The Big Show might go on, just not on ESPN.
Sports TV stalwart Dan Patrick, whose quip-happy highlights and back-and-forth with Keith Olbermann elevated SportsCenter from the cable backwaters to primo water cooler fodder, has announced he's leaving ESPN next month.
Patrick, 51, dropped the bombshell Monday during his syndicated daily radio program, The Dan Patrick Show, appropriately enough during the "Big Show" segment with Olbermann. Broadcasting from San Francisco, site of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game, Patrick told listeners that he didn't have any formal plans and that he was becoming a "free agent."
"I've spent 18 years here. It's been home, but I thought I was starting to take it for granted," the sportscaster told listeners.
Patrick said he planned to make the announcement last week but held off because ESPN executives unsuccessfully tried to persuade him to remain with the network.
"There's no bad blood," he continued. "If there was animosity, I wouldn't be doing radio shows after this one today."
Patrick's last day on the radio will be Aug. 17, and his final week will be a retrospective of greatest hits from the syndicated show, which he started in 1999 and has become his primary job at the network after easing back from SportsCenter duties in recent years.
"I felt I was doing my job, but I wasn't satisfied," said Patrick. "I wasn't going anywhere with it, I wasn't getting better. My bosses knew I felt this way the past couple of years."
Patrick said he wasn't sure about his future TV or radio gigs except that he wasn't going to take over for Bob Barker as host of CBS' The Price Is Right. Patrick said he turned down a request to audition.
"I was flattered to be asked but just didn't see that as a career move at this time," he said.
While he's not sure what the future holds, he said he hoped that he intends to spend more time with his four children.
"That plays into this. All my children have been born while I've been at ESPN," he said, before launching into an anecdote about his nine-year-old daughter, Molly.
"She asked me, 'Are you still going to be famous?' I said, 'We'll have to wait and see.' Then she asked, 'Are we still going to get to go to Disney World?' I said, 'Not in the way we have in the past.' "
The Disney-owned ESPN issued a release praising Patrick for all the great calls made and ratings home runs scored.
"Dan has accomplished so much over the past two decades at ESPN and fans and newsmakers have turned to him for his steady and trusted approach," said Norby Williamson, ESPN's executive vice president for production.
Patrick got his first break under his real name, Dan Pugh, as an on-air personality with rock station WTUE in Dayton, Ohio, where he also played basketball at the University of Dayton in the late '70s.
In the mid-'80s, he was hired by CNN, where he worked for six years as a reporter. In 1989, he joined the Bristol, Connecticut-based ESPN to take over the anchor desk at SportsCenter. When Olbermann joined as cohost in 1992, the duo's on-air chemistry and witty analysis helped take the show to new horizons and expand its rabid fan base.
The two coined many catchphrases, including Patrick's "Welcome to the Big Show" and "en fuego," and helped inspire Aaron Sorkin's short-lived ABC dramedy Sports Night.
Along the way, Patrick parlayed his pop-culture cred into cameos in such films as BASEketball, The Waterboy, Benchwarmers, the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard, and the upcoming Adam Sandler film I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. He also appeared in music videos for Brad Paisly's "I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishing Song)" and Hootie and the Blowfish's "Only Wanna Be with You," both times referring to the artists as being "en fuego."
Patrick earned a Sports Emmy for Best Studio Host in 1998 and was named National Sportscaster of the Year in 2000 by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.
He called it quits from SportsCenter last year, after 17 years of service. But he remained in the ESPN empire, hosting The Dan Patrick Show and, on sister network ABC, hosting NBA Countdown through last month's finals.