"X" marks the spot - interview with Entertainment and Sports Programming Network President and CEO Steve Bornstein - Interview

Chief Executive, The, Oct, 1994 by Joseph L. McCarthy

Faced with a saturation of conventional sports programming in mature markets, ESPN's Steve Bornstein looks for growth on the information superhighway; outside the U.S.; and in a second network that covers bungee jumping, sky surfing, and beach volleyball--the sports of a younger generation marked by a single letter.

"We don't ever call them sports 'nuts,' around here," says ESPN President and CEO Steve Bornstein, taking mock umbrage at an interviewer's question. "The correct term is sports 'enthusiasts.'"

Whatever the nomenclature, there are enough of that red-blooded bunch to have made ESPN an icon of popular culture: Syndicated columnist George Will is reported to have said that if all of his cable channels were taken away except ESPN, he probably wouldn't notice. So many, in fact, that the network last year kicked off a second affiliate, ESPN2, a service that caters to younger viewers, those aged 18-34.

While Bristol, CT-based ESPN updates scores in traditional fashion, via onscreen "windows" during broadcasts, "Deuce," as the second network is called by some viewers, last year featured "Jock-and-Roll," scores set to rock music. ESPN has dour-faced, balding college basketball maven Dick Vitale. ESPN2 has former MTV personality "Downtown" Julie Brown, who has been known to patrol locker rooms asking players how they keep their buns in shape. But perhaps most importantant, while the staples of ESPN remain flagship sports such as baseball and football, ESPN2 features rough-and-tumble pro hockey, along with "extreme" sports, such as snowboarding, sky surfing, skateboarding, and beach volleyball.

"All of the sports that I can't do," says Bornstein, 42, a bespectacled, youthful-looking man with just a hint of a paunch.

If Bornstein can pinch an inch these days, it's partly because he's a couch potato by corporate conscription: He spends much of his time evaluating his product, an associate says. Given the network's rapid expansion over the past several years, there's lots more to follow. While ESPN Radio is affiliated with 275 stations, ESPN International broadcasts in 120 countries. All told, Bornstein says, the network covers 65 sports in 11 languages, transmitting 4,500 hours of original programming each year, excluding ESPN2. ESPN--which is 80 percent owned by ABC/Capital Cities, with the remainder held by The Hearst Corp.--is the largest cable network in the U.S. It reaches some 63 million homes stateside and has deals with Major League Baseball, the NFL, NHL, CFA, NCAA, NASCAR, PGA, LPGA, and PBA.

Bornstein, also a corporate vice president with Cap Cities/ABC, acknowledges that the network is well positioned to take advantage of a number of trends, including the information explosion and the increasing importance of entertainment-driven businesses in the national economy. ESPN increasingly is a news-gathering operation: Bornstein recently expanded "SportsCenter," the network's primetime anchor program, from 30 to 60 minutes.

"When many people today say they watch 'the news,'" writes sports columnist Frederick C. Klein in The Wall Street Journal, "they mean they tune into 'SportsCenter.'"

In addition, the network's documentaries on such topics as steroid use and autograph fraud remain an industry standard. To boot, Bornstein is accelerating on the information superhighway: Under a joint venture with Prodigy Network--an online information and entertainment service--ESPN offers a sports information data base, ESPNET. The network also makes instructional sports CD-ROMs, and video games under a joint venture with Sony Corp.

Of course, Bornstein--a former TV cameraman and crew chief before signing on at ESPN in 1980--faces his share of challenges. Madison Avenue has been slow to board the Deuce bandwagon, he says, though the new network should hit the black "somewhat faster" than the six years it took the original ESPN. Cable industry re-regulation--including the entrance of the Baby Bells into the business--threatens to roil the distribution mix, and channel capacity issues cloud the prospects for expansion. Then there's the increasing cost of carrying such marquee sports as baseball and football. ESPN reportedly lost $50 million a year on its last Major League Baseball contract, over four years, a factor that caused it to cut back from five games a week to three when it renewed its option in 1993 for six more years.

In addition, Bornstein says, competition is stiffening from both network television and national cable networks such as TNT, HBO, and USA. Even the leverage of some regional players is on the rise: The proposed acquisition of New York's Madison Square Garden by ITT and Cablevision Systems, for example, would unite under the same corporate roof MSG Network and Sportschannel, which combined carry games of the New York area's Knicks and Nets basketball franchises, and the Rangers and Islanders hockey clubs.

A master of one liners--"We don't want to be roadkill on the information superhighway," Bornstein says--the executive is curt almost to the point of being confrontational. "I do [have an opinion on re-regulation]," he says, "but I'm not going to talk to you about it." Meanwhile, he also has a fondness for collecting pithy sayings in the form of framed calligraphy, hung on his office walls: "No Guts, No Glory," and "Kill The Ones We Eat, Eat The Ones We Kill." A commemorative World Cup soccer ball rests on a coffee table, and a clutch of Emmy awards sits on the windowsills. Also on the wall is a motorcycle helmet: Off hours, Bornstein says in a conversation with CE Managing Editor Joseph L. McCarthy, he rides the back roads near his Connecticut home on a BMW 750.