Tennis Channel CEO Ken Solomon was 8 years old in 1978 when Howard Cosell walked into his living room, bellowed “Hello, young man,” watched some U.S. Open tennis on TV — and then bought the young boy’s cherished summer home.
What surely would have been impossible to predict at the time was that that same sequence would prove critical to Tennis Channel securing a key piece of Cosell footage for its Arthur Ashe documentary that debuted late last month, the first such program to receive the Ashe family’s blessing.
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Tennis Channel CEO Ken Solomon’s brush with Howard Cosell in 1978 helped him secure a vital clip for “The Legend of Arthur Ashe.”
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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Documentaries have become distinguishing marks in the sports space, with outlets from ESPN to Showtime investing top dollars in the showings. Tennis Channel is no different, except that with a budget of less than half a million dollars for such shows, it allows for only one documentary a year. But whether the Ashe film would include the Cosell content was far from certain, to the point that for a New York screening on Aug. 26 there were two films ready to go: one with a Cosell interview of Ashe and one without. In fact, the one sent earlier that week to the press for review did not have it.
Only 75 minutes before the screening did Tennis Channel know it could go with Cosell.
Here’s how it got to that point:
Three weeks before the screening, Tennis Channel received a call from Cosell estate lawyer James Gibson informing the channel it needed to pay $5,000 for a clip that showed the commentator asking Ashe what he thought of controversial comments made by NFL star Jim Brown. It was an interview that occurred March 28, 1968.
“You have Howard Cosell turn to a relatively young Arthur Ashe, and say, ‘Jim Brown can’t be friends with a white man,’ and Arthur looks at him, and without blinking says, ‘Well, I can’t relate to that and I don’t understand that and to me, I guess, that would be the height of hypocrisy,’” Solomon said, explaining the importance of the clip.
Tennis Channel had already paid ABC Sports $1,000 for the footage, and with the screening fast approaching, the network didn’t have time at this point to legally examine whether the newly requested fee was, in fact, necessary. But Solomon and the producers felt the clip was crucial because it espoused Ashe’s world view and encapsulated the dignity he radiated, according to so many who knew him.
Solomon flew to New York from Tennis Channel’s California offices the night of Aug. 23, landing the next morning with the situation still unresolved. The channel had offered a minimal fee in response, with an explanation that no other individual in the documentary, including U.S. presidents, had requested payment. No reply.
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The Ashe feature is Tennis Channel’s one documentary for this year.
Photo by: FRED MULLANE / CAMERAWORKS USA
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After a series of more fruitless calls and emails, screening day arrived. Solomon was in a walk-though in the Flatiron tower penthouse that would host the screening, and he decided to take matters into his own hands. He told his office to arrange a call with Gibson, the lawyer, and he jumped into a cab and went back to his room at the Waldorf Astoria. In the interim, Gibson called Solomon’s assistant in Los Angeles and repeated that the price was $5,000.
While that might not seem like a lot, it was for Tennis Channel, given its budget for the project.
“I decided to write him a letter and used all my free time for the rest of that morning, which was 45 minutes,” Solomon said.
At the beginning of the message he wrote that the situation was personal to him, and at the end he explained why. He then told the story of how Cosell had bought that summer home — an iconic, triple A-frame on stilts in Westhampton Beach, Long Island. “Between the bridges on Dune Road,” Solomon said, as if he were picturing it.
After composing the letter, Solomon left for the USTA Billie Jean King National Center, late for a charity event at the U.S. Open scheduled before the screening. Shortly after walking onto the grounds, his phone rang. His assistant informed him he had Hilary Cosell, the famed broadcaster’s daughter, on the phone.
“She said ‘My attorney has forwarded the letter you sent to him and first I wish to say, I am sorry for any confusion. We often don’t know who is reaching out to us. After reading it, I have asked him to approve the use of the clip at no fee.’
“At that point, I was about as close to crying as a grown man could get,” Solomon said.
Cosell and Solomon went on to speak for 20 minutes. It turned out Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ashe’s widow, had been in Cosell’s wedding party, and the Cosell family also had purchased Solomon’s grandmother’s home, which was across the road from that summer home. They shared memories of the homes and agreed to become friends.
There’s this connection of the families as well: Howard Cosell in 1995 was the winner of the Arthur Ashe Award, presented at the annual ESPYs ceremony to recognize individuals who are deemed to reflect Ashe’s spirit.
And to put a ribbon on the story, Hilary Cosell informed Solomon that they had torn down his grandmother’s home — and in its place they built a tennis court.
“It’s a pretty good ending to the story,” Solomon said.
