Stuart Scott was ‘pissed’ at Rich Eisen for wanting to work with Dan Patrick

Rich Eisen debuts This Was SportsCenter on Friday, and Dan Patrick joined the first episode for a raw conversation about working at ESPN.

The debut episode looks back at Patrick’s start on SportsCenter after leaving CNN for ESPN, it covers the peak of his tenure anchoring The Big Show alongside Keith Olbermann, and their breakup in 1997.

“That was a bad time,” Patrick said of Olbermann leaving the 11 p.m. SportsCenter for Fox Sports in Los Angeles. Patrick explained it was a bad time because he knew no one was capable of succeeding Olbermann. Eisen, however, wanted that challenge, even if it meant leaving Stuart Scott, who he was already building his own SportsCenter partnership with.

“I wanted the chair,” Eisen told Patrick of Olbermann’s vacated seat. “There’s no question about it, I did. And I didn’t make any secret of it. Stuart was pissed at me. He was not happy with me to want the chair next to you. It wasn’t anything against Stuart, I love the guy. We did get along, famously. And it turned out to be an incredible partnership with him, and I love and I miss him, and it was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever done.”

But while Eisen loved working with Scott, he didn’t love working the 1 a.m. SportsCenter. The hours were grueling from an entertainment standpoint, often lasting until sunrise to fix recordings so the show could cycle cleanly before ESPN’s live daytime programming began.

“I didn’t like the lifestyle very much,” Eisen explained. “I also wanted to work with you, and I relished the idea of taking Keith’s chair and trying to do the impossible, all of it. And Stuart was really angry with me.”

Patrick’s tumultuous relationship with Scott has been well-documented. While their relationship was respectful, it was also competitive, both on and off-camera. Patrick believes Scott viewed him as the “top dog” at ESPN and wanted to take him down. Their competitiveness even spilled onto the basketball court, with Scott once undercutting Patrick and sending him to the hospital with a chipped vertebra.

But Eisen and Scott quickly forged a strong relationship. Scott questioned why Eisen was chasing a new partner when they were already forming their own successful team. And with Patrick and Olbermann parting ways, the door was now open for Scott and Eisen to become the next great SportsCenter pairing.

Eisen ultimately didn’t get the chair next to Patrick, with ESPN deciding to replace Olbermann with Kenny Mayne.

“I was crestfallen,” Eisen told Patrick. “And whenever Stuart saw I was in a bad mood or something was going on, his default was to buck you up…he never even did that with me, saying, ‘Hey, sorry you didn’t get what you wanted.’ He didn’t want to talk about it.”

Maybe Eisen could have successfully succeeded Olbermann and formed an even bigger show with Patrick. But that seems unlikely, especially with Patrick already conceding to the belief that no one was capable of being better than Olbermann. Instead, Eisen went on to form his own great SportsCenter tandem with Scott, which may have been better for his career, even if the hours created a difficult work-life balance.

Eisen first teased plans to create the SportsCenter legacy show shortly after he returned to ESPN last year. This Was SportsCenter debuts Friday, June 5 on Disney+, the ESPN App, and every major podcast platform. The first season has six episodes featuring a one-on-one conversation with different former SportsCenter anchors including, Chris Berman, Mike Greenberg, Linda Cohn, Chris Fowler, and Craig Kilborn. Eisen said he hopes this is just the first of many seasons.