ESPN, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, pays the N.F.L. more than $1 billion a year to broadcast “Monday Night Football,” a ratings juggernaut and cherished source of revenue for Disney.
“Frontline,” the PBS public affairs series, and ESPN had been working for 15 months on a two-part documentary, to be televised in October. But ESPN’s role came under intense pressure by the league, the two people said, after a trailer for the documentary was released Aug. 6, the day that the project was discussed at a Television Critics Association event in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Last week, several high-ranking officials convened a lunch meeting at Patroon, near the league’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because they were prohibited by their superiors from discussing the matter publicly. It was a table for four: Roger Goodell, commissioner of the N.F.L.; Steve Bornstein, president of the NFL Network; John Skipper, ESPN’s president; and John Wildhack, ESPN’s executive vice president for production.
At the combative meeting, the people said, league officials conveyed their displeasure with the direction of the documentary, which is expected to describe a narrative that has been captured in various news reports over the past decade: the league turning a blind eye to evidence that players were sustaining brain trauma on the field that could lead to profound, long-term cognitive disability.
Greg Aiello, a spokesman for the N.F.L., said Friday morning that the lunch meeting was requested by ESPN several weeks ago. “At no time did we formally or informally ask them to divorce themselves from the project,” Aiello said. “We know the movie was happening and the book was happening, and we respond to them as best we can. We deny that we pressured them.”
Chris LaPlaca, an ESPN spokesman, said Thursday that ESPN’s decision was not based on any concerns about hurting its contractual relationship with the N.F.L. Rather, the network said in a statement, it was ending its official association with “Frontline” because it did not have editorial control of what appeared on the public television public affairs series.
But Raney Aronson-Rath, the deputy executive producer of “Frontline,” said that ESPN executives had for more than a year understood the ground rules of the collaboration: “Frontline” would keep editorial control of what it televised or put on its Web sites, and ESPN would have control of everything it televised or posted on the Web.
“We were about to share a cut of our film with them,” Aronson-Rath said, “and we welcomed their input.” But ESPN would not continue with the venture with “Frontline,” which has won 15 Peabody Awards.
Even with ESPN no longer identified as a collaborator on the “Frontline” films, they may retain a clear ESPN flavor because they are heavily based on the reporting of Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada, brothers and investigative reporters for ESPN. They are the authors of a book, “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truth,” set to be published Oct. 8.
The two-part documentary is scheduled to run Oct. 8 and 15.
“We’re obviously disappointed because the partnership has been a phenomenal one, and we don’t totally understand what happened,” Fainaru-Wada said. Referring to ESPN, he added, “Nothing we’ve been told by anybody suggests that they’re backing off on the journalism.”
Aronson-Rath said that until last Friday, there had been no hint of trouble between “Frontline” and ESPN. She said that “Frontline” had worked “in lock step” with Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit.
But in conversations last Friday and Monday with Doria and Bray, she was first told that ESPN did not want its logo to be connected to the films.
“It didn’t appear that it was their decision,” she said.
Aronson-Rath said that the Fainaru brothers started working with “Frontline” before ESPN was asked to collaborate. “The response we got from them was terrific, and everyone was very excited,” she said.
Brian Stelter, Ken Belson and Richard Sandomir contributed reporting.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/sports/football/nfl-pressure-said-to-prompt-espn-to-quit-film-project.html?partner=rss&emc=rss