Welcome to the sports media podcast. I'm your host, Richard Dych. My producer is Patrick Antonetti. One guest on this episode, Bill Bonnell is a executive producer for ESPN and the lead college football producer

at that company. He is here because he will produce the college football playoff national

championship game next Monday from Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Kickoff is 7.30 p.m. Eastern

time. And if you were designing two premier

viewership teams, you might indeed have Ohio State versus Notre Dame. And with that,

I bring in Bill. Bill, welcome to the sports media podcast. Thank you, Richard. It's great

being with you today. And, hey, I heard that Al Michaels said that I bet your next guest won't mention Don Rickles or Frank Sinatra.

And I actually have a Don Rickles story.

Please, go.

This podcast is fast becoming a Don Rickles podcast.

So anyway, when I worked at NBC Sports with Dick Eversall in the Olympics, I would

very occasionally go out to Los Angeles and meet with different people.

I went out to dinner one night with Randy Edelman, who's a major motion picture film composer,

who was going to do work with us on the Olympics at NBC. And of course, we walk into this

restaurant called The Grill in Beverly Hills. And there are Don Rickles is sitting with his wife

and we sit down right next to him. And he proceeded to heckle me the entire dinner.

And anyway, you don't live until you've been heckled by Don Rickles, as you know.

But when I was a kid growing up, I mean, you know, my father passed away when I was very young,

but I can remember he was a huge fan of Don Rickles and stuff.

So it was a great thrill to meet him. But anyway, I had to at least say that because I heard

Al say that. Yeah, Al's life in terms of celebrity is one for the one for the books. But yeah,

no, I mean, Don Rickles, again, just strikes me or struck me as a guy who understood like that people would get a thrill if he insulted them, just given he was a famous insult comic. So I like the fact that he would heckle you because he knows, you know, that's like a, that's a cool story for someone to go back home to. So I love that. All right. So obviously this year has been a significant one when it comes to college football because of the reformed college football playoff.

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