Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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20 AUGUST 2023 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED he was," Storms said. "He came across as such an incredible human. Just an incredible leader of people." Before hiring Bevacqua, Lazarus had known him for about 20 years and al- ways respected him. When it came time for him to find a new NBC Sports Group chairman, a job he had held since 2011, he wanted someone who was both a cul- tural fit and supremely qualified. With the qualification part, Laza- rus had negotiated against him, and he always came away impressed with his skills in that arena. In particular, and this became clearer when they started negotiating on the same side, Bevacqua always adapted his style to the person with whom he was trying to strike a deal. Culturally, Lazarus saw someone in Bevacqua whose values were consistent with his own. "He takes his job seriously, but he doesn't take himself too seriously," Laza- rus said. "He thinks about others. He thinks about the impact of decisions upon others. He has a high aptitude toward sensing when things aren't going well, and he tries to get them back on track." Bevacqua's passion, his willingness to collaborate with others, his vision and his penchant for big ideas stand out to people when they first meet him. Those traits are even more evident to people when they first work with him. Phillips, who Bevacqua hired into his current role, had an idea for a name, im- age and likeness (NIL) platform called NBC Sports Athlete Direct, which started as a pilot program with Temple, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. The idea was that because NBC had relationships with thousands of advertisers, it could launch a program that could connect college athletes with those advertisers. When he brought that idea to Bevac- qua, his first reaction was, "Let's do it. What do you need?" "Those are the types of people that you want to work for," Phillips said. "They are visionaries. They think big. And they support their people. That's what you want in a leader." LEADING THROUGH DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES While he was with NBC, Bevacqua negotiated media rights deals for the Ryder Cup, Sunday Night Football, NASCAR, IndyCar and most recently the Big Ten. He, Storms and since-re- tired executive John Miller took a less than 24-hour trip to London to lock down a new deal for the Premier League. "We had a big dinner afterwards," Storms said. "He was incredibly stra- tegic, and he was also just such a good leader in those situations." Bevacqua also helped bring new tal- ent into the organization, such as Foot- ball Night in America host Maria Taylor. She had left ESPN immediately after the 2021 NBA Finals, when a leaked conver- sation revealed that fellow ESPN host Rachel Nichols, who is white, suggested Taylor was chosen as ESPN's host for the finals because she is Black. Two days after the finals ended, Bev- acqua helped fly Taylor to Tokyo over- night, where she made her NBC debut at the 2020 Summer Olympics (which took place in 2021 due to COVID-19). Those Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics that followed them are seen as two of the best examples of Bev- acqua's leadership at NBC Sports Group. Molly Solomon, who at the time was the executive producer of NBC's Olym- pics coverage (she's now the executive producer of the Golf Channel), remem- bers them as "the most trying circum- stances of all time." "I remember Pete saying to me when we got to Tokyo, because we were in COVID lockdown, 'If we get through this, we can do anything,'" Solomon said. "And he was right. It was so em- powering. Six months later, we had the Beijing Olympics, which were even more draconian in their COVID guide- lines, and he always stood by us." Zenkel remembers Bevacqua hav- ing to make quick decisions right af- ter Tokyo 2020 was postponed, calling him "quite instrumental," as he took a hands-on approach to solving them. In Beijing, COVID and geopolitical issues — the relationship between the United States and China created buzz about whether countries should com- pete in and whether advertisers should support the Olympics — created a need for Bevacqua to make some difficult decisions, which Zenkel said he navi- gated well. "I think one of Pete's talents is he's a very clear thinker," Zenkel said. "He carefully analyzes the challenge or the issues and gives tremendous feedback. … In situations where NBC potentially could get itself in some trouble, Pete was an enormous resource in approach- ing those difficulties, especially edito- rial challenges." Another tough decision Bevacqua had to make concerned Solomon her- self, who wanted to be one of the few people from NBC to travel to Beijing. He While he was with NBC from 2018-23, Bevacqua negotiated media rights deals for the Ryder Cup, Sunday Night Football, Premier League, NASCAR, IndyCar and most recently the Big Ten Conference. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS