Photo courtesy of ABC
Television Icon Dies
ABC NEWS Chairman Roone Arledge Revolutionized Sports, News Coverage

Letter to Dave Devoto from Roone Arledge dated 12-18-85

   
Roone Arledge was responsible for 16 year of Armwrestling on ABC's Wide World of Sports.
I only met him once in the ABC offices in New York but I will always clearly remember the man.

In a long and distinguished career spanning four decades, Arledge played a key role in revolutionizing how news and sporting events are covered and watched around the world.

When Life magazine asked historians, critics and scholars to select the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century" in 1990, they put Arledge on that exclusive list. Sports Illustrated magazine ranked Arledge third — behind only Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan — as one of the 40 individuals who have most significantly altered or elevated the world of sports in the last four decades.

Prior to his tenure at the news division, Arledge was credited with transforming sports broadcasting. While president of ABC Sports from 1968 to 1986, Arledge introduced virtually all state-of-the-art technologies to sports programming, including instant replays, slow motion, advanced graphics, as well as the introduction of journalistic values and personalization of athletes to sports broadcasting.

"Before Roone Arledge there were no replays. There were no slow-mo machines," said Dick Ebersol, Arledge's protégé who later became the president of NBC Sports. "There was absolutely no prime-time sports on any network."

The Sports World and especially the Sport of Armwrestling says thank you and goodbye to a Genius Pioneer in Sports and Television.

THINK YOUR'RE TOUGH?

GRIP THIS!


ARMWRESTLING.COM- Dave Devoto (707) 537-7373

WEBMASTER- Gary Roberts (760) 468- 5459
No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or
incorporated in any information retrieval system without
written permission of the Publisher
.