“I’m one of the lucky people on the face of the earth,” Schanzer said, “When I was growing up, I had two passions, politics and sports.” In his professional life, Schanzer has had the opportunity to work on both.
His recent work at NBC brought Sunday Night Football to his network in 2006. Hosted by John Madden and Al Michaels, Sunday Night Football on NBC is the beneficiary of much-needed “flexible scheduling,” which allows the NFL to move attractive match-ups into the coveted Sunday night prime time slot.
While Michaels and Madden are responsible for calling the games, Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann are two of the co-hosts for Football Night in America, the 75-minute pre-game show before Sunday Night Football.
Patrick and Olbermann famously worked together on SportsCenter in the 1990s, and Schanzer worked hard to get them back on the set together. Of the reunion, Schanzer commented, “We thought the idea of pairing the two of them would be magic. They’re the original deal. And that will be on display.”
While Sunday Night Football has been a huge success, Super Bowl XLIII will be NBC’s largest event this year. This year the halftime show is featuring Bruce Springsteen, and while the NBC Sports President admitted he has no idea what the Boss is going to play, and said that he would not speculate on that topic, but he did concede that he’s hoping for “Thunder Road.”
And for the main event? Schanzer said the Giants look tough to stop, but that there are no clear favorites in the AFC. “It’s a dartboard,” he said. And when he threw the dart, it arrived in Pittsburgh. Schanzer expressed no confidence in Tennessee, and predicted a Giants-Steelers Super Bowl.
Schanzer says that his story is one of hope. Some parts of his career were more difficult than others, and he admitted that when he arrived at NBC as Vice President of Negotiations, he had never negotiated a deal before in his life.
“For the first three to five years, I felt like I was faking it,” he said. But Schanzer was working in an industry he loved, and his perseverance ultimately paid off. At the end of the day, Schanzer said, “I spent my life in politics and sports, and that’s a pretty good run.”
0 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete