Rich Eisen has been the face of NFL Network since it launched in 2003. Over the years, he has hosted NFL Total Access, NFL GameDay Final, NFL GameDay Morning, Thursday Night Football, the Rich Eisen Podcast and now, the Rich Eisen Show on DirecTV, the NFL Now app and Fox Sports Radio.
Before joining NFL Network, Eisen spent seven years at ESPN co-anchoring SportsCenter with Stuart Scott and working with Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick, Steve Levy, Linda Cohn, Karl Ravech and many of the people who helped to make the nightly show an institution.
Recently, Awful Announcing talked with Eisen about Thursday Night Football and his DirecTV show.
Awful Announcing: One thing that is missed on Thursday Night Football is the patented Walk and Talk that you do at the end of the game..
Rich Eisen: We have a partnership with CBS in terms of the game and the Walk and Talk was a lot of fun. That was my way of sorting of winking and saying hi to Stu Scott who is the King of the Walk and Talk to tell you what’s coming up at the end of the game. But now that CBS has the games it’s Tracy Wolfson’s department or whatever they want to do with the game. The Walk and Talk is on ice right now.
AA: The DirecTV show has been on for several weeks now. How has it been?
RE: It’s been great. It’s been the type of show I’ve been wanting to do for a very, very long time. You know I was doing it once a week in just audio format only on the Rich Eisen Podcast that started up during the 2010 season and that show along with my weekly segments with Dan Patrick caught the ear and eyes of the folks at DirecTV who have just been phenomenal.
They have been off the charts, just great to work with, fully supportive of this show, they built a palace of a set on the El Segundo campus of DirecTV. Central Talent Booking of Los Angeles is booking the show. They’re A-1 show bookers along with Ben Nyguard who’s booking from the sports jaunt and he’s awesome. And the support from Chris Law and the gang have put into this show to make sure it goes off the ground and it’s lifted off has been amazing. And we’ve been simulcast on Fox Sports Radio. Podcast One is putting it out in an audio version and that’s Norm Pattiz who is as legendary as they come in this business.
So putting it all together has been a great launch, a great start, it’s soon to become a bigger platform and we get international viewers thanks to NFL Now. People tell us they watch the show on their phone, they start on their tablet in their house or their apartment and they got to go down to the utility room, go to their washing machine and watch it on their phone and in the elevator. It’s a pretty powerful app that NFL Now and in many ways, it’s the future of how people consume shows just like this. I’m walking on air to be really honest.
AA: You’ve actually been a guest on your show …
RE: I have been actually a guest on my own show because I can’t do Friday shows in person because I’m flying back from Thursday Night Football games. I could technically do them from the cities where I’m doing the games, but there are some games on the East Coast that would mean I would fly home like 5 o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday night. To do Sunday GameDay Morning, I have to be in the studio in the afternoon for a Saturday meeting with the rest of the gang and I have a 6, 3½ and one year old at home so flying home on Friday affords me the ability to pick them up at school and hang out with them.
Long story short though a couple of times, I’ve landed before the show was over at noon and called in.
AA: One guest you had on for a couple of segments was Al Michaels and he also recorded your message for your incoming phone calls. What was that all about?
RE: We’re just trying to be as interactive as possible and we have a phone line and we call it “The Rant Line” (888-484-3635) where people can call up and get things off their chest about what happened in the game during the weekend or Monday night or any college game too. You want to get something off about the announcers, about commercials, about the game, about the refs, your coach, you just call up and get it off your chest.
The outgoing message was recorded by Al Michaels when he came in and we had him record it on the air. I mean he was great at it as Al Michaels is great at everything that he does. And we had a great chat with him. He is as good as they come. He is the gold standard in our industry and we had him on for two segments which was great and we’ll have him back on whenever he wants.
That’s the whole thing. It’s a neat part that we’re in Los Angeles and we’ve got a large group of people of interest just right there, just a courtesy car away.
AA: Now that you’ve been living in Southern California, are you totally California now?
RE: Oh yeah, my blood has thinned out. I show up late for games, I leave early to beat the traffic. Absolutely, I’m guilty as charged. I love it out there. I really, really do. I’m a New Yorker at heart. Every time I go back to New York for the draft and spend a week there, I’ve felt like I’ve never left it. But I do love living in Los Angeles and being part of something that’s .. the NFL in Los Angeles .. that’s supposed to be a non-football town, but that’s not true. There are tons of football fans in L.A. and and tons of NFL fans in Los Angeles and I think it can absolutely support a team or teams plural, and I just love being out there. It’s been a great experience for 11 years so the adjustment has been gradual, but it’s fully complete.
AA: Are you now producing screenplays for anybody at this point?
RE: I am actually. I’m producing shows and coming up with ideas and trying to produce shows. Right now, my wife and I have a shingle or a sports production shingle for lack a better phrase and we are in development if you will with Turner on a show with Ron Shelton writing it about a college football coach. We’re excited. He is the godfather of sports production. So working with him, just being in meetings with him and he’s got a Tumbler in his hand and telling stories, it’s just non-stop. So I know you’re being slightly facetious there, but we’re trying to branch out, just trying to get into this community of making shows and trying to be a producer on these things.
AA: Actually, Dan Patrick asked you this question and you actually threw it back in his face …
RE: Yes, but Dan’s actually going a little Hollywood too with this Sports Jeopardy thing flying out to Los Angeles and he brought the Danettes out to do his show from the studio they built in El Segundo.
AA: So Dan’s gotten a little Hollywood.
RE: Yes, but we all do. Just ask anybody in our profession. Some people at the Worldwide Leader are behind shows, creating shows or having books of theirs becoming sitcoms, stuff like that. If I’m not mistaken, Jason Alexander was attempting to play Colin Cowherd in a pilot recently or something like that. So it’s not just me going Hollywood!
AA: Rich Eisen, joining us here on Awful Announcing ..
RE: By the way, Ken, Awful Announcing, it’s a name that’s a little troubling to those of us that are being covered by it. It’s one of those things where when you say when someone’s a bad man is it a good thing? Right? “You are an awful announcer,” is that a good thing or a bad thing?
AA: When Brian Powell began the site, the mission was to root out awful announcing, but we’ve grown to cover the media in general so we really couldn’t get rid of the name …
RE: I see. You’re evolving. Evolving. So what started out as outright trolling is now morphing into cogent reporting and analysis with occasional trolling…
AA: Some occasional trolling on those who deserve it, but if people do a good job, we say so.
RE: I was telling friends I was taking a call from “Awful Announcing” and they asked “Why would you do that?” not knowing the full story behind it.
AA: Well now you know.
RE: But I appreciate it. I appreciate to be dubbed awful enough to be on Awful Announcing.
We thank Rich Eisen for taking the time to talk to us. The Rich Eisen Show can be seen on DirecTV’s Audience Network on Channel 239 as well as on the NFL Now mobile and tablet apps and it can be heard on Fox Sports Radio from noon to 3 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
