Former chairman of NBC Sports, Independent
Dick Ebersol's autobiography is called 'From Saturday Night to Sunday Night' | Book of the Day
Dick Ebersol was a major player in the world of American entertainment until his retirement over a decade ago. He co-created Saturday Night Live, and created Sunday Night Football, which was once the most watched television program in America. In this episode, we get a glimpse of Ebersol's 40-year career as he talks with NPR hosts Ari Shapiro and Juana Summers about his new autobiography From Saturday Night to Sunday Night. We also hear from Ebersol how he coped with some of the worst, tragic moments in his life.
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About Dick Ebersol
Dick Ebersol, the former chairman of NBC Sports and co-creator of *Saturday Night Live*, published his autobiography *From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears and Touchdowns in TV* in 2022. In interviews and public appearances to promote the book, Ebersol discussed his career, including his role in co-creating *SNL* with Lorne Michaels, his work producing the Olympics, and his creation of *Sunday Night Football*. He also spoke about personal tragedy, including the loss of his son Teddy, and said that he believes talking about a deceased child helps maintain their legacy. Ebersol described his management style as relationship-based and said he attributes his success to outworking others and building strong connections. Ebersol also shared anecdotes from his career, including how he convinced the Atlanta Olympic organizing committee to have Muhammad Ali light the cauldron in 1996, and how Fred Rogers personally asked him to stop the *Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood* sketch on *SNL*. He praised former colleagues such as broadcaster Dick Enberg and NBA Commissioner David Stern, and reflected on the importance of treating people well, citing Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen as an example of a leader who "led by example and treated everybody the same."
Transcript (15 segments)
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Andrew Limbaugh0:02
Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Dick Ebersol is one of those people whose name isn't necessarily on the tip of everybody's tongue, but happens to be one of the most influential people in entertainment, which by extension means he's one of the most influential people period. His new autobiography is titled 'From Saturday Night to Sunday Night,' a nod to a couple little TV shows he helped make you might have heard of. One of them is called Saturday Night Live and the other is Sunday Night Football. You know, just a couple of canonized American cultural institutions. Anyway, the folks at All Things Considered put together this piece where NPR's Ari Shapiro and Juana Summers talk us through his life and some of the real heart-wrenching tragedy he's been through.
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Juana Summers0:48
From NPR News, this is All Things Considered. I'm Juana Summers.
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Ari Shapiro0:51
And I'm Ari Shapiro. For TV viewers of a certain age, Dick Ebersol shaped your weekend for 40 years. His broadcast career started when he dropped out of college in 1967 to join ABC Sports. Ebersol eventually moved on to NBC, where he co-created Saturday Night Live. Later, he rebuilt that network's sports department. His crowning achievement, Sunday Night Football, would become the most watched TV show in America. Dick Ebersol details his career and life in a new book, 'From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My 40 Years of Laughter, Tears, and Touchdowns in TV.' So imagine a time when he didn't even have a TV set.
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Dick Ebersol1:35
Spanning the globe in the early '60s as a kid, my world exploded when my father decided finally to allow television in our home. I loved baseball at the time, I love football, but my first great love affair with television sports was ABC's Wide World of Sports. I love trying to write sports myself, but I found myself often at a loss with my vocabulary for really making it exciting enough for a reader. And now suddenly there was this television show that was making me feel, whether it was on a big mountain top in Austria or in a football stadium, I thought I was at the game. And all those things fed into this central part of my whole head, which was this is how you do it, this is how you best tell stories.
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Ari Shapiro2:53
Living abroad in France, Ebersol went to the 24 Hours of Le Mans car race in 1967.
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Dick Ebersol2:59
All I cared about was could I find the Wide World of Sports people. And finally, after searching for several hours, I saw a Wide World of Sports banner and I went over. It was by a camera setup. And ultimately, I talked my way into a gopher job: go for coffee, go for ice cream, go for cigarettes. And that was the beginning of my career in television.
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Ari Shapiro3:22
At ABC, he worked his way up from Olympics researcher in 1968 to eventually being groomed to replace his boss, the legendary TV executive Roone Arledge. Ebersol wasn't 30 yet then. In 1974, he was stunned by a call from NBC. It had a hole in its Saturday night lineup and they wanted to fill it with a new kind of show, and they wanted him to create it. So he did.
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Dick Ebersol3:50
Saturday Night Live from its beginning in 1975, and he was the one who unleashed Lorne Michaels on Saturdays. His co-creator and producer was then a relatively unknown Canadian who went on to become the face of a comedy institution. I was roaming comedy clubs on the East and West Coast and meeting various people. I happened to be in an agent's office in LA and this young man came out of the office of one of the better comedy agents in LA, and we were introduced. His name was Lorne Michaels. Lorne and I hit it off, and we made him an offer to come to NBC. I did not fancy myself as a comedy writer, I wasn't, nor was I really a comedy producer. I was a guy who knew how to mount television shows. Whether I could have mounted a television comedy show was not even in my mind a question. But luckily, from day one, I formed this relationship with Lorne that really worked for both of us, and we sort of became a perfect match.
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Ari Shapiro4:57
After a decade at Saturday Night Live, Ebersol eventually returned to his first love, sports. He ran NBC Sports division for more than two decades. One of his biggest wins was acquiring the NBA at a time when the league was about to explode in popularity in the U.S. and abroad. He also made sure the network was the television home for the Olympics for decades to come. From his first gig as a researcher in 1968 to running NBC's Olympics coverage by the 2004 games in Athens, Dick Ebersol's career had gone full circle.
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Juana Summers5:37
Later that year, he was traveling back home with his two sons, 21-year-old Charlie and 14-year-old Teddy, on his jet. They had just had a Thanksgiving to remember with extended family in Los Angeles. After a brief layover in Montrose, Colorado, they were set to take off again.
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Ari Shapiro6:06
The National Transportation Safety Board is examining wreckage of a plane crash that killed the son of NBC Sports executive Dick Ebersol. The NTSB is still far from determining what caused the accident. Ebersol's jet crashed almost immediately after takeoff in snowy conditions. Ebersol, half unconscious and badly injured, was pulled out of the wreckage by his older son Charlie. Teddy, who was sitting next to Ebersol, was swept out of his seat during the crash and his body was found later.
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Dick Ebersol6:39
When people ask me what did I learn from all this, what can I convey to people who've lost a child, I always say the same thing: talk about that child whose deceased and has gone off to meet his or her maker. It's important that you talk about that child and what that child brought into your lives, not so that you'll cry more and more, but just so that that wonderful relationship remains an important part of your family. And I know my grandkids, they'll start asking a million questions about Teddy, interesting questions about did he do this, did he do that, what did he dream about. And I have to say, it doesn't bring us to tears. It puts this wonderful young boy in our family as a presence almost every day to this day.
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Ari Shapiro7:39
Despite immense physical and mental pain, Ebersol went back to work. While some of us would take it easy after coming back from such trauma, Ebersol created Sunday Night Football. It became the top rated TV show in America almost immediately. Finally, after four decades of giving America its weekend TV, Dick Ebersol retired in 2011. He says he owes all of his achievements to the people he met along the way.
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Dick Ebersol8:12
Those relationships also kept me from ever getting too far ahead of myself with 'wow, look at this success, look at that success.' That kind of ego did not engulf me. I love the people around me, and I would never do anything to make them feel anything other than being the most important part of many, many a project, more important than me.
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Andrew Limbaugh8:37
Dick Ebersol talking about his indelible career, which you can read all about in his book 'From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My 40 Years of Laughter, Tears, and Touchdowns in TV.'