Oral History: The risks — and rewards — of Fox airing Mark McGwire's 62nd home run in 1998
As Fox begins its coverage of the Major League Baseball postseason for the 25th consecutive year, Sports Business Journal decided to look back at how a renegade network and a sport in need of change formed a relationship in the first place. In the cover story of SBJ's Oct. 12, 2020 issue, staff writer Eric Prisbell spoke to the people who took the partnership from idea to execution, up through the first year of Fox's deal in 1996. Just two years later, Fox found itself with the opportunity to cover one of the most significant moments in American sports history: St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Mark McGwire quest to break Roger Maris's hallowed single-season record of 61 home runs. There was only one problem, and it was a big one for a television network.
ED GOREN, former executive producer and vice chairman, Fox Sports: Leading up to the McGwire record, David [Hill] was running primetime for the network. It was July when I went to him and said, "Mark McGwire may set a home run record this year and we have to figure out how to broadcast that game." He said, "How are you going to figure that out? Wait a minute, I have a new primetime lineup on the network that we are spending a lot of money promoting, and you want me on a whim to drop one of our new shows and put a Cardinals game on hoping that McGwire hits a home run?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "That's not going to happen, get the hell out of here."
Now it's late July and I went to David, and said, "I think it's going to happen." So I went to our sales guy, who says companies have already committed their money for the fourth quarter, there's no money out there for us to preempt a primetime lineup and fill it with baseball commercials. At which point I said, "The hell with that attitude, we'll do it without commercials." This is the kind of relationship that David and I built, where he could tell me no, but if I believed in something strongly enough he allowed me enough rope to hang myself. So I went back a third time, had to be August, he looks at me and goes get a hold of Mike Berger, our research guy, and said, "Take your best shot."
DAVID HILL, former chairman and CEO, Fox Sports Media Group: Ed came in and said, "Look at this, McGwire could break the record." I said, "Oh, shit, alright." I called Mike Mulvihill two weeks before [McGwire broke the record] and said, "Hey, before I do anything because A) it is going to cost money and B) trying to change anything in the primetime roster means I have to put up with the wrath of Hollywood: When do you reckon it would be likely that McGwire would break the home run record?" Mike came back and said, "Tuesday, this date." It was a game that we owned that we had on FX. I went to see [MLB President and COO Paul] Beeston and said, "Listen, I want to swap this game from — maybe, I said maybe — swap from FX to the network." Beeston said it will cost you money. Fair enough, we agreed on a price.
I went to see John Nesvig, head of sales. I said, "Here's the deal, I put everything in place, if it looks likely, I'd love to pull the trigger." John said, "I think we can make some money on this." I said, "Fantastic, you get the sponsors in place." I go back to Hollywood and look at Michael's chart. The Tuesday had been the day we had been marketing for six months a change of "King of the Hill" from Sunday to Tuesday. We had run campaigns. I said in the network meeting that I'm thinking of preempting the move of "King of the Hill" to Tuesday because of a baseball game.
Holy f---. World War III erupted. "You can't do that! How do you know it's going to happen?" I said, "I don't." It started to get closer and I had to pull a trigger on the Thursday so John would have a day of selling. I called Paul and said, "I'm going to do it." If you had been in my office, it was like Atilla the Hun was the good fairy compared to me. Everyone went down on me, even my bosses. What the f---are you doing? How do you know? I said, "I don't. But I've got a gut feel it will work." I told Ed, "Go to St. Louis, I'll talk to you from the booth."
The season-long Great Home Run Race between McGwire and Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa had gripped the nation for months. On Sept. 5, McGwire matched Babe Ruth's total of 60, and two days later he tied McGwire's record that had stood since 1961 with his 61st. Sosa entered the primetime matchup on Tuesday, Sept. 8 with 58 home runs himself. The game started at 8:13 p.m. ET in front of 43,688 fans at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
GOREN: "McGwire's first at-bat — hard ground ball to short. Phone rings. It's Hill. Hill says to me, "Ed, this is great, make sure he doesn't hit the home run until late in the game to hold an audience." At which point I go postal on my boss, telling him, "This is ridiculous. I'll be hitting the vodka if this doesn't get resolved quickly. He's hitting it in the next at-bat." And I hang up on Hill."
HILL: "We're watching the game. There's this silence. People had the voodoo dolls out, knives out, the "King of the Hill'"people thought I was an absolute asshole for doing this. A dear friend who ran marketing, was like motherf-----g me for doing this. Then it happened. Somehow, Mark hit this ball that just barely on its last gasp got over the wall."
GOREN: "Phone rings. It's Hill and Roth, celebrating. You would have thought they were at Mardi Gras."
HILL: "Suddenly, the room is filled with people. "We did it! We did it! My God, what a brilliant move!'"
McGwire's 62nd home run, off Steve Traschsel of the Chicago Cubs, was a low line drive over the leftfield wall, one of his shortest homers of the year, and helped the Cardinals to a 6-3 win. McGwire would finish the regular season with a new record of 70, barely edging out Sosa, who hit 66 and had to settle for the NL MVP award and a playoff berth as consolation. The record-breaking game drew a hefty 12.9 rating and a 21 share and brought in a profit on a reported $6 to $7 million in ad revenue. King of the Hill premiered the next week.
