Dick Ebersol, once hailed by the Sporting News as the “most powerful person in sports,” was never much of an athlete. A “mediocre forward” on his high school basketball team, he admits that he was “primarily distinguished by my thick glasses and limited ability.” He preferred to watch instead, finding the earliest sports broadcasts on television “magical,” even on the black-and-white set of his childhood. From a young age, he recalls over video from his home in Telluride, Colo., he was “transfixed by whatever was going on behind the camera. I wanted to learn as much about that as possible.”
Mr. Ebersol’s success behind the camera as a producer and executive for NBC has earned him spots in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame and the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame and a 2009 Sports Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, among other honors. He was responsible for securing NBC’s place as the network home of the U.S. Olympics and for creating “Sunday Night Football,” a program that has dominated prime-time ratings since its launch in 2006. He also helped to create the long-running sketch-comedy show “Saturday Night Live.”
