Imagination in Sports

The death this week of Steve Jobs, and the many testimonials to his leadership and creative genius, reminded us just how rare the qualities of risk-taking and innovative thinking are in sports today. Einstein famously stated that imagination is more important than knowledge.

During the course of many conversations over the years with sports figures and sports business executives, I occasionally would ask them where they thought the imagination in sports could be found. And who, exactly, were the bold thinkers who dared to deviate from conventional wisdom. Here are some of their responses:

“That’s a very good question, said Daniel Okrent, the former ombudsman for the New York Times. “I would like to think that it’s in the mind of coaches and managers approaching things in innovative ways. I certainly think that the Billy Beane approach to putting together a baseball team took a great deal not only of imagination, but as much imagination does in a hidebound area, it takes courage as well. And he showed great success.

“It’s interesting to me looking at any sport for how it’s played today, and you look at it 25 years ago, and how all these sports have changed in major ways. And I think that’s all the product of a sort of evolutionary imagination in the heads of excellent coaches and managers.”

Said Sean McManus, the president of CBS Sports, “It’s a lot more challenging because everyone is doing such an unbelievably good and sophisticated job, whether it’s cable or network sports television. It’s really difficult to distinguish yourself. You can try some new production techniques or new technology, but basically we’re all doing an excellent job, and it’s more and more difficult to use your imagination to come up with new ideas.

“A lot of the imagination is coming on putting together the best quality broadcast team that you can. It’s why we moved Greg Gumbel into the studio and Jim Nantz out to do the football games. That, I think, in some ways took more imagination than coming up with the next great graphic or piece of music to use. Imagination is trying to distinguish your telecast from what everyone else is doing, especially when everyone else is doing such a good job.”

Jim Nantz, the No. 1 play-by-play man for CBS on the NFL, NCAA basketball, and golf, said, “I think everyone’s still trying to figure out how they can interface with technology, with the Internet, where to take their sports and reach even greater masses. As we sit here on the heels of these landmark TV deals in the NFL, you wonder how in the world the NFL can ever try to go beyond and top this.

“What seems to be kind of a niche thing is everybody having their own controlled broadcast system, whether it’s the NBA Network or the NFL Network. It will be fascinating to look in the next generation where they will be able to take those products. But I think that the leagues and the PGA Tour and so on are all trying to find a way for mass expansion through the Internet, and I guess that’s the next thing to come.”

Marv Albert, who has memorably worked virtually every major broadcast event in sports, said, “I think in sports television, there really is imagination, despite… sometimes too much graphically and too many attempted innovations. But on the other hand, when you look back…I find in watching some of the games that have been done in the past be it on YES or ESPN Classic or NBA TV or NFL TV, you see the difference.

“It’s unbelievable, even from a few years ago, how far they’ve come in graphics and the look and what the camera angles are. Just when you think not much more can be done, when you go back five years ago, the strides that they have made are monumental.”

Sandy Alderson, general manager of the New York Mets, looked beyond the media. At the time of our conversation, Alderson, then the CEO of the San Diego Padres, said, “I think the imagination in many ways is being exercised in the commissioner’s office. If you look back over the last 10 or so years, a lot of the innovations have come at the league level.

“Whether it’s inter-league play or unbalanced schedule, modest realignment, reduction in the time of game, closer management of umpiring…a lot of those things have happened in the commissioner’s office on commissioner Selig’s watch. So, I think a lot of the innovation that’s taken place in the game in recent years has been institutional more than originating with individual clubs or management styles.”

“Some of [the imagination] is in marketing,” said Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. “Teams market a little bit differently, but a lot of the imagination has to be how you put your team together, and how you can envision them functioning as a team. I think most franchises select individual talent and then try to have the coach put them all together and be successful.

“In reality, you’ve probably got to do it the other way. You’ve got to try to figure out how to put a team together. There are so many variables with a team—in terms of talent, ego, strengths and weaknesses, and chemistry—that I think that’s where you have to use your imagination and sometimes be willing to do things that people may not think are the right thing, but in the long run create a better team vs. the best group of individual talent.”