How Dan Patrick Convinced Grant Hill to be in His 'This Was SportsCenter' Ad | Rich's 'TWSC'

The "This Is SportsCenter" campaign became one of the most beloved ad runs in sports television. According to Dan Patrick, it almost came down to whether two NBA stars would work for $2,500.

Patrick walked the show through the phone calls that got the whole thing off the ground, starting with Grant Hill.

"I said, 'Grant, can you do me a favor? Can you come to Bristol, Connecticut?'" Patrick recalled. "He goes, 'How much does it pay?' I said, '$2,500.' He goes, 'Dan, I don't think I can do that.'"

The pitch that closed him was not the money. It was the spotlight.

"I said, 'It's an ad campaign for SportsCenter. You'll have your own commercial,'" Patrick said.

Hill said yes, and the result was the spot where he sits at a piano in the ESPN lobby. Patrick, playing himself, is having a miserable day. Bad hair, a teleprompter that went down, mistakes on his highlights. Hill cheers him up, drops some money in the jar, and Patrick mutters his thanks.

Jason Kidd got the same call and the same number.

The idea for Kidd had him flying his own highlights into Bristol by helicopter, with Patrick and his co-anchor Keith heading out to grab the tape and haul it back to the studio. Kidd asked the same question every athlete asked.

"How much does it pay?" Patrick remembered. "$2,500. He goes, 'All right.'"

In the bit, Kidd hands over the footage with a casual "By the way, I got the third quarter," then begs off because he has an early practice the next morning.

"Those were the first two guys," Patrick said. "Without them, I don't know how successful the ad campaign was going to be."

Ask Patrick for his own favorite, though, and he does not pick a superstar cameo. He picks the one built entirely on the absurd contrast of two anchors getting ready for air.

"I still think the one where Keith and I are just putting our makeup on, and we're talking about tough guys in hockey," he said.

The joke lands in the gap between the subject and the setting. Two men in makeup chairs, dabbing on rouge, trading opinions on the toughest enforcers in the league. The dialogue runs through Lindros dropping the gloves, Neely and Stevens not fighting anymore, and the claim that "penalty minutes doesn't equate to toughness in my book." When it comes to real toughness, the verdict is delivered flatly: "Doug Gilmour's tough. Mark Messier's tough."

All of it while someone asks for a little more rouge.

"That one I thought was just sneaky sneaky great," Patrick said. "That would be tops."