ESPN pioneer Evey visits Missoula

Names commonly associated with the world’s pre-eminent sports network – Olbermann, Vitale, Berman and Scott – are as household as the abbreviated title of the entity itself: ESPN.

The network has made celebrities out of countless sportscasters.

However, a man inarguably more key in the network’s existence and longevity remains a virtual unknown to industry outsiders.

Stuart Evey, ESPN’s founding chairman and a Montana native, perhaps more than anyone, was responsible for keeping the idea of the 24-hour sports network from being scrapped.

Evey, along with ski film patriarch Warren Miller, is in Missoula this week. Both are being honored as recipients of the Lewis & Clark Pioneer in Industry awards, sponsored by the Montana Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs and UM’s School of Business Administration. Both of them will speak today in the University Theatre at 1:30 p.m.

Evey lives just a hop, skip and an Idaho from Missoula, in Spokane, Wash., and Montana is not new territory for him. He was born in Havre and lived in Montana until he was a
teenager.

After receiving his reward Thursday night in the University Center Ballroom, Evey regaled the crowd at the $150-per-plate banquet with the story of how he came to be one of the forces behind ESPN.

He was the vice president for Getty Oil in the 1970s when Rasmussen and his crew approached Evey about Getty Oil backing the ESPN venture in the late ‘70s. The idea of a 24-hour sports channel had been turned down by all the networks and sports industries.

Evey said the ESPN folks were resigned to ditching the idea after their presentation to him and his inevitable rejection. But then Evey, with Getty’s board of directors’ approval, said yes.

The board initially shared the opinion of ABC Sports President Rune Arledge who told Evey the idea of non-stop sports programming was “sure folly.”

But he convinced them, having no idea how big ESPN would or could be.

“At the time I was just merely hoping it could be somewhat a successful venture,” Evey said. “I had no idea it would be as big as it is today.”

The network now reaches viewers on all seven continents and is watched daily by 93 million people.  After initially enduring considerable angst lining up advertisers and getting cable providers to run the programming, ESPN launched on Sept. 7, 1979.

The network didn’t automatically get the rights to broadcast all sports; it had to battle with the “Big Three” (ABC, NBC, CBS), and in the early stages could only garner college sports and obscure professional ones. With the implementation of Title IX, which dictated equality for women in sports, ESPN offered a venue for all NCAA sports, even (or especially) the minor ones, to be aired.

The first airing of SportsCenter, ESPN’s hallmark program, bore little resemblance to those of today. Evey showed a clip Thursday night of the first SportsCenter and it lacked the neon lights and catchy music it’s known for today. The set was decked out in 1970s orange, and commentator Lee Leonard sat on a metal folding chair, the theme song was cheesy and “Laverne and Shirley”–esque.

“A lot has happened since that time,” Evey said. However, the first program showed signs of what was to come.

Leonard, promoting a slow-pitch softball doubleheader that was scheduled to follow SportsCenter said, “Softball is one of those game we all know something about. Why? Because we all play it on Sunday when we drink a little beer.”

When Getty Oil sold to Texaco in 1984, it was Evey who negotiated the network’s sale to ABC. They paid $300 million.

“They paid a heavy price for being late to the party,” Evey said.

Evey said it was also his decision to hire basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale for $175 a game with “no guarantee of how many games he would do.” Vitale, still with the network, is one of its most recognizable personalities.

Evey left the network in the ‘90s, but said he still has strong ties with some of the people there. Being part of ESPN’s beginnings, Evey said, is the hallmark of his career.

Thanks largely to his support ESPN went from the verge of never happening to becoming a cultural phenomenon. Today, it is so interwoven with the global culture that it’s difficult for many to remember what life was like before it.

“From a personal standpoint, I’m very proud of my role,” he said.