Ex-ESPN exec ‘angry’ Cup bid wasn’t accepted
A former ESPN executive underscored how big money corrupted soccer, testifying in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that his company’s bid to televise the World Cup might have been sabotaged by two former Fox executives accused of bribing officials to undermine competing offers, writes Bobcaina Calvan of The Associated Press.
ESPN’s former president,
John Skipper
(right), told a federal court in New York that ESPN and Univision had jointly bid $900 million — evenly split between the two TV behemoths — for broadcasting rights to the two most recent World Cups, including the recently completed one in Qatar.
Despite ESPN’s hefty bid for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, FIFA awarded U.S. English-language rights to Fox, which bid less.
Government lawyers say millions of dollars in bribes fed a system of clandestine, no-bid contracts that allowed corrupt soccer executives to profit from the scheme and ultimately allowed Fox to air the matches.
Prosecutors allege the payoffs enabled the former Fox executives — Heran Lopez and Carlos Martinez — to get confidential information from high-ranking soccer officials, including those at FIFA. The information helped Fox secure the U.S. English-language rights with a $425 million bid. Telemundo, a division of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal, won U.S. Spanish-language rights for about $600 million.
“I was disappointed,” Skipper said. “In fact, I was angry.”
Skipper said he had assumed the highest bidder would prevail, but the process turned increasingly complicated when ESPN’s offer was turned down and soccer officials opened a second round of bidding.
Under questioning from a defense attorney, Skipper acknowledged that he did not know if anything illegal was going on behind the scenes.
New York-based Fox Corp., which split from a subsidiary of international channels during a restructuring in 2019, has denied any involvement in the bribery scandal and is not a defendant in the case.
The company said in a statement that it has cooperated fully.
Trivia question
On this date in 1962, Wilt Chamberlain attemped an NBA record 34 free throws in a 139-121 victory over the St. Louis Hawks, breaking his own mark of 31. Chamberlain scored 61 points, making 19 free throws. Who now owns the NBA record for most free throws in a game?
He said it
A pair from Chamberlain:
• “Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing.”
• “It is said that good things come to those who wait. I believe that good things come to those who work.”
Trivia answer
Dwight Howard, when teams would employ the Hack-a-Shaq routine on him, twice attempted 39 free throws in a game, once in January 2012 and once in March 2013. He made 21 the first time and 25 the second time. The strategy worked neither time.