Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame 2019: Steve Anderson, ESPN's Versatile Leader and Production Powerhouse By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Tuesday, December 3, 2019 - 10:00 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
SVG is profiling this year's 10 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductees in the weeks leading up to the ceremony on Dec. 17 at the New York Hilton. For more information, CLICK HERE.
During ESPN's first 35 years, few - if any - individuals had a greater hand in crafting the network's production philosophy and content strategy than Steve Anderson. From building SportsCenter into the gold standard of sports-news programs to launching new cable networks to overseeing thousands of ESPN's live game productions, Anderson's fingerprints can be seen today across ESPN's expansive programming portfolio.
Steve's place in ESPN's legacy is considerable and concrete, says legendary ESPN commentator and fellow Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame inductee Bob Ley. From producing the epic #1 Georgetown vs. #2 St. John's college basketball game in 1985 to teaming with John A. Walsh to mold SportsCenter into its modern form and leading at the highest executive levels in connection with ESPN's most important properties and projects. But, more important, Steve is universally admired for how he led, the care he constantly demonstrated for his team members, and his forthright nature. No one, in my experience, has ever been more respected, and rightfully so.
The Early Days: From Hardcourt to Production Truck
Brooklyn-born Anderson grew up in Tenafly, NJ, in a sports-friendly household with his father, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson; his mother, Maureen; and three siblings. After graduating from Xavier High School in New York City, Anderson played basketball at College of the Holy Cross and envisioned a career as a college basketball coach. However, after a short stint as an assistant coach at Fordham University, his aspirations turned to sports television.
I was getting opportunities to be a runner for NBC for baseball games in New York but nothing concrete, says Anderson. Then I heard about this little cable company starting up in Connecticut, and I was fortunate enough to know [ESPN pioneers and Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famers] Chet Simmons and Scotty Connal from NBC, and they hired me in April of 1980. I was taking a chance on a 24-hour sports cable network that very few, including myself, thought was going to make it, but I was absolutely thrilled.
Anderson's three-plus decades in Bristol began modestly as a PA on the SportsCenter night shift.
All I knew was, I was getting a chance to work in television sports and to learn a tremendous amount right away, he recounts. Every day, we were working so hard and just hoping the place was going to make it. You hear all the old ESPN stories about the one small building and people working in trailers, but I didn't even think twice about it. I was just excited to be there.
A year into his tenure at ESPN, Anderson snagged an associate-producer gig in the Remote Production Department under Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Bill Fitts. He quickly found his way to the front bench, producing an eclectic mix of events, including cross-country, senior tennis, horse show jumping, and boxing. Soon he moved to higher-profile properties, such as the NBA, NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, college football, and the USFL.
Taking Over the Gridiron: Arrival of the NFL on ESPN
In 1986, when ESPN won the rights to the NFL's new Sunday Night Football package, Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Steve Bornstein tapped Anderson as coordinating producer for the NFL. He would oversee the first two years of ESPN's NFL-game coverage, as well as production of the network's groundbreaking Sunday studio shows: NFL GameDay (which would become NFL Countdown) and NFL PrimeTime led by Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Chris Berman and Tom Jackson.
Our initial goal was to be considered just good as any other network doing NFL games, says Anderson. But what really set us apart early on were the studio shows, especially PrimeTime at night. Nobody had ever seen a one-hour show quite like Primetime with the expansive amount of highlights of every single game in an hour. The NFL clearly elevated ESPN, and I think that was when the industry understood that we were for real.
In addition to his NFL duties, Anderson also was responsible for all ESPN's college-basketball productions (including the NCAA Tournament). In 1988, he was elevated to director of production, leading the Remote Production Department (including NFL, MLB, college sports, and NASCAR) and overseeing ESPN's inaugural season of MLB games and studio shows.
Steve was one of a handful who helped put ESPN's flag in the ground in 1979, says Berman of his colleague, and his contributions at all levels were second to none. His energy, dedication, creativity, and kindness will long be remembered. There wasn't anyone who didn't like Steve Anderson.
Rise of SportsCenter: More Than Just a Highlights Show
Anderson left perhaps his most indelible stamp on ESPN in his next role, teaming with Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer John A. Walsh to manage the day-to-day production operations for SportsCenter. Although SportsCenter had already served as ESPN's flagship program for more than a decade by the time Walsh and Anderson came aboard in 1990, they envisioned making the program more than just a highlights show. In the ensuing years, SportsCenter would redefine what it was to be a sports-news show and open up its format to include breaking news and deeper long-form stories.
Steve, for 35 years, was the heart and soul of ESPN, says Walsh. Every significant decision in my time with Sport
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
28/08/2025
IBC stand 5.F81
Wowza to Reveal Next-Gen Video Streaming Innovations at IBC 2025
Amsterdam, August 28, 2025 Wowza, a leader in video streaming infrastructur...
Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame 2019: Steve Anderson, ESPN's Versatile Leader and Production Powerhouse By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
