It’s been 15 years. Fifteen!
On July 1, 2009, the switch was flipped on the partnership between NBC and PFT. It continues today, and (unless they wise up and cut the cord) for at least three more years.
You can mainly blame Rick Cordella for it. Now the head of NBC Sports entirely, he had just gotten the reins to NBCSports.com in early 2009 when he called me to propose a partnership. I didn’t want to do it. So I gave Rick a version of what Costanza told Russell Dalrymple regarding the Show About Nothing — I said something like “I need to have full editorial control over all content and without it we’re wasting each other’s time” — and Rick said, “That’s fine by us.”
I still didn’t want to do it. When the servers imploded on the first day of 2009 free agency, Rick bailed us out with access to the NBC platform. It became inevitable at that point that we’d get something done.
Former NBC Sports executive Kevin Monaghan was a big part of laying the foundation for the arrangement, working with Larry Mazza (my business partner since 2007) to put a fair deal in place. Dick Ebersol signed off, and away we went.
Here’s where I’ll try to list everyone who has helped us get the most out of the relationship and will inevitably forget someone and have to send them a bottle of wine to make amends. Mark Lazarus, who succeeded Dick Ebersol, has always been a supporter of what we do and how we do it. Sam Flood foolishly allowed me on TV in 2009 and despite my performance gave me more opportunities.
Matt Casey was the original producer of our digital video segments. It became PFT Live in 2011 and the ProFootballTalk weekday show on NBCSN a year later, before PFT Live became a TV/radio simulcast. It’s currently a two-hour Peacock, SiriusXM, YouTube, podcast extravaganza.
On the web side, Michael David Smith has run the operation for more than a dozen years. In addition to cranking out plenty of posts, he takes care of plenty of important administrative stuff.
Josh Alper has been with us for a very long time, too. You’ll mainly see his posts in the mornings, but he’s always around and ready to go whenever needed.
Charean Williams pops up in the afternoons, with plenty of content that runs deep into the evening. Myles Simmons, our latest addition although it’s already coming up on three years, typically starts posting in the late mornings and then into the early evenings.
We’ve been blessed with relatively low turnover. It’s probably because we don’t work in the same place. If the other writers had to actually be around me on a regular basis, they each would have stormed out, long ago.
On the TV side, Chris Simms became the PFT Live co-host seven years ago. Charean and Myles pitch in on Fridays and whenever Chris is otherwise lounging in his hammock, Piña Colada in one hand and bong in the other. We were honored to have Peter King as the Friday co-host for several years.
Ron Vaccaro has become a great resource for me on the editorial side, helping with important decisions aimed at taking the right approach to our coverage. He also helped shepherd us through last year’s transition to a new content platform.
Amelia Acosta and Gabby Guerard play key roles in making sure that, when you come to PFT, you actually get the content you’re looking for. They’re also instrumental in coming up with effective ways to expand the audience and distributing video clips through digital channels.
On the PFT Live side, we have a great rotation of producers in Courtney Gustafson, Pete Damilatis, and Gary Carter. Kristen Coleman has been the director since PFT Live first debuted as a web show. She otherwise does like six different jobs and there’s no way the show could happen without her.
Gabby Lacona and Kelsey Bartels handle the graphics for the show. Wyatt Nantz, EJ Gentile, and Matt Ortiz handle the editing. Morgan Miller and Mackenzie Jordan handle the social-media component of the show.
We’ve also got a loyal crew of PFT editorial assistants, who previously were tasked with clearing comments and who now do all sorts of things aimed at keeping things moving, including proofreading the posts in the hopes of eradicating typos. They are: Tim Buckley, Tim Sieck, Jeremy Hodge, Mike Kuriscak, Stephen Howland.
It’s amazing to see that many people involved in something that started as little more than a solitary man with a messy apartment which may or may not contain a chicken. Thanks to everyone listed above, we’ve gotten that chicken.
Thanks to you, too, because the entire operation is meaningless without an audience to consume the content. We might disagree when it comes to opinions, but I’ll always be straight with you on the facts.