The talent and potential demonstrated by John Anderson was evident from his early days at ESPN, skills that had been cultivated by both passion for the medium and familiarity with the network. Anderson, who set his sights on sports reporting and found a home with the SportsCenter franchise, had modest aspirations and was content with the role he earned at the network.
Over the time Anderson spent behind the anchor desk, he exhibited his identity as a broadcaster through consistent repetitions and learning from his colleagues. Combined with his esteem and reverence towards the job, paired with palpable humility, he found a way to shine through and leave an impact on the network.
When Anderson walked into the SportsCenter studio this past June to anchor his final episode, he recognized several familiar faces from previous editions of the show. One of those people was Steve Levy, with whom he co-anchored for many of the more than 4,000 episodes of the program he appeared on over the years.
Working with Levy on his final episode was the culmination of this partnership that was based on respect, congeniality and amusement. Anderson is thankful that Levy returned for the show, especially since he had been commuting from Edmonton, Alberta to Miami, Fla. two weeks earlier for a seven-game Stanley Cup Final series. Reflecting back on his egress, he continues to feel indebted to the people that helped facilitate his success on the program, but the essence of a tribute program was somewhat embarrassing for him to endure.
“I really kept emphasizing, ‘We should just do the show. The show’s always been the thing,’” Anderson explained. “My thing hopefully has always been, ‘The show’s the thing,’ and while people are working on their personal brands, my brand has always just been ESPN and SportsCenter. I’m totally fine with that.”
Anderson never felt the desire to establish himself outside of the ESPN and SportsCenter lexicon, instead remaining focused on the task at hand. His arrival at the network took place when many of the original anchors of the program were still appearing on a daily basis, such as Bob Ley, Chris Berman and John Saunders. Anderson felt inspiration from them and several other colleagues as well, including the late Stuart Scott, who at times felt bigger than the show itself but never gave such an opinion himself. Linda Cohn, he surmises, was the most important person he ever worked with because of her acceptance and willingness to help when he was novice to the craft.
“She could have very well said like, ‘Who is this? Give me an accomplished name – what’s going on?’ and she was never like that,” Anderson said of Cohn. “She, from Day 1, was like, ‘I was her equal. How do I help [you] do all those things?’ so that was really useful.”
Around the turn of the century during his first year working at ESPN, Dan Patrick asked Anderson if he could give him a piece of advice. Patrick told him that it was acceptable to pace what he had to say on the show. In other words, rather than saying 12 highlight phrases or quips, it may be better to say two or three to have them presumably better resonate and remain memorable to consumers.
“He was like, ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to get everything in all at once every show,’ and that was really helpful because everybody’s in there trying to make an impression [and] everybody wants to rise up the ladder,” Anderson said. “And he said, ‘You can still do that – you just don’t have to do it rapid fire,’ and that was one of the biggest things that sort of shaped how I did the show once I was there.”
Throughout his 25 years anchoring SportsCenter on ESPN, Anderson perceived his own windfalls through how much value he was providing to the company. Being someone who was dependable, prepared and professional while adding elements of humor and levity through the program has rendered him among the pantheon of long-tenured SportsCenter hosts. At the same time, maintaining awareness of his shortcomings and always focusing on improvement kept him grounded as his star began to grow.
Attaining a spot as a long-tenured SportsCenter anchor came through his aptitude to approach a show in trying to make the people on it stand out. Even though he was covering athletes such as Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady and Mike Trout, he always tried to remember that he was not living in their world and was a conduit to promulgate their athletic prowess, achievements and adversities.
“Now if you could do that and inform and bring something a little entertaining, that would be great, but never make sure that you confuse yourself for being out in front of the guys that are literally [making] the product,” Anderson said. “We had people cut highlights, [but] if LeBron James doesn’t make a basket, I don’t really have anything to show.”
In an era without smartphones, Anderson recognized the importance of SportsCenter as a source of credible information and entertainment through which sports fans could catch up on the action. The show served a purpose of informing consumers and subsequently kept them interested in action taking place across the landscape. Akin to a print newspaper being delivered by a certain time in the morning, SportsCenter functioned as a dependable resource that viewers knew they could trust to gain knowledge and understanding pertaining to these competitive events.
“Everything was a piece of the trivial pursuit pie from different parts of sports, but when SportsCenter came on, that was all the pieces together, and that was the show of record,” Anderson said. “That’s where you got everything all in one place all the time.”
Even though he remains optimistic about the future of SportsCenter, Anderson had started to think about his future in the business in recent years. Anchoring the show late at night was a grind, and it became more difficult to arrive back home in the middle of the night and operate on an unconventional schedule. Anderson began to feel more tired and cantankerous and thought he would leave the show a few years ago, but the global pandemic resulted in a change of plans that resulted in him signing a two-year extension with the network.
“Every year there’s new people that come in on the show and you’re like, ‘Haven’t I just gone through this with the last guy that didn’t know how to spell a name?’” Anderson said. “Plus, you realize it’s past your time when somebody brings you a shot sheet with a pronunciation for ‘Yastrzemski’ like it’s the first time somebody’s heard the name, and I’m like, ‘Dude, this show’s passing me by,’ but that was really what it was, and the timing was great.”
Over the last decade, Anderson has watched as people left ESPN, something he attributes to factors such as downsizing, contract terms and receiving better opportunities elsewhere. The Walt Disney Company as a whole enacted a round of layoffs last year that resulted in the elimination of 7,000 jobs in an effort to slash $5.5 billion in operating costs, a goal that it exceeded by $2 billion. Employees at ESPN in various departments lost their jobs, including on-air personalities such as Max Kellerman, Suzy Kolber and Jalen Rose. Fortunately for Anderson, he was not included in these cuts and was able to leave without disappointment or animus.
“Twenty-five seemed like a round number,” Anderson said. “I had done the show a bunch – it’s tiring – and I had some other things that I kind of thought maybe I would like to do, and it turned out those all kind of showed up maybe a little faster than I thought, so that was it.”
Even though Anderson has not seen anyone grow old as a SportsCenter anchor, he is not leaving ESPN entirely. The step back involves working 20 days of track and field coverage, a sport he competed in while attending the University of Missouri. Anderson was the team’s captain and has fond memories of his time in competition, leading him to request such assignments during previous contract discussions with ESPN.
Outside of hosting sports television coverage, Anderson will begin a new role as the Leonard H. Goldenson Endowed Chair in Radio and Television Journalism within the Missouri School of Journalism at his alma mater, the University of Missouri. Assisting the next generation of broadcasters in pursuing their goals and navigating the industry are aspects of the role he looks forward to when he starts the position next January. Over the years, Anderson had returned to campus to speak in classes and at other events, and he is energized and enthused to return.
“There’s no place I’d rather do it than at Missouri because that place has just been really good to me in a lot of different ways over the years,” Anderson said. “The journalism school set me on a path professionally, and then the head track coach that I ran for there has helped me in a lot of ways personally, and so I’m indebted and to go back there is going to be terrific.”
Throughout his farewell episode of SportsCenter, Anderson and Levy were joined by special guests, including John Buccigross, Nicole Briscoe and Kenny Mayne. Additionally, former Green Bay Packers safety LeRoy Butler joined the program to congratulate Anderson, who inducted him into the team’s Hall of Fame in February 2022.
A montage of SportsCenter commercials starring Anderson was played on the show, along with a collage of messages on social media commending him for his tenure on the show. While he felt that the production was overdone, he was thankful for every bit of it and for everyone at ESPN. Although he remains at the network in a part-time capacity, his time on SportsCenter has come to a close, and he looks forward to writing the next chapter.
“That those people came back and helped work on that show, that meant as much to me as any of the cute little clips that we put together, so I’m a little embarrassed by it because I [didn’t] really [want] that,” Anderson said. “I was kind of trying to slip silently into the night and I failed miserably at it, and I’m really grateful for the people that made it that way.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
