Monday, December 27, 2021

Wisdom from Roone Arledge

In its issue for December 22, 1969, Sports Illustrated ran a long feature on the relationship between television and sports, and as part of that feature, it ran this quote from Roone Arledge, who was then a 38-year-old wunderkind in charge of ABC Sports:

Sport is a business, not a religion, and there is no sacred way things must be done.  Sport is a set of created circumstances -- artificial circumstances -- set up to frustrate a man in pursuit of a goal.  He has to have certain skills to overcome those obstacles -- or even to challenge them.  And people who don't have those skills cheer him and admire him.  It's that simple.

I think this is really good, and it certainly helps to explain how ABC used to frame a lot of their coverage back during their Golden Era.

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