A lot has changed in the cable world in my two decades of watching TV. Now, MTV gives equal time to "Super Sweet Sixteen" and music videos. Relinquishing its rep as the crappy MTV, VH1 now specializes in sarcastic clip shows and the parading of strung-out celebrities. Comedy Central is through being a never-ending broadcast of old "Saturday Night Lives" with the occasional Cheech and Chong movie. But nothing compares to the hegemonic rise in power of ESPN in the sports marketplace.
I know what you are thinking out there. "Duh. We know how they are the U.S. Steel of sports information and entertainment. We're watching/reading/listening, too. Maybe next week you could inform us that the NFL is popular."
These are all fair points, but what is notable and worth writing about is that last Friday, Mark Shapiro -- the No. 2 man at ESPN -- cleaned out his desk. Maybe he had already done it before last Friday, or maybe he had told an intern to do it. Either way, he soon will have a new office, as he is now employed by Redskins owner Dan Snyder and Snyder's start-up-company Red Zone LLC.
Why should you know Mark Shapiro? For one, he went from being a production assistant on Jim Rome's "Talk2" in 1993 to being the second most powerful person at ESPN behind president George Bodenheim. For those of you who don't know Jim Rome, this is the equivalent of being elected vice president of the United States 12 years from now after starting out as an intern in the Post Master General's Office, except the post master general is obnoxious and has nothing interesting to say.
Why else should you know Mark Shapiro? Without him, we wouldn't have "Pardon the Interruption," "Around the Horn," "Outside the Lines" or the "Sports Century" series. We wouldn't have been privileged to that one glorious season of "Playmakers," the only show I simultaneously knew was absolutely awful and yet never missed an episode. I was giddy when my friend Josh bought it. (Note to Shapiro: You never shipped it. You owe us DVDs with D.H. and Olcyzk and McConnell and you owe us those DVDs now.) Behind the scenes, Shapiro has been instrumental in the negotiation of many of ESPN's most important deals, including the recent acquisition of "Monday Night Football" after three decades on ABC, which according to the New York Post, was a deal estimated at $8.8 billion. Not bad for a guy who started at the bottom and is currently just 35 years old.
There have been some misses along the way: "3," "The Junction Boys," "Tilt," "Cold Pizza" or "Hustle". OK, there have been a lot of misses. As much as I liked Norman Chad reminding me that the Matador roped in young bulls and cut them down every five minutes, a little less on the promo budget and a little more on the casting, script, and, well, everything else, would've gone a long way. (But the toned-down nature of last night's "Four Minutes" was a nice change of pace. Still didn't watch it, though.)
The first task in Shapiro's new journey concerns the Six Flags amusement park chain. As the Washington Post and numerous other publications have reported, "Redskins owner Daniel Snyder's bid to gain control of a struggling theme park company could be the first step in building a family entertainment empire that tries to emulate the variety and success of enterprises like Walt Disney Co." (No shot at Shapiro's former company there or anything). Only time will tell if leaving ESPN was the right move for Shapiro. I'm from Connecticut, and while I love Lake Compounce as much as the next guy, Bristol isn't exactly the most fun place to live (unless you have a fascination with amusement parks made to look like 18th-century Dutch villages).
Whether Red Zone LLC works out or not, the legacy of Mark Shapiro's tenure at ESPN will always be the explosion and depth of programming content he developed, as well as the modern ESPN brand we addicts know and love -- can anyone think "hot seat" and not think "Budweiser" anymore? Who knows, maybe 10 years from now HBO, Fox Sports, Comcast, the NFL Network, College Sports Network, NBATV or the upstart Outdoor Life Network (hey, they have hockey and cycling) will have taken ESPN down a peg and we'll look back on Shapiro leaving as an end of an era. Maybe not. Either way, the next time you're watching The World Wide Leader in Sports, look for some of the innovations from the man who helped make them just that. You won't have to look that hard.
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