During each day’s episode of PFT Live, I keep the IM window open so that Rosenthal can let me know about any potential developments in real time.
Thursday’s message almost caused me to fall out of my faux leather converted barber chair.
Dick Ebersol, a fixture at NBC Sports since 1989 and a legend in the television industry who created Saturday Night Live with Lorne Michaels, has resigned.
Though it was Rick Cordella who lured us to NBC like the Duke brothers persuaded Eddie Murphy to climb into their limo and Kevin Monaghan who helped seal the deal, it was Dick Ebersol who fully supported the move and who has served as a friend and mentor to me while I’ve made the clumsy transition from Internet hack to quasi-mainstream-whatever-it-is-that-I-now-am. He taught me the real value of relationships in this business, and every suggestion he ever made was not a good one, but a great one.
Most importantly, Dick regularly read the site. He never told me what to write and what not to write, even if he personally disagreed with what I wrote.
I’ll greatly miss working with him but I look forward to continuing to work with Rick and Kevin and all of the other folks at NBC with whom I’ve interacted since July 2009 (if I try to list them, I’ll inadvertently leave someone out). 30 Rock is a special place, and although it won’t be the same without Dick there, we remain very happy to be part of the NBC family, and we look forward to continuing with NBC well into the future.
We also look forward to working with Mark Lazarus, who reportedly will lead the NBC Sports Group after becoming earlier this year the President of NBC Sports Cable Group. Mark previously served as President of Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc., and most recently he worked as the President of Career Sports & Entertainment in Atlanta.
Meanwhile, we’ll continue to pump out pro football content around the clock, even as the flow of news during the lockout eventually reduces to the equivalent of a leaky faucet.
