William Curtis MacPhail (March 25, 1920 – September 4, 1996) was an American television sports executive.

Early life and family

MacPhail was born in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, an ...

, son of Larry MacPhail, a baseball executive and innovator. He was a graduate of

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...

and served in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. His brother was longtime baseball executive

Lee MacPhail Leland Stanford MacPhail Jr. (October 25, 1917 – November 8, 2012) was an American front-office executive in Major League Baseball. MacPhail was a baseball executive for 45 years, serving as the director of player personnel for the New York Ya ...

, and Larry and Lee MacPhail are both members of the

National Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

Andy MacPhail Andrew Bowen MacPhail (born April 5, 1953) is an American baseball executive. He has previously served as general manager for the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs, and as president for the Baltimore Orioles and Philadelphia Phillies. MacPhail i ...

, also a baseball executive, is his nephew.

Early career

MacPhail worked his way up in the front office of several minor league teams. He was traveling road secretary for the New York Yankees in 1946 and then worked for eight years for three minor league teams before becoming director of publicity for the Kansas City Athletics in 1955. CBS hired him the following year.

Broadcasting career

MacPhail was a former president of

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...

, where he worked from 1956 to 1973. Afterwards he was associated with Bob Wold, a satellite sports pioneer, and then brought to CNN by Reese Schonfeld to create the CNN Sports department in 1980 upon its launch, which he ran until retiring from CNN in 1995. While at CBS Sports, MacPhail is credited with implementing

instant replay Instant replay or action replay is a video reproduction of something that recently occurred which was both shot and broadcast live. The video, having already been shown live, is replayed in order for viewers to see again and analyze what had j ...

for the first time in sports — during the Army-Navy Game of 1963. MacPhail is known for hiring famous broadcasting talent. He introduced a number of sportscasters nationally, including

Chris Schenkel Christopher Eugene Schenkel (August 21, 1923 – September 11, 2005) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of five decades he called play-by-play for numerous sports on television and radio, becoming known for his smooth delivery and ...

, Jim McKay, Dan Patrick, Phil Griffin and

Keith Olbermann Keith Theodore Olbermann (; born January 27, 1959) is an American sports and political commentator and writer. Olbermann spent the first 20 years of his career in sports journalism. He was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and ...

. He hired former

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

kicker

Pat Summerall George Allen "Pat" Summerall (May 10, 1930 – April 16, 2013) was an American football player and television sportscaster who worked for CBS, Fox, and ESPN. In addition to football, he announced major golf and tennis events. Summerall ann ...

as a sportscaster at CBS. He also hired

Frank Gifford Francis Newton Gifford (August 16, 1930 – August 9, 2015) was an American football player, actor, and television sports commentator. After a 12-year playing career as a halfback and flanker for the New York Giants of the National Foo ...

, Jack Buck, and golf producer Frank Chirkinian. MacPhail is recognized for helping CBS Sports acquire the television rights to numerous sporting events, including the 1960 Winter &

Summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

in Squaw Valley,

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

respectively, the NBA, the

Masters Tournament The Masters Tournament (usually referred to as simply The Masters, or the U.S. Masters outside North America) is one of the four major championships in professional golf. Scheduled for the first full week of April, the Masters is the first ma ...

( CBS still holds the television rights to this day), and

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

. At one point, during the 1960s and '70s, CBS Sports, under MacPhail, owned the rights to all major sports events—pro football, basketball, the Triple Crown, the Masters tournament and other major golf events, except Major League Baseball. MacPhail attempted to acquire the baseball rights, then owned by NBC, from Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Kuhn seemed very interested, but the higher up at CBS declined—they did not want to start bidding wars for sports rights. When Roone Arledge was appointed head of ABC Sports, he thought differently and thus the bidding wars began. While head of CNN Sports, MacPhail acquired news rights from Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NBA and other sporting events so that CNN might carry TV clips of all major sporting events. He also mentored former CNN Worldwide President Jim Walton (journalist). At CNN, MacPhail hired sports anchors Nick Charles, Bob Kurtz, Fred Hickman,

Jim Huber Jim Huber (August 28, 1944 – January 2, 2012) was an American sports commentator, writer, and essayist. He worked as a sports anchor for the former CNN Sports Illustrated, before joining Turner Sports in 2000. Huber was raised in Ocala, Florida ...

, Dan Patrick,

Hannah Storm Hannah Lynn Storen Hicks (born June 13, 1962), known professionally as Hannah Storm, is an American television sports journalist, serving as the anchor of ESPN's '' SportsCenter'' Face to Face. She was also host of the '' NBA Countdown'' pregame ...

, Dan Hicks, and Daryn Kagan, among others.

Awards

In 1989, MacPhail was the first recipient of

Pro Football Hall of Fame The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, , the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of professional football, including players, coa ...

’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award. The annual award recognizes "long-time exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macphail, Bill 1920 births 1996 deaths CBS executives CNN executives Presidents of CBS Sports Swarthmore College alumni United States Navy sailors