never told you that story. No. But, you know, I guess those were those days when you and Skipper and Connor were, you know, joined the hip and singing Kumbaya and able to, you know, pitch things together. A lot of hotel bar drinks. You know, I was thinking... You did have your... Look, one of the things that I constantly remind people, you did have your golden era there.

I mean, people have short memories. People have short memories? Who said I didn't have a golden era? No, I think they have a tendency to focus on, you know, the departure because, you know, but I think there were some... I had a great run. It was awesome.

We had a really fun time. On all levels, though, I mean. Yeah. I mean, even summer of 2013, I remember really, really pitching Nate Silver to come and really pitching him on like what a creative place this had become and how cool it was to work there. That was summer of 2013. The big thing for me, i think skipper is the best content executive the company's ever had i mean you you look at all the stuff that he did it's amazing like he going back to the website the magazine 30 for 30 um just on and on and on

grantland all the stuff that he's done that he had a sense in the foresight to back soccer you know was there an espPN executive who did more, made more smart moves and less failures? You know, he got them away from all those stupid TV movies they were doing and stupid shit like Bonds on Bonds. Kind of veered them away from that into stuff that was a little more quality. I mean, I think the problem was Skipper needed a Skipper once he became president. Well, that's the thing.

He got promoted and he vacated that job and he was doing a little more quality. And then when he got- I mean, I think the problem was Skipper needed a Skipper once he became president. Well, that's the thing. He got promoted and he vacated that job and he was doing a completely different job. And that's when the company changed for me. Yeah, I'm not so sure that he vacated that job as I think that he thought that because he liked it so much and he knew he was good at it, that I think that maybe he thought

that he could still do it, not necessarily to the degree that he did it before, but still have a big role in it because he didn't replace himself. He thought he could delegate. Well, I mean, that's the first indication, right? Yeah. I mean, so. But think how crazy that is, though.

Like if Belichick left the Patriots or Belichick got maybe Belichick becomes part owner of the Patriots or whatever, he wouldn't then turn over the Patriots to all the coordinators and been like, I'm not hiring a head coach. I'm still going to be involved. But you guys run it now because you know what happens now. Everybody's grabbing territory and turf and and you need somebody at some point who's going to be a tastemaker. Right. But then look at it the other way. So let's just say you're John Skipper and you get Bodenheim's job. Like, do you really want to give up the stuff that you like the most?

I mean, that president job. I mean, you're dealing with like affiliate relations and you've got to be on the plane to Burbank all the time. And you're dealing with like. It's a horrible job. I mean, you know. I mean, the power and the pay is great, but he was on a plane all the time. Sub fees and everything else. Like, I mean, all that stuff that he did with you and all that stuff that he did in the content universe.

I mean, you don't want to give it up because that's like that's your oxygen. I mean, you know, in some ways. So but the thing is, I mean, I could see it just because how much time he had to spend on different things. And it totally changed once he took the other job. Because he was one of those guys, he always knew what was going on. And he would be like, oh my God, I saw this piece on so-and-so. But he's flying to Burbank every week. And he's flying to India to do the Cricket World Series,

whatever that, what is it, the Cricket Cup, whatever. And then he's flying to Austin. And that becomes your job. You're just flying to all these different locations. I think though, in all fairness, I think it was probably harder on you than 99.9% of the people at the company. I think you felt the brunt of it and you recognize the disparity between

Skipper as president and Skipper as head of content more because it like literally affected. I cared about the quality of the stuff we were doing though. What's that? I mean, I cared about the overall quality of the stuff we did as a company. That was a big reason I was able to get stuff done. And I felt when that quality starts to slip. I always felt, the weird thing about me was I always felt like I really wanted to be on

the best team. Like that was part of the appeal of being an ESPN is i wanted to be on the best team doing the best stuff you know and skipper was the best at that like he cared about being the best doing the best things quality like when you think about 30 for 30 that was a 15 million dollar commitment that they made to outsource 30 documentaries to filmmakers like no no media company has ever considered doing anything like that before it's a huge risk but you do it if you really care about what the upside is what do you think though came first which is you starting to recognize that you didn't have the access to him that you normally that you used to have for so many years or you starting to feel like that the quality that you wanted

wasn't part of the experience anymore and then attributing that to it? I don't think it was an access thing. I just think things change. I think people have good runs. They have ebbs and flows, things like that. My issues were always with the people you know on the lower on the level below and you know maybe being in la wasn't a great thing either but um in general like you know i

think one of the craziest things that happened i remember in 2014 when all of a sudden they were heading toward doing espn 35 which by the way, I think I've been told that you weren't even part of that presentation, right? No, I wasn't involved at all. It was a different part of the company. Yeah. And they came up with this idea to do, to celebrate ESPN's 30th, 35th anniversary with all these different documentaries and stuff.

And we're sitting there we're like you know about two-thirds of the way through the second series of 30 for 30 at that point it was so stupid on so many excuse me on so many levels and on top of it they we saw the memo for it and the memo looked like our 30 for our 30 for 30 memo like there were similarities in it we were what the fuck is going on? We're going to do ESPN 35, but also have 30 for 30? And that was this big internal thing. I was trying to squash it, and I don't think that helped either.

I don't think there's a media company right now in existence for the last decade or so where geography does play such a dramatic role. I think that people have a tendency to underestimate just what that biosphere in Bristol is like. And the fact that you were 3,000 miles away, I think it's always going to be a dependent variable, not an independent variable. It was always part of that equation of everything going back and forth between you guys. I mean, I look at it really positively that we did a lot of good stuff. And we were able to kind of navigate some of that.

And then I look at just how hard it is to do good stuff, especially in a big company. But I think a lot of what that Bristol culture is, is just protecting the infrastructure of stuff and you see what how they do it with the studio shows the people on the studio shows change all the time right the way they change them don't the people who are in charge of those studio shows never change like when you never see turnover with the executives who kept picking the people that they decided didn't didn't work i mean in my case i left but um but it's they do it the same way every time it's always centered around the host heavily produced short sound bites everything's gotta push toward the upcoming game and you know and then they're

like well how do we get how do we get to do like a show like the barkley show it's like because the bar the tnt is doing something completely different with the Barkley show. It has no resemblance to anything you guys are doing. Well, it's going to be interesting because obviously, you know, John Waldak,

who was, you know, under Skipper and still looked over a lot of that stuff. I mean, he's gone now and Connor and what's that? We didn't get along. Yeah, I know.

I know. And, uh, so it'll be interesting to see how much disruption there is at espn now that there's some different people kind of looking over at all to say people that yeah i mean a lot of these people should have gotten their chance sooner i will say but i think that's the thing it's tougher when you have a giant company like that to kind of move and that that was a big frustration you know a couple people that were really good some left some almost left a couple times but that's that's the biggest problem about bristol which is you move your family out there your kids starting going to school in connecticut

and it's not like in new york where you're gonna all of a sudden like take a job and you cross the street to a different network I mean you know people like don't date Bristol they marry it and so like they're just like locked in it's like a life sentence and so all of a sudden you have like people like you know I noticed when I started talking to people I've been here like 25 years I've been here like 27 years I've been like and it's like so there's so little movement I mean if you get a guy like wild hack in there comes right out he's not leaving so if you're somebody like connor or burke magnet like you know you'd be you know no matter what kind of job you you know you think you're doing it your your job now and you deserve a promotion or whatever i mean there's some point you have to go yeah i mean it's it's a huge competitive advantage for them and i don't

think it was intentional but they would have all these people who lived in middle connecticut where you know you got public schools it's less expensive but then and i had some friends that this happened to where the mlb network or the nfl network starts pursuing them and what they're offering yeah it's a raise but when you when you remove the cost of living and now i'm living in new york city or los angeles you're actually taking a pay cut to do the job and it's crazy that's how and i again i don't think it's intentional but i think that's it was just one of those it keeps people there it was three of the secret good luck charms for bristol for espn one was keeping your people. The second was no unions.

I mean, because like their cost structure was totally different because of no unions. I forgot about that. And the third is none of the bigwigs are going to go to the middle of Connecticut. So even when like Cap Cities was like owning ESPN, like everybody like, well, how they doing? Yeah, let's have a phone call. Like nobody, nobody's walking the halls telling walking the halls telling anybody what to do there. And that kind of freedom, I mean, that's pretty impressive. Let's take a quick break to talk about our old friends at MeUndies,

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Go to me and these.com slash BS for 20% off your first order. Plus free shipping. That's me and these.com slash BS. Back to Jim Miller. I'm, I'm actually more bullish on ESPN's future than I think. The conventional wisdom now is that

their subs are dropping. I still think they have just a massive lead and you're talking about, oh, they're going to lose money. It's like they made tons and tons and tons of money and now they're just probably going to make less money than they made. They're still going to make tons of money. And they've got a big moat.

A huge moat. One of the things that Skipper did right from the beginning was he just loved the idea of live. I mean, the Rose Bowl, I don't even know if Game of Thrones is going to be on in three years from now, but guess what? People are going to want to watch the Rose Bowl. I mean, he made a commitment,

and he engineered these longer, longer deals with these conferences. And they spent twenty seven billion on college football for like years and years and years. Fifteen five rates. Fifteen point three billion with the NFL. So, you know, you get to add to that point. Like when he took when he basically took over the content, the previous regime was trying to add like an MTV element to everything they were doing. And it was like sports is sports might go away we got to build our movies and our tv things like this i mean uh you know our scripted tv uh reality stuff like that and then skipper was kind of like

now let's show games our business is games at sports center and and we can do this other stuff but ultimately we make all our money with games and by the and and we can do this other stuff but ultimately we make all our money with games and by the way so the big 10 deal just closed which they spent a fortune on yeah the nba deal closed which they spent for there's nothing up for grabs now it's not like the competitors so jamie horowitz over at fox i mean he's taking skip bayless and he's taking jason whitlock but you can't take all of a sudden, you know, you can't take like a huge franchise like Monday Night Football away from them. They've got those properties lined up. So I think that gives them a huge advantage in the years to come.

Fox's mistake was they declared war on ESPN. And I was there. I mean, it was laughable. Like Fox thought they had a chance to beat ESPN with FS1. They did have a chance to go after ESPN2. And I think if they had messaged that coming out of the gate that, look, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We want to be here for 40 years. Maybe someday we can battle ESPN.

But right now we think we can battle ESPN2. We think we can get there pretty quick. We have all these live rights that are better than the ESPN2 live rights. And we can do opinion programming and veer away from, like, I think they have a chance to beat ESPN2 or at least compete with it pretty seriously in the next three, four years. But ESPN1, no way, never a chance. Right. I mean, why go toe to toe with like a $45 billion? I mean, it's, it's just, it's ridiculous. You don't have to do that. I mean, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, look, Jamie spent some serious dollars on talent. And I think, you know, he saved money, too. He canceled some programs.

So I don't think that's reported enough. He did some reallocating. You know, he did reallocating. But it'll be very interesting to see what the success is with some of these people like Skip. And, I mean, ESn wanted to keep skip by list make no mistake about it and you know he wanted to go to fox uh you know jason and colin and others um you know jamie's been very aggressive it'll be it'll be interesting to see how that pans out i think uh you know i think about it sometimes cause you, Jamie's my friend. I want him to do well.

You'll go to an airport or you go to a bar, you go to even like the commissary we have on our lot here. And there's always like one or two or three channels on. And ESPN is always one of the channels. I don't know how you beat that. It's not just like, Oh, we can have better programming or this week we have the World Series and you don't. It's just this fundamental way that ESPN became part of people's lives. It's just there. To push people off those office and bar TVs is a whole other animal than just having your ratings go up.

Right, but I think that one of his bets is, I mean, if you kind of think for a moment that SportsCenter isn't what it used to be and unique content and particularly the opinion content that he's really focusing on, then you might have somebody come into the bar and say, hey, wait a second, you know, I want to see those two guys yelling at each other, you know, so, you know, take that off. I mean, that's probably one of the judo moves that he's counting on. And at least it's proprietary, right? You can't find it someplace else.

The subs is a, is a huge deal though, because, and I remember when I was there, when they used to talk to me about this stuff, this was like 2013, like they, they knew the subs were on the radar in the 2013, like they could see the writing in the wall and they were hoping what they were hoping, they thought it was going to level off. They didn't think it was going to plummet because that was right when they were talking about all right if we do this nba deal what are our subs going to look like five years from now seven years from now ten years from now they didn't see this happening and what they didn't see was was the cord cutters and they had no idea that they were going to lose 10 of their subs over the course of three years and i think there's i think people have overreacted

to this and underreacted because the overreaction is like oh their business is gonna like espn's gonna be fine they're not going away but there's no way to get these people back and with the way these espn cable deals work they can't stream espn like even this deal you i'm sure you read about the big deal this week with they bought part of BAM. And they're going to release digital ESPN. But ESPN can't be on digital ESPN. Right. So obviously their plan is to release,

it's going to have a bunch of other channels they create. And then eventually someday when these deals are up, maybe that's when ESPN goes on this thing. So they're laying the groundwork, which is smart. But in the meantime, they're going to lose a lot of dollars yeah i mean that's you know that's that's 80 a year for like my mom who never watches espn ever that was the whole thing with john mccain and a la carte yeah you know for years that was their biggest concern a la carte and they beat that out and now you know i you see people graduating from college they go and buy apple tv that's it yeah most of the young people especially

some people who have worked for the ringer they they stream everything they do the slink tv or skinny bundle or whatever yeah it's just even apple tv i mean they just there's no need at the same time like i don't think people know how to measure ratings, rewatchability, all that stuff. And especially, I've never trusted the ESPN ratings. Because how do you judge 50 people in a bar on one TV? I know they have weird kooky methods to judge it, but I still don't think it's inaccurate. They say 20 million people watch the Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Or what was it, 25 million?

Was it 25, really? I don't know. Whatever it it was it's got to be higher than whatever the number was so many people watching it together how do you measure that and we're uh listen i i think we're we're straddling errors because we still don't really know how to talk about ratings i mean yeah i see people tweeting about last night's you know prime time ratings on nbc during the olympics it's like are you kidding i mean it's you got to be like the streaming numbers and and all the various channels and all the i mean that's i mean nbc is going to make a fortune off these olympics these numbers are huge they're touching you know more than half of the world uh you know half of the country i mean more than that three quarters, the penetration is unbelievable.

It's just that sometimes we have this anachronistic way to like talk about it. I don't think there's any way to measure it. And I know, you know, especially like the seven day QM is a big thing. And how do you measure on demand? How do you measure the streaming service? All that stuff.

But all I know is like, if I go to a restaurant and I ask, I could pick 50 people and be like, what do you think of Simone Biles? I'm going to say 35 people know who I'm talking about and watched at least one part of her gymnastics. So maybe it's not a 70 share like it was during the days of Bruce Jenner in 1976, but the impact's still there. If you combine it with all the other outlets and distribution paths, I mean, it

blows you away. I mean, last night, who else? I mean, with Phelps and Simone. Phelps is a godson. I mean, Phelps is at that tiger level now where you just want to see him win more. I feel like one day, and I hope it's 100 years from now

for Michael Phelps, but remember when Secretariat died and they did the autopsy on Secretariat? Did you ever hear about this? William Knack said how he had the giant heart. No, his heart was literally, physically twice the size of any other heart. He's a freak. It's just like, oh, my God. And I just feel like Phelps is like Secretariat. I mean, like last night night he was so far ahead of

you know the rest of the pack i like that analogy that's a good you know you just i mean you're never going to see it again i mean so what's it what's your next book i don't know you don't know well done three you've done three iconic franchises i i might be um updating a certain previous book oh no yeah no. Yeah, I'm afraid so. Really? You know, look, there's just, sorry, but there's just too much drama that's happened since then. Oh, my God.

Well, I just gave you my interview. I just talked. Oh, yeah, that's enough. Forget about it. I'm going to give you sodium pentothal, put you horizontal, and get the real story. What real story? No, I mean, a lot of people have mentioned it to me.

There's kind of a part of me, I don't't like going backwards but i don't think it would go backwards just think of all the things that have happened to espn since those guys came out um not only in terms of the stuff we've been talking about about the business changing and everything else but it's been a fascinating decade there's more out there oh well there you go so that sounds book-worthy that sounds real book-worthy. Now you really stepped in it. You know what sucks is being written about when you're a writer? Yeah.

It's a weird experience. Writers are meant to write about other people. They're not meant to be part of the whole, you know. I know, but in a bit of a story. You got so big that it couldn't be helped. Well, it wasn't a big. It was the suspension thing was the one, that's what changed it.

I was on the fucking view. It was like, what the, like, it's impossible. Right. The girls on the view were talking about me. I'm like a sports writer. Well, also, I think it was, look, it was a one-two punch. It was the suspension, but then it was the New York Times, you know, story.

I mean, I think that, look, in the history of ESPN, that's quite an unusual event. So you had two really big matzo balls that just landed attached to your name. Yeah, well, football is a very important sport to them. Right, and you discovered that when? I don't know, probably September 2014. No, get out of here.

I mean, that was the thing that was always interesting to me, which was, I mean, like, you're a bright guy, and you know the sports world, and you knew ESPN. So it was like you were going to the most dangerous playground, and you were picking on, like, the, I mean, like, you could have gone to any other area, any other area and recess and done could have gone to the handball court. Yeah. But I'm just saying, though, I mean, you're not naive. I mean, you knew when you start going down that path with the NFL and with Roger, you kind of understand what kind of high wire act you're doing, right?

Yeah, I would. Is it the high wire act? I like that. With no net. I will say that the one in May was, I mean, that was innocuous. It's just flat out innocuous. If you heard the interview,

I think what happens sometimes when people are really busy is they get forwarded stories that people write and they don't have time to listen to them. It's kind of curious, though, in August of 2016 that you're kind of putting innocuous and the NFL in the same sentence. I don't know. One might take issue with that. What do you mean innocuous? Well, there's nothing when it comes to the NFL. Aren't you living proof that, you know, innocuous may not be the correct word? True.

I think that's fair. But, you know, it was what it was. It was heading toward a certain place anyway, I think, by that point. Right. I actually think, you know know i've been asked i i don't think that the outcome would have been different but the pathway and the route to it would have been and could have been and should have been probably you know different that's all i think everybody turned out fine oh yeah no that's not it's it's not about that wouldn't you say i exceeded

the over under though i mean i thought i was going to get fired after your book came out 2009 well if some of the other stuff stayed 2011 if some of the other stuff had stayed um you know you know that was one of my highlights at grantland was your book came out and walsh got it and walsh happened to be there because they liquidated all of eoe so he was in joan lynch's old office just trapped in there with your book and we all snuck over because the door was closed we were just listening

to him read it and it would just be dead silence and then you'd hear like oh come on and then it would just be seven more minutes of dead silence

and then it would be like that Walsh laugh like ha ha and then like three more minutes and we just could hear it through the walls and I think he read your entire book in like five hours.

Is that possible? One sitting, yeah. It was like a 700-page book. He was just in there. He was trapped in there holding the book an inch from his face and just devoured the book and had real-time reactions to it. We didn't have Facebook Live back then. It would have been fantastic.

Did he come out immediately and ask you to write the letters of apology? No, but you know what it was? There were so many other worse things in there that I kind of skated underneath it. For a couple weeks? Yeah. Yeah, for a couple weeks. Right. I actually, I really like Mike Tirico, and now I feel bad.

I wish I'd, that's the one, I don't feel bad about anything else I said. But I do like Mike Tirico. I just think him and Tony were a bad match. Right. I wish I'd been more diplomatic to Mike Tirico. Well, but I think in fairness to you, I mean, look. Tony got a rod. I love Tony.

Tony got a rod, Dale. I love Tony. Tony's my family. Yep. And that's it. I think everybody who saw that totally got that. I do think the art of selling somebody on TV is the most underrated thing about TV. I've had it all kinds of ways, and it's like pro wrestling.

You're doing a move. I'm doing my pile driver. You better sell it like you hurt your neck on my pile driver. And that's just how TV has to go. And Kornheiser is the best at at that i would have loved to have done remember in vh1 i guess the pop-up you know when like you know what they had the little bubbles that come up with people really thinking that would have been great for you when you were at espn on the nba show like to the pop-ups you know pop-up video like where you actually talk, you write about what people are really thinking at that moment.

But the way they structure those shows, maybe they'll change it at some point, but it's just your turn, your turn, your turn, my turn. Which, you know, when I joined the show, that was not what it was supposed to be. I don't think, when you're doing TV tv like that i think first take is a good example right i don't know if i would like doing first take because first take is basically i do a 90 to three minute monologue and then you react to my monologue and you come back with a three minute monologue and we exchange monologues right and there's an art to it i thought max was a really smart move for them i really like max and max is actually good in that format other people wouldn't be steven a is fantastic in it like steven a can

talk for eight straight minutes i don't know anyone who can do that but it's also eight straight minutes like in one or two end zones he doesn't say anything between the 40 yard lines i mean that's the other thing about that show which which is you can't really talk about vanilla and chocolate and how they're great flavors. You've got to go extreme, and you've got to do that for several minutes at a time. People like that, though. No, that's what I'm saying.

But that's what makes that really tough. Right. So whereas PTI is you have to be able to, you're kind of doing these little mini you read the teleprompter you throw it to the other guy that guy now you have 90 seconds and it can go one or two ways at that point the guy you throw it to can either just talk for a minute straight and you're screwed and when it comes back to you you have 25 seconds you get the next thing or they can go short 2025 and now we're going back and forth

and the people that work on that show this is why wobon and tony are so great is whoever's up they'll go 25 maybe 30 back the ball starts moving back and forth and that's how tv is supposed to work when you're doing it can we just say like seriously i know i tried to say it in the book but eric ride home he's very good at that. Well, he's very good at making sure the ball moves. He is a really, really smart, creative person who has developed things that now live at channels way beyond even ESPN i mean he's he's a pretty smart architect that's a fun what if for your next book which i'm not going to participate in good to hear the uh the uh if kornheiser's wife had okayed the la move how is the course of espn different yeah ESPN different. Yeah. It was, I think, 2011.

And all of PTI, all of Ride Home, everything Ride Home was doing was going to move to LA. And Ride Home was going to take over the basketball show. This was talked about, discussed. And they were going to do PTI from LA. And Kornheiser was going to live across the street from Jerry's Deli. He was all excited about it. He had like his spot picked out. He was going to walk there and, and, uh,

and then Wilbon obviously would have loved it. Like he loves the West coast and everything was going to move. And then they would have done the NBA show, I think with a whole hodgepodge of, you know, uh, magic and Wilbon, Kornheiser, me, whoever else. And it just would have been a rotating thing. And then Kornheiser's wife didn't want to leave. She liked it. She's been on the East Coast, whatever.

But L.A. would have been less of, I mean, there were people in Bristol who viewed your operation in L.A. like Three Mile Island, and they didn't want to, you know, have anything to do with it, and it was a very combative, antagonistic place. I think that with Ride Home there, I mean, he's kind of like Switzerland. That hurts my feelings, the combative antagonistic. You, I mean...

No, I'm not saying that you feel that way, but it's just weird. You didn't sense that? Well, we'd never really dealt with them. I mean, the whole point of it, we were like, we were buried over in our little corner doing our thing. Right, but don't you think that's

part of the explanation of that? Yeah, but I don't think we were's part of the explanation of that yeah but i don't know i think anti i don't think we were antagonistic to them no no no i was talking about them i said there were people in bristol who were antagonistic about la and your operation they were some of them were were jealous i totally get envious and also you guys weren't playing by some of the rules that they had to play by in Bristol. And so there was a whole thing about exceptionalism. Well, the rules are basically we got to drop a couple F-bombs and use footnotes.

But also, they felt like there wasn't a principle out there. They had layers of management on them all the time and you know you're punching the clock and you're you you know and they felt like you know you guys had some more freedom and i think there was a lot of uh you know i mean surely you know this there was a lot of jealousy about the la operation and i think that that would have been somewhat so you're saying the ride home part would have made that yeah i think it would have helped i think it would have helped a lot potentially could add all the ride home shows grantland and basically 30 for 30 maybe all in the all in a way and i don't know what that would have meant but you know it is what it is it's pretty interesting what if though yeah no plus corn plus cornizer would have spent like

five million dollars at jerry's deli i think that's the other outcome a lot of a lot of scrambled eggs no i mean there's lots of, we were just doing that about politics. What if Tibor Gore had allowed Al Gore to let Bill Clinton give a couple speeches for him in 2000? What if Mike Ovitz had taken the universal job? Right. What if Mike Ovitz had taken it?

To do a good job or a bad job? I think it's a fundamentally different company. I think he's much more into distribution channels and technology and all sorts of things. I mean, you could have seen, I don't think he would have had the era of talent, you know, like Universal being known as a great place to hang out. Like, you know, Ron is engineered, but at the same time it may have been a a more diverse place i don't think he would have ever stayed as long as ron there's no way there's no way i mean he's too i i think it seemed like he lost his fastball a little bit you know the best one ever was bodenheimer bodenheimer left incredible exit no no like

has there ever been a better exit in the history of media in no in the history of western civilization the best the guy who like literally it's the red carpet on the espies and the most unassuming guy with tassel loafers with the lowest profile in the world turns out to be the shark he's the smartest guy in the world he's like i'm out people like where are you going we're doing great it's like no i'm good i'm gonna i'm gonna spend more time with my yacht i'm totally fine i'm like i bought a boat yeah he's like 51 years old in perfect health and uh i mean the most unbelievable timing it was almost like how dogs can hear noises when other people can't like dogs ears go up and you're like what's the matter what are you like bodenheimer's ears went up and he's like i'm out i had a great run i'll see you guys later it's it's unbelievable weird

shit's about to happen i'm done and by the way the chairman title john skipper don't worry about that because i you know it's fine i don't mind it as a transition thing but i'm not gonna be really you know i'll be here when you need me what a great guy don't worry about it you did you ever find one bad person or one person anything bad about bowden armor when you did your book no one person say anything about him no he's just you know, I mean, he is the most decent, hardworking guy. I think that there are people who, you know, particularly coming after Steve Bornstein, who's a real alpha male. I mean, they weren't used to, like, the fact that he was so soft-spoken and he really talked about the culture. But it's very hard to find people who will slam Bo Nimer, especially now, because the guy was like literally the Nostradamus of the sports world.

Jim Miller, Powerhouse, available everywhere, September 7th. Where are you interviewing Ovitz and Ron Meyer? They're at Director's Guild in Beverly Hills. Oh, wow. Day before football season starts. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Thanks to Sonos, the smart speaker system that streams all of your favorite music to any room or every room in just one simple app.

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Don't forget to check out our Facebook page, Facebook.com slash Ringer, where we just put up House Eats 6. Danny Chow soundly defeating Joe House. What a sad day for Joe House fans. Wow. And don't forget about my HBO show Any Given Wednesday. We wrapped the first eight episodes. We're off for a couple weeks, coming back on September 7th. But you

can check out all the old ones on HBO On Demand, HBO Now, and HBO Go. Not only all the episodes, but all the bonus clips we've done, and we actually have some bonus content coming out the next two weeks while we're off. That's it. Enjoy the weekend.

Go America. Go Team USA. Let's do this. See you next week.