Now 67 years old, Sean McManus grew up in the world of television sports. His father, the late Jim McKay, was the pre-eminent broadcaster in that business through the last half of the 20th century, having hosted Wide World of Sports on ABC from 1961 to 1998 and covered a dozen Olympics, including the 1972 Summer Games at Munich, during which Arab terrorists slaughtered 11 Israeli athletes, coaches and officials. McKay also reported extensively on golf, most notably the Masters, the U.S. Open and the Open Championship.
It was no surprise, then, that McManus went on to work in that industry. He started as a production assistant at ABC Sports in 1977, right after graduating from Duke University with a degree in English and history. A couple of years later, he took a job at NBC Sports, in part to create some professional separation from his father, who died in 2008. McManus thrived in that new position, and in 1982, the network named him vice president of program planning and development. That made him the youngest vice president in the history of NBC, at the age of 27.
McManus moved in 1987 to the International Management Group (IMG), where he served as senior vice president of U.S. television sales and programming for its Trans World International (TWI) division. Then in November 1996, he became president of CBS Sports, overseeing all sports properties for that network. Five years later, he was named chairman of that division. Among the most valued of its assets are the PGA Tour golf tournaments it produces each year, including the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles, the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach and the Memorial at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio. CBS Sports also carries the Masters and the PGA Championship.
In the latest installment of the 19th Hole, McManus shares his thoughts with Global Golf Post on a number of topics, among them the favorite parts of his current job, the influences his father had on his career, the complexities of covering a Super Bowl and a Masters (and the ways those endeavors are similar and different) and the things that made Howard Cosell great.
I knew when I was 10 years old that I wanted to be in this business. Even at that age, I was spending time in the back of production trucks, watching my father work and being around great pioneers in TV sports like Roone Arledge, Chuck Howard and Chet Forte. And I loved everything about it.
Sure, I thought about doing what my dad did and being in front of the camera. I grew up as a New York Yankees fan and listened to their games all the time, on radio and TV. And when I was 7 or 8 years old, I would try to re-create the way a broadcaster like Mel Allen would call a game, by speaking into a tape recorder and then listening to what I had said. I loved doing that, but as time went on and I spent more and more time in those production trucks, I realized that was what I wanted to do. And over time, I determined my goal was to become the head of a major sports television network.
Sean McManus (left) as a young boy with father Jim McKay in the broadcast booth, and McManus (right) working in the control room with son Jackson. (Photos: Courtesy Sean McManus)
Mel Allen was one of my favorite broadcasters as a kid. Lindsey Nelson, too. And Vin Scully, for the way he called a baseball game and also for how he handled NFL football. Remember, he was the one who called “The Catch,” the touchdown pass that Joe Montana threw to Dwight Clark in the playoffs against the Cowboys.
Howard Cosell? I admired Howard a great deal. He was unique in every possible way, and a true pioneer. He had a photographic memory and was honest, insightful and a larger-than-life figure.
My job is a dream job, and one of the greatest parts of being chairman of CBS Sports is being involved in all the things we do. That includes production, programming, negotiating rights for various properties, marketing, talent recruitment and communications. I like to get involved with the details of those duties while always letting my really good team do their jobs.
McManus’ father, the late broadcaster Jim McKay, confirms the news that 11 Israeli athletes had been killed during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
I find that few things are as exciting as being in a production truck or a studio for a live event. It is the closest thing I can imagine to being a competitive athlete. You prepare, you train and then you have to execute, under pressure and without any margin for error. And when you come out of a production that came off well, when you have produced a great show and everybody has done their jobs well, the sense of accomplishment is tremendous. But if things did not go as well as you would have liked, you all feel very down afterwards.
These days, I am no longer producing live events in the trucks or in the studio. We have the best producers and directors in the business, and I leave that job to them and make sure I do not get in the way. But I will offer thoughts as to what else I would like to see, what other angles of a story we should talk about. It’s more a case of general supervising and trying to be the voice of the viewer at home.
It was producing live events that really attracted me to the business, and that was mostly what I was involved with early on in my career. But when I moved to NBC Sports, I became more active in the things that have been so much a part of my job at CBS Sports.
But live production was and is my first love, and that is what I will miss most when I step down, whenever that may be.
I love the PGA Tour and the tournaments we carry. The West Coast swing is a highlight of our calendar year. And the Masters truly is a tradition unlike any other and unlike any other event we do.
Certainly, I try to watch as much sports television as I can. That includes our own events as well as those of our competitors. The World Series. Sunday Night Football. The NHL and NBA playoffs. The Triple Crown of horse racing. I really try to keep up to speed. And by doing so, I see things that can make us better, and also things that I do not want us to do. I’ll text with our producers during, say, a Sunday Night Football game I am watching at home, about things I notice about the productions. Watching our competition is also a way to scout talent from other networks that we may want to bring to CBS Sports one day.
I love the PGA Tour and the tournaments we carry. The West Coast swing is a highlight of our calendar year. And the Masters truly is a tradition unlike any other and unlike any other event we do. As for the PGA Championship, it continues to provide invaluable drama. Golf is so important to us, and what we do in that game is a pillar of our programming at CBS Sports.
Broadcasters Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi call Tiger Woods’ victory at the 1997 Masters, McManus’ first as president of CBS Sports.
Yes, we did learn a lot from our experiences during the pandemic. For a while, it was a very expensive and very complicated proposition. At every tournament, for example, we needed back-up personnel for our production team. We always had a shadow crew at our hotel in case someone came down with COVID. And we were constantly looking for ways to be more efficient, appreciating that some work we had long conducted on-site could actually be done at a central location. Such as the super tower we created with Nick Faldo, Frank Nobilo and Ian Baker-Finch all in a studio together in Orlando while Jim Nantz was at the tournament. A real chemistry developed between Nick, Frank and Ian, and it worked so well that we decided to keep the super tower on-site even after COVID was no longer an issue and we had everyone back at the tournment venues once again.
I learned a lot from my father. He was such a great storyteller and taught me the value of that, and the fact that viewers are really more interested in the personalities involved in these competitions than anything else. Dad was also a great role model, and he always stressed the importance of integrity and honesty and being a man of your word.
In many ways, great sports television is all about the storytelling and doing so in ways that cover every angle visually, verbally and graphically. It’s true, a really exciting last-minute win or a really great game makes it easier to have a great telecast, but even if that is not the case, you still want the viewer to say afterwards, “Wow, that was unbelievable!”
From the age of 8, I traveled with my father to some of the great sporting events in the world. We talked about sports a lot, and I am sure I have watched pretty much every show he ever did. And yes, we did talk shop on occasion when I went to work at ABC Sports right after college. We also worked some of the same events, which was fun. But there came a time for me to get out of his shadow, and that is when I went to NBC Sports in 1979.
The differences and similarities in covering a Super Bowl and a Masters? Well, at the Super Bowl, you have one field and one ball, versus golf, where there are essentially 18 fields and up to a dozen participants you have to cover at any given time. The Super Bowl is very complex in terms of the number of cameras we use as well as replay monitors, microphones and mobile units. But you can be pretty successful covering it simply by following the ball. As for the Masters, it can be even more challenging because it has what seem to be thousands of moving parts. We have to make hundreds of split-second decisions during the tournament regarding when to go to what golfers. And with the Masters, we also have individual feeds for digital properties such as Amen Corner, Feature Groups, Masters on the Range and 15 & 16 that also require us to move very nimbly. It’s much more than just the broadcast.
As for the situation with the LIV Golf tour, I will only say that we have enjoyed a six-decade relationship with the PGA Tour and are confident it will continue to be the pre-eminent golf tour in the world. They have been wonderful partners of ours for many decades and will be for decades to come.