Rich Eisen teases ‘SportsCenter’ reunion with Craig Kilborn

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Rich Eisen wants to get Craig Kilborn back on SportsCenter, and he’s already made the ask.

Appearing on his eponymous show earlier this month, Eisen teased the possibility of a reunion with Kilborn, the deadpan, wisecracking former late-night anchor who helped redefine the show’s personality in the mid-1990s alongside Keith Olbermann, Dan Patrick, and Kenny Mayne.

“I did mention to Kilborn, ‘Let’s do it,'” Eisen said. “And I think that’s possible. Let’s get Kilby back in the chair.”

Eisen had also floated the idea to Chris Fowler, but talked himself out of it. Given the extraordinary vantage point Fowler now occupies as ESPN’s lead college football play-by-play voice and tennis announcer, Eisen wasn’t so sure a broadcaster operating at that altitude would want to come back to read a Chicago White Sox walk-off highlight, even for nostalgia’s sake.

“It’s still big,” Eisen said of SportsCenter. “That’s why I love doing it. I love stopping by.”

Kilborn anchored SportsCenter from 1993-96, hosting what he dubbed the “Feel Good Edition” — coining catchphrases like “Jumanji” for a slam dunk and bringing a uniquely sardonic sensibility to the desk that nobody before him had thought to try — before departing for The Daily Show, where he preceded Jon Stewart, and then The Late Late Show on CBS, which he helmed for five years before walking away in 2004. He appeared on The Rich Eisen Show in 2019 for a martini toast to ESPN’s 40th anniversary and hasn’t held a regular TV presence since The Kilborn File — a six-week Fox test run in 2010 — failed to earn a pickup.

Eisen returned to the ESPN fold last fall after more than two decades away, licensing The Rich Eisen Show to the network to anchor ESPN Radio’s noon slot and stream on Disney+ and the ESPN app. And his own SportsCenter comeback has given ESPN every reason to keep indulging him. Last August, he returned to the desk for the first time in 22 years and drew 708,000 viewers — 67 percent above SportsCenter‘s year-to-date average in the 11 p.m. window — prompting ESPN to announce plans for periodic special editions in the future. In April, he went back to Bristol for the first time in over two decades.

The nostalgia hasn’t been limited to Eisen’s own returns to the desk, either. He launched This Was SportsCenter, a six-episode video podcast Eisen hosts and produces for Disney+ and ESPN, and has spent the past several weeks excavating the show’s golden era through the voices that made it indispensable.

Dan Patrick led off the series, revisiting his cold call to ESPN executive John Walsh in 1989, his triumphant partnership with Keith Olbermann, and the complicated rivalry with Stuart Scott, which Eisen himself got caught in the middle of. Chris Berman followed, recorded live at the Strand Theater in San Francisco during Super Bowl week, hinting he might anchor one final SportsCenter before retiring in 2029. Mike Greenberg offered a behind-the-scenes portrait of the launch of ESPNEWS and the early years of Mike & Mike. Linda Cohn, the record holder for SportsCenter episodes hosted, with over 5,000, walked through her most infamous moments at the desk, including the Ken Griffey Jr. interview that became an early internet sensation and the “master batter” catchphrase, which then-ESPN executive Norby Williamson shut down after exactly one airing.

Fowler is next on June 26, with Kilborn closing out the season on July 3. And if Eisen has his way, that won’t be the only time the two of them share a stage.

The post Rich Eisen teases ‘SportsCenter’ reunion with Craig Kilborn appeared first on Awful Announcing.

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