Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/80354
WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? Dick Rosenthal Former Notre Dame athletic director looks back on his career 25 years after it started BY DAN MURPHY lyst for the billions of television dol- lars and the arms race they have in- spired in college football today would be an overstatement. But when the first domino fell nearly a quarter cen- tury ago in a long trail that leads to the current environment of the sport, Dick Rosenthal's finger was behind it. Rosenthal started his eight-year ten- H e didn't set out to change the way athletic departments do business. To say he was the cata- ure as Notre Dame's athletics direc- tor in the spring of 1987. A little less than three years later he helped set the course for Notre Dame's football future by signing an unprecedented television contract with NBC in Feb- ruary 1990. The deal solidified Notre Dame's national scope by making the Irish the only team to have every one of its games broadcast on net- work television. It also marked the beginning of the end for the 64-school College Football Association and the opening of a free market for media rights. At that time most college football teams — with the exception of the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences — negotiated their television contract as a group through the CFA. As a re- sult, each team was limited to a maxi- mum of three appearances per sea- son. When the CFA agreed to terms with ABC (who also aired the Big Ten and Pac-10 games) for a five-year contract in January 1990, Rosenthal had already expressed his doubts. He thought the new deal raised anti-trust issues and also would force ABC to show games regionally rather than to the whole country, which would mean many of Notre Dame's wide net of followers would never get to see the Irish. He let it be known that Notre Dame was willing to leave the CFA, which quickly led to a discussion with NBC sports executive Ken Schanzer. The dollar and cents of the deal were easy to determine. Most of their conversa- 96 PRESEASON 2012 Rosenthal played center on Notre Dame's basketball team for three seasons and was named an All- American as a senior in 1954. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS probably talked for an hour or so, and I'm sure we spent 55 minutes of that conversation talking about whether it was a good thing for us to be on our own from the standpoint of inter- collegiate athletics," Rosenthal said. "We both came to the conclusion that if we went out on our own it would enhance all the football programs in the country and it would generate a lot more revenue." History would prove them right, tions, and most of the conversations that followed between Rosenthal and his superiors at Notre Dame, dealt with how the move would be per- ceived and whether or not it was in the best interest of the school and of college sports in general. "Ken Schanzer and I sat down and thought they had been double- crossed by Rosenthal and the Irish. The rest of the college football world thought the deal was motivated solely by greed. "To me," Arkansas athletics direc- tor Frank Broyles told Sports Illus- trated later that week, "Notre Dame has vacated its leadership role. This is greed." Penn State head coach Joe Paterno said he had a fun year watching Notre Dame "go from an academic institute to a banking institute." For Rosenthal, who did spend 25 years of his professional life as a banker, football revenue was only a means to an end. but at the time very few of his peers agreed. The leaders of the CFA Rosenthal left his job as CEO and chairman of the board at St. Joseph MAKING ENDS MEET BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED