ESPN

Those Guys Have All the Fun

 

James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

Published in 2011, this is a nice readable history of an entity that permeates most every American guy's life.  Starting as infant and struggling cable station in 1979, The "Enterainment and Sports Programming Network" has grown into a monolith that permeates all of sports. It's founders were a father and son pair that did not realise that what they were trying to do was impossible,  but they did it anyway.  Eventually shoved aside, they started a revolution in how sports are percieved in the world. Today, ESPN, is the most profitable part of the Disney Company, and in a lot of ways, the most important.  Kind of ironic when it was percieved as  kind of a "throw in"  in the Disney/ABC/Cap Cities  merger.

     This 745 page book is written in an almost stream of conciousness interview style.  While at times difficult to keep all the characters straight, it is a fascinating story told by the people who were there at the time.  From the money people to the people behind the camera to the on air personalities, you meet and learn to like and dislike all that were involved.  Lots of inside stories, and fascinating insights to people we watch almost every night on TV.

     While kind of intimidating in size, because of the format of short bits of interviews being intertwined, and because most everyone reading are familiar with the basic subject, its a book you can read a little at a time without losing the story the authors are trying to tell.