Part II: The specific voices

Best Damn had a lot of different people involved over the years, but a consistent theme was that commentators did not have to stick to their specific sports experience. Arnold said that even led to things like supposed basketball voice John Salley preferring not to talk about that sport.

“John Salley, who was our basketball guy, hates basketball. Hates basketball. He’d go ‘I played, man. I don’t want to talk about this.'”

But Salley stood out in other ways. Rose said he thought Salley was part of the peak group.

“It took us a little time to get the right formula. I thought the show had hit its apex when we had Tom and Kruk and Sal [John Salley].  I really felt like that was the right group, the right chemistry. We all kind of brought something different. Tom’s energy is unmatched. There were days where you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, is he going to get to  the set?’ …But he did a great job with people, with passion. He was truly the voice of the fan. Salley was great because he could make anybody that sat in our guest chair feel extremely comfortable. He knows everybody.”

Arnold said Salley had some of the best stories, too, including ones about Rick Mahorn around his guest appearance.

“He knows, he’s had a relationship with everybody, right? What I loved about Sal, too, was, like, Rick Mahorn would come on the show, who he’s played with, and Salley would be shaking and he would tell us ‘I am still afraid of him.’ Rick Mahorn would go see Sal when he was a rookie or whatever and say ‘Hey, I’m gonna get a the fight for this next play, and if you don’t get in the fight with me. I’m gonna beat the s*** out of you.’ And he believed him.’

“Here’s something about Salley being a rookie.  He got all cool, he comes in from Georgia Tech, and he was supposed to carry the basketballs in. Rick took each one and kicked it into the upper deck. So he made sure there was no ego.”

And Hughes said Salley’s questions about football subjects he didn’t understand were key to making the show more approachable than many shows were at that time.

“The other guys having different sports personalities was interesting because if they didn’t know something, like if Salley didn’t know what a chop block was in the middle of a segment he would ask ‘What is that? Why is that important?’ So it was getting information across to the viewer in a real way…There was just an openness to the whole thing.”

Hughes said another unique thing with the show was having Arnold as a panelist from the entertainment world rather than the sports world.

“It worked great, and I think that was kind of the hook of the show, right? And even now, to it’s this day when I tell people I used to do this show, the nostalgia aspect, that’s the first thing they go to, ‘Oh, that was the one with Tom Arnold.’ It’s not ‘Oh, that was the one with four-time NBA champion John Salley,’ or World Series champion Rob Dibble, or 14-year NFL vet Rodney Peete. It was ‘That guy was in True Lies!'”

“And honestly, coupled with the way we came across, in the production element as well, it felt like four guys hanging out in their basement. And Tom offered an everyman opinion, right? The Monday morning quarterbacks, the guys at the construction site, the guys at the bars or whatever, like, ‘Why didn’t he do this? Why didn’t he do this?’ Tom was able to use that and do something for the viewers that I think hadn’t been done before, and he was very real with it.

Arnold said he initially didn’t think the show would last at all.

“Well, I was at an NFL fundraiser, this George Greenberg guy comes up and says ‘We’re thinking about doing a show with a baseball guy, basketball guy, football guy, host, and then we want a comedian. Would you be interested?’ And I said ‘Well, who are the people?’ …And I decided to do it, but I thought, I swear to God, it would last six weeks. I tell my agent, ‘Go get something else going.’  But we did sort of a practice run and I thought ‘There’s something good going on here.'”

Arnold said Rose was the perfect host for this show, which he knew even before the show aired.

“When I first got involved, you know, they had a list of at least two other guys and are like, ‘What do you think about this?’ I’m like ‘Let me watch the tape.’ And I didn’t know Chris. But I’m like, you know, ‘He’s the guy. He is definitely the guy. No, no, that’s how it works. It works with this guy. ‘And the other guys, very nice, they’d worked out there before, but I go ‘This guy, he’s young, he’s kind of naive, but he’s gonna be great.”

Marcus said Rose was a crucial part of the chemistry that made Best Damn succeed relative to other athlete panel shows, like the initial FS1 Fox Sports Live one in 2013.

“Chemistry among the Best Damn talent was so important. I think Chris Rose was so important to holding the panel together too, and I think a lot of people underestimate that.”

And Hughes said the chemistry extended behind the scenes as well.

“The camaraderie on the show in front of and behind the camera was something I had never experienced before or after,” he said. “In this business it can be very cutthroat, especially behind the camera. But it was never.”

Meanwhile, for Rose’s part, he said he couldn’t always avoid the crashes.

“I used to say ‘Iceberg dead ahead.’ And then we’d run right into it.”

But Hughes said Rose’s ability to incorporate producer comments mid-conversation stood out.

“From a producer standpoint, Chris Rose is a producer in front of the camera. There’s very few talent I’ve worked with…where you can have a full conversation with them in their IFB in the middle of the segment and you can’t tell. He’ll be in the middle of a conversation and you can get in his ear going ‘Cut questions three and four, we’ve got to move on, we’re kind of short on time,’ and he’ll just give you a little nod.”

Meanwhile, Arnold said he was far less experienced with in-ear talk at the start:

“I noticed too, when we first started, you had an IFB in your ear, I’d never done that, I wasn’t used to that.’ And our producer would start talking to me during the show, ‘Hey, here’s something,’ and I’d go ‘What?!’ It was confusing!”

Arnold said Rose’s professionalism was freeing for him.

“Chris had to keep everything going, keep it together, be ethical. As a fan, the voice of the fan, I did not have to be objective. I love the Cubs. I love Sammy Sosa. And so I always felt uncomfortable with things like ‘Hey, Pete Rose’s coming, you’ve gotta ask him about gambling on baseball or whatever.’ So I go ‘Hey, Pete, did you gamble on baseball?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay.’ And then we gambled. We went outside and bet.”

“It was great fun. You’ve got to have a guy like Chris holding it together, you know? But my time there was just incredible.”

Hughes said Rose was vital to keeping a show like Best Damn on the rails.

“Keeping in that lane is important where it’s not just chaos.”

And he added that a problem others have hit in trying to recreate the Best Damn formula is focusing too hard on copying rather than working with their own talent.

“That’s an age-old thing in production, right? It’s like, who is our Scott Van Pelt? Who’s our Tom Arnold? What is our Best Damn Sports Show? You can’t set out to try and recreate it. You have to lean into what you have.”

Read on for more on the RSN distribution model and the show’s legacy.