Linda Cohn, Kenny Mayne say anchors never got extra pay for iconic ‘This Is SportsCenter’ commercials

Part of what made the This Is SportsCenter campaign work for as long as it did was that the anchors clearly wanted to be in it, even without much financial incentive.

That worked out because, according to Linda Cohn and Kenny Mayne, that incentive basically didn’t exist.

The two former SportsCenter anchors discussed the economics behind the ad campaign in a recent conversation on Cohn’s YouTube show, with Mayne detailing what the job actually looked like behind the scenes. And, if you’re picturing a leisurely commercial shoot with catering and a call sheet, it was almost certainly not that.

“We oftentimes, most of the time I should say, we were working that night,” Mayne said. “I was on 11, or I was on the 1. And, by the way, you’re also shooting three commercials, or however many. So, there’s other people that get paid to be in commercials; you and I have done a couple together, like the kind where somebody gives you money, not the ESPN kind where you sign for one dollar.”

Cohn confirmed there was no additional pay tied specifically to the ads.

“We didn’t get any extra for doing those commercials,” she said.

Both seemed to understand that ESPN could get away with paying next to nothing for these commercials because there were very few other ways for a SportsCenter anchor to “be seen” in the 1990s.

“But I wanted to be in them, we all did,” Mayne added. “They knew they had us because it was to your benefit to be featured in these funny things. Why would you not want to?”

Not all of this comes down to ESPN simply underpaying its talent, of course. Cohn and Mayne both seem to characterize the arrangement as one they were happy to be part of, and the exposure the commercials generated likely did more for their careers in the long term than a standard appearance fee would have.