From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears, and Touchdowns in TV

Ebersol may be the consummate television executive and his memoir is a love letter to a life and career well lived. He started at ABC when he was only 19, flying around the world researching athletes’ stories for the 1968 Olympics. Moving to NBC in 1974, he created Saturday Night Live with Lorne Michaels, was its sole producer during the Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal years, met and married actress Susan Saint James, and eventually became president of NBC Sports. From the NBA to NBC’s work with the Olympics, he features memorable personalities such as his mentor Roone Arledge, Jim McKay, Brandon Tartikoff, and David Stern. There’s a fascinating chapter on negotiating the rights to the 2000 Sydney Games, and the book could easily serve as a primer on how to be an executive, as Ebersol had an artful way of dealing with crises and managing professional relationships. On the personal side, he includes a touching tribute to his son Teddy, who died at the age of 14 in a 2004 plane crash that also gravely injured Dick and another son.