BlinkDash

To bring the professional sports industry to a screeching halt, one could do worse than lock the New York Hilton Midtown’s ballroom doors on Tuesday and throw away the keys (blocking cell phone signals would help the scenario work).

That might seem hyperbolic given what occurs there is an event to raise money to prevent birth defects, but the annual March of Dimes New York sports luncheon over its 35 years has become the gathering of the most powerful in sports. Not to mention, it’s a force for good with $16 million raised to date (expect another $1 million added tomorrow at the 36th edition).

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“It’s really a who’s who; it’s probably the biggest collection of sports and media TV executives in one room every year,” said sportscaster Kenny Albert, who is co-emceeing the luncheon with Gayle King. “It’s amazing when you look around the room and see three or four of the league commissioners, the heads of just about every network, athletes, retired athletes, 20 to 30 sportscasters who seem to attend every year. And then the honorees, they honor four sports and media figures every year and it’s always some of the biggest names.”

Indeed, this year’s honorees are NFL commissioner Roger Goodell accepting a corporate leadership award on behalf of the league, New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch, CC Sabathia, and skier Lindsey Vonn. In 35 years only one honoree did not show — read on to find out whom.

There are scores of causes; why is this one the place to be seen for masters of the sports universe?

It started in 1983 when James Rosenfield, the boss of then-CBS Sports CEO Neal Pilson, requested he organize a lunch for the cause. Rosenfield himself had been asked by friends who were on the board of the local chapter of the March of Dimes, a charity initially started to find a cure for polio which morphed into birth defect and low birth weight prevention (the dimes refer to the donations kids asked for in the 1940s and 1950s).

Coincidentally, Pilson had a connection because of his son. Writing of the goal to prevent birth defects in a letter to the first attendees in 1983, Pilson penned, “My wife Frieda and I hold this goal close to us because our son Mickey was born with a birth defect. He is deaf. We are fortunate however that despite his handicap he is a healthy young man…Others are not so fortunate. Their children are born with birth defects that require constant medical care.”

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During that first luncheon, however, Pilson for a moment thought it might be the last. Howard Cosell emceed and turned it into a roast.

“Howard just about tore into everybody,” Pilson recalled, noting sportscaster Warner Wolf received particularly harsh barbs. “And we didn’t finish the lunch until about a quarter of three (45 minutes late). And we were all very embarrassed about it. I don’t think we invited Howard to do that again.”

But the lunch survived, even year four. That’s when honoree Patrick Ewing of the Knicks called then-MSG CEO Joe Cohen, a key driver still today behind the luncheon, hours before the event to say he felt ill and would not attend. Pilson and Cohen scrambled and quickly recruited Ewing’s teammate Bill Cartwright (for those of a certain age, the two centers were briefly dubbed the Twin Towers). That led to another embarrassing chapter.

“Bill went up (on stage) and he picked up the award,” Pilson recounted. “He picked it up the wrong way, and it broke, fell apart right in front of everybody. And so I remember Bill trying to bend over, and it took Bill 20 minutes to bend over and about 15 minutes to get back up, trying to pick up the pieces. And that was the point where we decided we needed a much better trophy or something to award our awardees. And that led to our asking (sculptor) Mark Mellon to sculpt a bronze, which we use to this day.”

Pilson left CBS in 1995 and said his influence to attract big names waned. After an interim period, he handed the baton off to Sean McManus in 1997, who had just begun running CBS Sports and has since. McManus is now intimately connected to the event, so much so that in the week prior, he’ll spend at least an hour determining the seating arrangements for the 60-plus tables that will accommodate about 700 people. Almost akin to a wedding planner.

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“It’s tough because, you know, there are people sitting at tables towards the middle of the room who are used to sitting in the front of the room,” he said, though he claimed no one had ever complained about poor table placement. 

Asked why the event resonated, McManus replied, “I don’t want to say it’s because of me, but to a large extent, it’s because of me.” While that may sound boastful, it’s also in part true. When the head of one of the major sports networks makes it a key commitment and asks for buy-in, be it from sponsors or buyers of tables, others do too. Whether it’s WWE, a big contributor in recent years, or the NFL, key sports institutions contribute and attend.

Last year, WWE legend Hulk Hogan made a surprise appearance and went table to table asking — or more apt, demanding — donations.

“You know, when Hulk Hogan is standing over your table, pointing his finger in your chest saying, ‘Listen, brother, I want you to contribute to the March of Dimes,’ people tend to do that,” McManus said of the time in the lunch when donations are solicited. Tables sell for $7,500 and sponsorships as much a $25,000, but attendees in past years have donated over $100,000 extra just during the lunch itself (in recent years WWE has matched this amount).

It’s also a cause that many feel a connection to. “All of our attendees and all of our honorees, either have children or relatives or friends who have gone through something like this,” McManus said. “So they all identify in some way.”

And some more so than others, like this year’s co-emcee, Albert, who has called games in each of the Big Four leagues and is the play-by-play announcer of the New York Rangers on radio and Knicks for MSG Networks.

“I was one pound, 15 ounces, actually went down to one pound eight ounces after I was born,” said Albert, the son of sportscaster Marv Albert. “And I was in an incubator for about two and a half months after being born Feb. 2. And I came home in the middle of April and had a twin brother who didn’t survive. And this is 51 years ago when there was such a lack of technology. My parents actually had no idea they were having twins. And my mother went into labor three months early, and I guess the rest is history.”

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Honorees are asked to tour a neonatal intensive care unit, which McManus said Goodell did a few weeks ago. Aiding McManus in recruiting speakers is a committee of 51 sports executives. For example, Hillary Mandel, Senior Vice President for IMG Media, asked her company’s client, Vonn. Cohen has a deep connection to the Yankees and helped woo the recently retired Sabathia. NFL VP/Broadcasting Cathy Yancy, a committee member, approached McManus about honoring the NFL during its 100th season.

No one would quite say why Tisch, an LA resident, got the nod over his partner John Mara, but sources within the sports charity world said the Tischs and Maras have an informal agreement: Maras accept awards west of the Hudson River, Tischs east of the Hudson.

Who is the star the luncheon wants but hasn’t yet gotten?

“Been tough to get Eli Manning,” Cohen said of the Giants quarterback who is also a March of Dimes spokesman. Regular season conflicts prevent NFL players from attending.

There is the hope of course for the future. Look no further than the former New York Jet Joe Namath. Broadway Joe is the only two-time honoree.

(Top photo of David Levy, Venus Williams, McManus, Joe Girardi: Ben Hider/Getty Images)

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