Those Guys Have All the Fun has made quite the impact in the sports blogosphere. ESPN stands as the singular giant in the sports industry, so far-reaching that it has become virtually synonymous with sport itself. It has blurred the line between athlete, journalist, and fan. It has become the establishment, a massive multi-billion dollar company that is worth more than the NBA, MLB, and NHL combined. It has also at times been accused of taking itself a little too seriously.
It is for this last reason that Jim Miller and Tom Shales’ book was garnering press in the weeks prior to its release. The excerpts made available in advance revealed that the book wasn’t simply an outsider’s perspective on ESPN – it was an account pieced together from interviews with ESPN employees. This is a guess, but I’d say that something like 95% of the book’s text is actually direct quotes from employees, simply arranged and ordered into a narrative, with only occasional text from the authors to give context or summary.
I was concerned that the format would make the book a bit tedious – and since the book is over 700 pages long, tedium is no small worry. The trick, however, is in the editing. The authors have done a wonderful job placing and ordering the quotes to form a coherent and engaging story. It works well, and it makes for oddly funny moments – five or six quotes in a row from various ESPN employees, all complaining about the same person, followed immediately by a quote from the person in question, saying, “I think my time there was great. I think I was well-liked.” If the authors just described the scenario, it’d be a little painful, and not particularly funny, but to read the words of the people, to gauge for oneself how candid or honest each person is being, adds a fascinating element.
ESPN employees sniping at each other and complaining about the company played a large role in the advance publicity of the book. Little, Brown kept the contents of the book secret for weeks, finally lifting the embargo just days before the release date. Readers were not disappointed – the number and size of the egos meant for plenty of TMZ-ish celebrity gossip. Chris Berman, Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick, Mike Tirico, Rick Reilly, Bill Simmons, and virtually every big name in the ESPN universe is targeted at one time or another. Some of it is merely petty, and some of it is legitimately disturbing.
Fortunately, the gossip column is just a part of the book, and not its entirety. There’s plenty of material on the early days of ESPN, the expansion into the largest cable network, and the forays into radio, magazines, and the array of secondary channels. If anything, there’s so much information that it’s a little daunting, but the format makes it easy to read in chunks – I’ve had it sitting on my bedside table for a couple of weeks, and it’s perfect whether you want to pick it up and read 5 pages or 50 pages at a time. A must read for the sports fan, especially for those interested in the role of media and the evolution of journalism.
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