> JOHN FILIPPELLI I Flip has had an immeasurable impact on countless on-air talent and production personnel who have had the good fortune to work alongside him over his storied career. He has always been a Hall of Famer to me. – Jon Litner, YES Network Colin Powell said one of the greatest talents of all is the ability to recognize and to develop talent in others. John J. Filippelli is a Hall of Famer because he has the innate ability to recognize and develop talent. It is one of the great honors of my career to represent the network that Flip built. – Howard Levinson, YES Network Flip has been a one-of a-kind mentor, colleague, and loyal friend for more than three decades. He has inspired and guided not only me but the entire team that launched YES. Under Flip’s leadership, a culture of excellence was created at YES, making it the standard by which all other RSNs are measured. – Woody Freiman, YES Network 28
f, as former Speaker of the House of Representatives “Tip” O’Neill said, “all politics is local,” the same can certainly be said for sports. Even today, in a world unbound by geographical limitations, few things can unite a city or a country more than a championship run by a sports team donning its letters. For John J. Filippelli, those letters are an interlocking N and Y. He’s one of the more respected, influential, and accomplished leaders in the history of sports media, and his career is a rare one, spanning both the executive suite and the front bench. His current role as executive producer and president, production and programming, for New York-based YES Network, is an appropriate exclamation point on a career that has engrained memories in the minds of sports viewers and altered the careers of countless sports broadcasters for nearly five decades. “Flip is an innovator who thinks outside the box,” says longtime New York Yankees playby-play voice Michael Kay. “He sees things that others don’t see, through a prism of inventiveness and attention to detail. Most important, he’s a Hall of Famer in the way he treats his people. He is your defender at all times, and he is the rare leader who constantly tells you how good a job you’re doing. All workers in all walks of life should experience working with a leader like Flip.” Brooklyn-born Filippelli’s story reads like one that was predestined. His father ran a bar across the street from Ebbets Field (one that many famous Dodger players would frequent after games), and his first job was as a 16-year-old vendor at Yankee Stadium. Baseball is in his roots. It was, however, during a run-of-the-mill tour of NBC in New York City — one that any tourist visiting the city would go on — that the magic of television gripped him. 1974 was the year Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Dick Ebersol got his first job at NBC Sports, and Saturday Night Live debuted. As young Flip walked through the halls of the tall building overlooking Rockefeller Plaza, it was, in his words, “love at first sight.” Determined to break into the sports-television industry, Filippelli landed a job as a PA at NBC and eventually earned the opportunity to sit down
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with the first president of NBC Sports, Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Chet Simmons, to make his case to join the team. According to Filippelli, Simmons, perhaps slightly skeptical of the overly enthusiastic youngster, challenged him to name the starting lineup of the 1961 New York Yankees. Fortunately, that World Series-winning, homerun-record–breaking squad held a special place in his heart. He named not only the starting lineup but the club’s entire roster. Filippelli was in, and thus was birthed one of the most influential careers in the history of sports television. During his tenure at NBC Sports, he climbed the ranks to become a lead producer for numerous MLB Game of the Week telecasts, as well as for multiple League Championship Series, All-Star Games, and World Series telecasts. He was in the producer’s chair for the famous 1988 World Series, including the night of one of the most iconic moments in baseball history, when Los Angeles Dodgers’ Kirk Gibson slapped a game-winning home run over the right-field fence at Dodger Stadium in Game 1. After more than two decades at NBC Sports, Filippelli moved over to the new Fox Sports, where his influence on the game of baseball grew even further. He served as coordinating producer of the broadcaster’s first World Series, in 1996 (when his beloved Yankees win their first title in 18 years). He was also producer on the 1998 night when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run, breaking the record Roger Maris set in that ’61 season that Filippelli’s knowledge of got him in the sports-television door. Fox gave him the room to flex his innovation
