George Bodenheimer is the President of ESPN and ABC Sports, (replacing Howard Katz as the latter in 2003). He is the overseer of all sports programming for ESPN.
You can thank Bodenheimer for ESPN Original Entertainment, which is responsible for Playmakers, A Season on the Brink, 3, Beg, Borrow and Deal, and I’d Do Anything. You can also thank him for that ESPN Mobile phone you never knew existed. (You know, the one they put Kirby Puckett’s face on the night he died?)
Notable quotes: “Anybody looking for the demise of ABC Sports is barking up the wrong tree.” – Bodenheimer in 2005, approximately a year before ABC Sports became ESPN on ABC.
Under Bodenheimer’s watch, ESPN has acquired the NBA, Monday Night Football and NASCAR, while jettisoning the National Hockey League and losing postseason baseball. During that same time period, ABC lost the NHL, NFL, Bowl Championship Series, golf, Keith Jackson and Al Michaels. Oh, and the “thrill of victory” and “agony of defeat”, too. But at least it got the rights to “Ali Rap” (which will air on ABC today at 2:00).
