Have Keith Theodore Olbermann spend a few seasons working at your television network and see how you feel. Sort of like Kansas after a twister. If Olbermann hadn't been so brilliant and talented, few would have put up with him. But Olbermann has a talent that can't be taught. He can relate to people on the other side of the camera and, indeed, relate to the camera itself in a way that comes across as second nature. And yet he once told an interviewer that on some level, he's always making fun of television: "Like, 'Look how ridiculous this is, me sitting here and you sitting on the other end, watching me—what are you doing that for?' I think that's always been my attitude." Olbermann agreed to come to ESPN in the spring of 1992 as an anchor for the 11 p.m. SportsCenter. In the last year of his contract with KCBS Los Angeles—which the station chose not to renew—he had been making $475,000. His starting salary in Bristol would be just over $150,000.

Keith Olbermann

Anchor

When I was at CNN, we used to look at ESPN as our comic relief, because for a long time, in terms of sports news, CNN was a ten-times-better product than ESPN. I used to look at my old friend [Chris] Berman sweating away in the studio without a teleprompter, trying to read his notes. I thought, Thank God that there's somebody on the air in worse shape than we are. And then I finally figured out how they survived for nearly a decade with no funding: They were in the middle of nowhere. Across the street was a McDonald's, what was always reputed to be a toxic-waste area, and cows. So unless you're a freelance dairyman, there was no place else to go.

Bob Ley

Anchor

I still remember the lunch when [ecutive vice presidents] John Walsh and Steve Anderson were deciding whether they were going to hire Keith. I said, "You're aware of his reputation, aren't you?" They said, "Oh, it's not going to be like that. He's not making all that much money." I said, "It's not a function of money. Know what you're buying." When he arrived, Keith had one thing in mind: It was Keith. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that.

Olbermann

One night right after we started, swamped by the work and a little jealous that CNN was just a thirty-minute show and we were doing an hour, I said, during a commercial, off air, to Dan [Patrick], "This is a BIG fucking show." He laughed, I laughed, and so I figured I'd get him to giggle on the air by saying, "When this BIG…show continues." The next day, a dozen people came up to one or both of us and said, "The big show!"

Dan Patrick

Anchor

I remember we did it for a while and the guys on the six o'clock—Bob Ley, Robin Roberts, and Charley Steiner—didn't like the fact that we called it "The Big Show," like we thought we were better.

Olbermann

It was never personal with Charley. I think Bob resented it, and Robin couldn't have cared less. And management was saying, "We don't want you putting an individual stamp on your SportsCenter." I was thinking, Yeah, right, that boat sailed already, too.

Walsh

We had one huge editorial blowout. Huge, huge, huge. It was the July Fourth weekend, and they were going off the rail; it was crazy. So we had a meeting. One of the points of the meeting was, "You can have your nickname, but when you're going to break, it's SportsCenter." So Keith said, "What do you want us to say, just 'This is SportsCenter'?" I said, "Yeah, that'll be just fine." So they started to say, "This is SportsCenter." It was Keith sticking it to us, because he was going to promote it in the least promotable way: "This is SportsCenter."