For Bornstein, Charity Begins With ‘V’

Sometimes charity begins at home. In the case of the V Foundation, it began at ESPN. Or, more specifically, with Steve Bornstein.

Bornstein has been one of the most influential people in sports television over the last 25 years. He joined ESPN in 1980 and, 10 years later at age 38, became the network’s president.

He was later the president of ABC Sports, then president of the ABC network, and now holds two top positions with the NFL. Besides serving as president and chief executive of NFL Network, which launched in 2003, Bornstein is also the league’s executive vice president of media.

In that role, he is a key member of the league’s team that negotiates the network television deals. If Commissioner Paul Tagliabue is the coach, Bornstein is the quarterback.

Bornstein was instrumental in closing deals this year with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN and DirecTV that have total yearly rights fees of $3.735 billion. That’s more than the yearly combined average of the NBA ($766 million), Major League Baseball ($558.8 million), NASCAR ($200 million), NHL ($60 million), PGA golf ($212.5 million), NCAA basketball ($565 million) and Summer Olympics ($894 million).

Bornstein has accomplished a lot during his career, but something he is particularly proud of resulted from a dinner conversation in September 1992 he had with Jim and Pam Valvano in Bristol, Conn.

Valvano, the former North Carolina State basketball coach, was working as a commentator for ESPN. He had just been diagnosed with cancer and doctors had told him he had about nine months to live.

“I was concerned with what we at ESPN could do,” Bornstein said. “I suggested starting a foundation in Jimmy’s name to help in the fight against cancer. At the time, Jimmy and Pam were too devastated to think about anything.”

With Bornstein persisting, the V Foundation became a reality seven weeks before Valvano died on April 28, 1993, at age 47.

According to foundation executives, more than $45 million has been raised, with 83 cents of every dollar going to cancer research.

While Bornstein came up with the idea, he says that others deserve credit for the foundation’s growth and achievements.

Two of those people are Valvano’s older brother, Nick, 63, the foundation’s full-time CEO, and Bob Lloyd, Valvano’s backcourt mate and roommate when they played basketball at Rutgers. Lloyd is chairman of the all-volunteer board, which has grown from 14 original members to 27.

George Bodenheimer, the president of ESPN and ABC Sports, is an active member of the board. So is Bornstein. Others include Dick Vitale, Mike Krzyzewski, Peggy Fleming, Bill Cosby, Lesley Visser, John Saunders, former North Carolina State star Dereck Whittenburg, and former Duke coach Bucky Waters.

The ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic, held July 12 at Lost Canyons in Simi Valley, raised $1 million for the V Foundation. An ESPN Radio auction of sports memorabilia the next day brought in another $200,000.

What has become the foundation’s marquee event, a two-day wine celebration, will be held Aug. 5-6 in Napa, Calif. Krzyzewski will host the event, and the entertainment includes a performance by Grammy Award winner Michael MacDonald. This event alone is expected to raise more than $2 million.

In big-business sports television, so much is heard about the money -- multi-billion-dollar rights fees and multi-million-dollar salaries. ESPN’s involvement with the V Foundation is also about the money, but for a good cause.

The Remaining Deals

The main NFL television deals have been completed, but a minor one remains. Bornstein says he is still working on a late-season, eight-game package. It could end up on an existing cable network, such as TNT or NFL Network. Or it could be used to help launch a new network.

The Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. is interested in reshaping its Outdoor Life Network (OLN) into a challenger for sports giant ESPN, according to the Wall Street Journal, and obtaining a piece of the NFL would figure to be at the top of the list.

OLN is now best known for professional bull riding, hunting and fishing -- and Lance Armstrong Tour de France triumphs.

Short Waves

OLN televised Armstrong winning his seventh Tour de France live on Sunday, and earned a 2.1 rating -- the highest in OLN history.... Armstrong will continue serving as the host of a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Channel 28 Sundays at 6 p.m. ... Armstrong will be a guest of CBS’ David Letterman on Monday night.

Stephen A. Smith, a sports columnist with the Philadelphia Inquirer who first got national television exposure on FSN’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” now has his own daily, one-hour show on ESPN2. The premiere episode of “Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith” will be Monday at 3:30 p.m. Smith, who played college basketball at Winston-Salem State, said he planned to continue to write two columns a week for the Inquirer. Asked if he considered himself primarily a newspaper columnist or a television personality, Smith said, “No. 1, I’m a journalist.”

CBS has hired soon-to-be-officially retired Oakland Raider quarterback Rich Gannon as an NFL commentator. He’ll be paired with play-by-play announcer Craig Bolerjack.