Legendary Sports Producer Mike Pearl Passes Away By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director
Monday, March 1, 2021 - 5:24 pm
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Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Mike Pearl who worked at five networks and won 17 Sports Emmy awards has passed away. Highlights of his career include producing the first four years the NFL Today, the first five years of Inside the NBA, the first live wire-to-wire coverage of a Daytona 500, and working on five Olympic games.
In building some of the most iconic sports-television franchises ever and producing many of the most memorable sports telecasts of all time, Pearl helped redefine how fans watch sports on TV. Whether as an executive in the boardroom or a producer in the control room, he has maintained a flair for innovation, a knack for finding great on-air talent, and, most important, an unwavering sense of loyalty to his peers.
Mike's philosophy about life is all about personal relationships and friends, said the late former NBA Commissioner David Stern. If you're a friend of Mike's, you're a friend for life, and there's nothing that he wouldn't do for a friend.
Having studied mass communications/media studies at University of Miami, Pearl broke into the television business as a reporter at WTVJ Miami in 1968.
Soon after landing a job at CBS Sports in 1975, Pearl made his first big splash in the industry when he revamped the format of The NFL Today and added on-air talent Brent Musburger, Irv Cross, Phyllis George, and Jimmy The Greek Snyder. The pregame show, which Pearl produced for four years, proved a massive hit for CBS, beginning an 18-year run as the highest-rated program in its timeslot (until the network lost its NFL rights in 1994) and paving the way for countless studio shows to follow.
I have always believed that, with the right mix of [on-air] talent, anything is possible, Pearl said in an interview for his Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame profile. When you find personalities that have great chemistry and complement each other, the rest is a walk in the park. That was truly the case with [The NFL Today]. With personalities like that, you couldn't lose.
In addition to his prowess in the studio, Pearl proved himself as a producer in the truck, working the front bench for CBS broadcasts of Super Bowl X, XII, and XIV, as well as the first live wire-to-wire coverage of the Daytona 500 in 1979. Pearl also headed up production on the CBS Sports Spectacular anthology series.
At the Alphabet Net
Mike Pearl was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2015.
In 1980, Pearl took his producing talents to ABC, where he would spend eight years and produce a string of high-profile events, including Super Bowl XIX and XXII, Monday Night Football, the Indianapolis 500 (three times), the New York City Marathon, and ABC's Wide World of Sports. Pearl also saw his first action at the Olympics - an event that would help to define his career throughout the '80s and '90s - serving as producer at the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics, 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics, and 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. In 1987, while at ABC, Pearl took home horseracing's highest honor, the Eclipse Award, for producing the all three legs of the Triple Crown.
In 1988, Pearl returned to his roots at the Tiffany Network, serving as coordinating producer of CBS Sports' coverage of the 1992 Albertville and 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics (still the highest-rated Olympics ever).
I always believe in looking for the next challenge; I could never handle being stagnant, said Pearl. If it was something that was unknown and seemed like something that wasn't necessarily in my comfort zone, then that's where I wanted to be. That [philosophy] guided a lot of the decisions I ended up making in my career.
Following the 1994 Games, Pearl was ready for that next challenge when Turner Sports President (and childhood friend) Harvey Schiller came calling with an opportunity to revamp the Turner Sports' production operation.
I knew from my own background in sports that we really needed to do something different, recalls Schiller. At the time, we were the single cable carrier of the NBA, and the expectation from Commissioner Stern when I got on board was, We got to do something that's different.' I knew of Mike's performance before, and it was clear that he was the guy that could hire the right people and get the job done.
Introducing Charles Barkley
As SVP/executive producer at Turner Sports, Pearl oversaw all production of NFL, Atlanta Braves baseball, NASCAR, figure skating, golf, Wimbledon, and college football, as well as Turner's cable coverage of the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics. However, his crowning achievement at the network was his revamp of NBA on TNT: his keen eye for talent and unique programming would result in a nine-time-Emmy-winning studio show and create one of sports television's most incendiary and popular stars: Inside the NBA and Charles Barkley.
When I grew up in this business, there was a differentiation between a terrestrial over-the-air production and a cable production, but, thanks to Executive Producer Mike Pearl, that distinction was smashed once and for all after his job on the NBA on Turner. That's just a fact, said Stern. He put together a spectacular production and terrific on-air talent, and he had the audacity to hire Charles Barkley, so we owe a deep debt of gratitude to Mike Pearl.
Schiller adds: A lot of people in TV feel that the studio shows can waste money, but our studio show was so different because it was a gathering place and a way to capture everything that was happening in the NBA. There were times we had a higher rating on our show than we got for a game or anyone else got for a game.
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Legendary Sports Producer Mike Pearl Passes Away By Ken Kerschbaumer, Editorial Director 
