- 12 hours ago
Ted Turner passed away at the age of 87. Dukes and Bell react to the news, and are joined by longtime CNN Sports host John Fricke to remember who Turner was and the unquantifiable impact he made on the South's most important city.
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00:00well we've lost a great one and the impact he had not only on our city but the world
00:07is enormous atlanta what's going on it's dukes and bell on sports radio 92.9 the game
00:12we start off every day and every hour by saying hey man on a wednesday mike and i were doing
00:18the
00:18pre-show it's called behind the curtain and uh literally we got the news right as we were
00:22starting that earlier today for those of you who were tuning in and we were just reminiscing
00:26about the passing of ted turner who was 87 years old um mike we don't assume that everybody who
00:33listens knows the impact and what ted turner meant to atlanta but more importantly you know the things
00:39that he helped our city uh not only develop but also create and the opportunities it opened for
00:46atlanta to grow into the city that it's become guys we have an international city now and i will tell
00:50you a lot of that has to do with ted turner you know right i mean people it's hard to
00:54imagine now
00:54we're talking about what they're going to do with that space but folks i'm old enough to have been
00:59down there for cnn center interviews where there's people taking the tour from all over the world to
01:03see cnn but uh yeah we talked about it at length i mean i just the ultimate maverick uh you
01:09know just
01:09love the the independent thinking outside the box and it's hard probably for guys in their 20s or even
01:1330s because we just now we're in a era where you cut the cord you know get to stream your
01:18tv but when
01:19the tv channels really stopped at 13 you know and maybe you had two or three uhf channels it's hard
01:24to imagine you know just something like when cable was you know being launched and being at the vanguard
01:30of that and really real predating you know espn was starting but you know he's the guy that put the
01:35braves on the map took the braves to another level you know generations of americans you know all over
01:40the country not just the southeast who grew up with the braves thanks to ted and then obviously you
01:44know the humanitarian work and and everything else obviously we could spend a whole day talking about
01:47ted will talk to some folks who know him yeah no doubt um and a guy who in the early
01:52days uh worked
01:53for him and ironically you know him very well he's going to join us here in a few minutes um
01:58everyone's
01:59put out statements uh in our city you know the braves uh saying our good friend and former owner ted
02:04turner was one of a kind they're right brilliant businessman constant showman and passionate fan
02:10of his beloved braves uh the hawks have put out a statement because mike we were talking about this
02:15i don't even know a lot of people remember or think that ted turner owned the hawks right and so
02:20at one point it was like uh you know we always talk about having one owner and having a a
02:25guy that you
02:26can point the finger at not in a negative way but just say hey what are we doing where are
02:29we going
02:30ted turner was always in the forefront of that uh telling us what our teams were doing and what he
02:35was attempting to do his visions for a lot of this stuff man helped all of our teams grow so
02:41you'll see a
02:42lot of things today uh hawks principal owner tony wrestler saying i'm deeply saddened by the passing
02:46of ted turner they had a relationship going all the way back way before wrestler was even thinking
02:51about buying a basketball team when he was in you know finances and whatnot so um let's talk to john
02:57freaky guys because you know john who's on our station has been for a very long time and john uh
03:02again
03:03we don't assume that people know all the history so i just want to take a step back here and
03:08allow you
03:08to address this because we've had these conversations privately about
03:13cnn in the early days and what it was and what an incredible place it was and all of that
03:19had to do
03:19with ted turner oh yeah of course uh guys that i mean he is you know a visionary and a
03:27legendary and
03:27all that kind of stuff but nobody knows the risk that he took you know in town people may not
03:32know
03:32the backstory real quick his dad oh ted inherited his money his dad owned all the billboards in town you
03:37might see a number of them still say turner on the bottom of the billboard but ted took that billboard
03:42money and then he leveraged that billboard money to buy this little uhf station in wtcg then he then
03:49leveraged that to buy the braves went broke doing it both times went broke buying the the tv station
03:54went broke buying the braves and with this idea of putting the braves on you know nationally and
04:00putting it on satellite and then went broke trying to leverage to create cnn i mean he went broke many
04:05times trying to do all this and and look at what he achieved i mean he is it just so
04:11happens our town
04:12atlanta was incredibly lucky i gotta tell you guys to have two people at the same time at the right
04:18time in history and those two people were ted turner and maynard jackson those two men in the 1970s took
04:25atlanta from a town of a million and a half people that might be something into the they're the ones
04:30who
04:30shoved atlanta into the into the future and it's all really on their shoulders john we were talking
04:36about just the the maverick that he was you know and we'll get into the sports side of it too
04:40but
04:40you know cnn you know where he goes with the all news format and remember remember like baby
04:45jessica that was that predated you know the first gulf war but really kind of took flight
04:49with it with the coverage of the gulf war but i mean being a visionary to say people would like
04:53would want to consume that type of news product well yeah well i think june 1st 1980 when he
04:58i'm standing on the lawn outside of you know techwood there if you drive down where all the
05:02big buildings are across from you know georgia tech right there and you'll see in the back you'll see
05:07a building with columns that was the old jewish country club and that's what ted bought was a
05:11country club and then he turned that clubhouse into cnn and so we're standing on the lawn now i'm 19
05:17years old and i've just been hired and he's like ah we're gonna do this ah 24 hour ah cable
05:23news
05:24thing and we're gonna we're gonna put it and uh and we're all standing there saying this ain't
05:29nobody gonna watch news 24 hours a day uh and nobody's gonna pay for television for god's sakes
05:34it's free and uh so he he saw stuff that we didn't see and and uh changed the world in
05:41the process of
05:42doing it no matter what you have you know your view of cnn now is that's not relevant what's relevant
05:46is that he made atlanta a by by putting atlanta on national tv through tbs and cnn he elevated the
05:54city the 1996 olympics are not here if not for manor jackson and the airport and atlanta and ted
06:00turner and cnn and tbs they're just not here that never happens it is uh our guy john frickey as
06:06we
06:07talk about uh the uh one and only ted turner who passed away at age 87 i want to talk
06:13about your
06:13relationship uh and what that was what was he like with normal employees look i i think a lot
06:20of people think um you know especially in the early days john that you know he was off in an
06:26office
06:26somewhere and doing his thing and didn't communicate or didn't talk with guys other folks that i know
06:31who worked there like yourself have all talked about having encounters with ted turner can you talk
06:36about some of those oh geez i mean i got so many but ted ted for all his brashness and
06:43his
06:43arrogance you know you know world-class yachtsman wins the world you know america's cup multiple
06:47times creates all these things that he does uh was the most down-to-earth nice person he would just
06:53sit with the though you know he wasn't one of these suits that walk through with an entourage
06:57of people around him president of the network owner you know blah blah blah no he was the guy that
07:01would walk it literally one day we're sitting in his like 5 15 in the morning on a sunday morning
07:05and we're all in a kind of a circle getting ready to go on the air at 6 a.m
07:09he comes downstairs
07:10looking like just you know death warmed over because he had an apartment and upstairs he's
07:14wearing a robe and slippers he sit down and he looks over at me he says uh there's the sunday
07:20paper i said yes sir there's a couple of dozen right there he says he says could i have one
07:24of
07:24those and i thought for a second i went you know mr charter you own the network you already bought
07:30the
07:30paper you can have all of them you want i don't want to get your way
07:35get my way you could have a dude they're your papers
07:40talk about him with the braves we said earlier as john frickey a long time cnn and cnsi employee
07:45with ted turner obviously his legacy is ted pass at age 87 join us today on the sweet james accident
07:50attorney hotline ted would want us to get the plug in carl for the for the sponsor but john the
07:54braves
07:55it's there's something about an owner and one guy not a nameless faceless corporation but one guy
07:59who wants to win and maybe ted didn't know how to win initially but found the way to win
08:05no you're right i mean and he's in the record books he was oh and one as manager the day
08:10that
08:11he made himself manager uh we didn't know because you know there was in the days in 77 when we
08:16know
08:16you didn't hear about things until they came on the air and they said oh by the way ted's managing
08:19tonight because he had fired dave bristol because the braves have lost like 15 games in a row they only
08:24had three good players well four good players at necro jeff brose willie montanez gary matthews and then
08:29not much else no offense daryl cheney you're my friend but you know what i'm saying and so um
08:35they lost like 15 in a row he makes himself manager they lose again bully coon the commissioner of
08:39baseball loses it just loses it and says you can't do that you know and best interest of the game
08:46threatens to you know suspend it for the year so he has to go out and do it you're right
08:51ted was too
08:51involved early on with both the braves and the hawks but then he thought you know i've got to do
08:56all
08:56this people are saying look you've got these selfish networks you've got to deal with
08:59the television multiple plural at the time you got to deal with the television networks and
09:03and he wanted to buy cbs on top of that so he finally just hired a guy named stan caston
09:08and said
09:09look uh you're the president of the braves the president of the hawks you go figure it out
09:12and that's when the braves took off with the hawks that was all stan cast what about uh as we
09:19talk about
09:20all the things that that ted turner had an effect on here on sports radio 92.9 the game it's
09:24dukes and
09:25bell guys um he was the man of the year um and then mike and i said this look he
09:29sells you know
09:31to time warner and you talk about a different time when they started right and you said tv's free
09:35nobody's going to do this uh and as tv continues to evolve and change and where we are now but
09:40even
09:40then that sale was such a big deal because a lot of people were saying don't do it right they
09:45didn't
09:45want ted turner to sell well he said biggest mistake of his life he should never have sold cnn he
09:52got
09:53eight billion dollars for it but i i agree he should never have sold it i mean he he brewed
09:58the
09:58day he sold it he should never have sold it he took cnn from being the worldwide leader undisputed
10:03leader when fox news channel launched in 1996 we all laughed we said yeah good luck you know you're
10:09not going up against that bagel i mean cnn was it was like you know okay we're going to get
10:13uh you
10:14know northwest north florida state and they're going to go up against you know alabama at its peak no you're
10:18not going to do that but the the corporate interests you know they were all bean counting
10:23c it was a per it was an ted took it personally at cnn right like i only saw ted
10:29mad once only once
10:31and i was sitting at the set and it was the end of a show at like 10 o'clock
10:36at night and the anchor
10:38the news anchor who was in i forget said from all of us here at cnn in atlanta good night
10:42and about 30
10:43seconds later ted comes bursting through the door and he's shouting he said who the hell said good
10:48night and he starts screaming at the top of his lungs this is a 24-hour news network it's five
10:52o'clock in the damn evening in honolulu it's like noon in tokyo don't ever say damn good night don't
10:58tell people to turn off the tv ever ever ever yeah there's so many stories i told carl earlier today
11:05about when uh you know you mentioned the hawks also we had the chiefs right john you have the soccer
11:08team too yeah the chiefs yeah yeah yeah we i hope atlanta united it's too bad the braves aren't
11:14in town to honor him tonight i hope that uh you know atlanta united does something to honor the
11:19fact that he brought professional soccer i mean he he had the chiefs and chiefs were all that great
11:22successfully i mean 70 000 fans a game of fulton county but pele came in he all the teams came
11:28in
11:28you know all the great stars of the day uh were able to come to atlanta we were able to
11:32see him
11:33because of ted so he uh he owned three teams everybody knows braves and the hawks i forget that he
11:37owned the atlanta chiefs right of the nasl right and that's what he was a visionary again a visionary
11:42in soccer too so i just want to know i understand that because of his health issues there was no
11:48rush to build a statue he wouldn't have sadly understood it anyway uh but there ought to be
11:52a statue and the question only question becomes you know where you're going to put it right this
11:56is no offense to the braves i don't want it at the battery i mean i think if the braves
12:00listen to all
12:00of us it belongs next to state farm arena i know it's not on ted turner drive we're not going
12:05to put
12:05it next to federal building right but i think it belongs in uh in the in the park you know
12:10in the park between mercedes-benz stadium which i know ted didn't have anything to do with
12:14but i the number of sheer number of people that would go through there and the volume of people
12:19between the two stadiums i think that's where it ought to be great put way to put it john yeah
12:24i
12:24totally agree with you before we let you go what are your emotions you feel like you owe your career
12:29to ted turner oh absolutely yeah yeah ted turner and bob wessler sure i mean without cnn i never
12:35would add i'd never been on 90 down the game i i would have been probably doing something else in
12:40my life i i they hired me you know i was 19 when they hired me i was still in
12:44college yeah 19 and so
12:47i just happened to be right place right time and uh you know without it i would i would have
12:52never
12:52gotten in this business so without ted turner no i would there was no way i would have ever done
12:57this absolutely not yeah i know i owe everything to him and and by the way so for everybody that
13:01knows for all his brashness and everything else he again one of the nicest deep most decent people
13:08you ever want to meet was the kind of person that would talk to anybody anytime if you got stuck
13:12in
13:12an elevator with him he would ask you about you and you'd be genuinely interested you know he was a
13:18really kind figure and so to me more than anything else ted turner for all his money all his you
13:24know
13:24arrogance all his achievement um his uh you know personality of being kind to the people that
13:30win this is why everybody who worked for him back in those days me and everybody else says everything
13:35you hear the same story because he was that genuine great stuff john yeah absolutely john appreciate
13:41you sharing today uh certainly uh sad to to lose an icon like ted turner but uh i didn't think
13:48there
13:48was anybody better to share like this than you because we've had those conversations about what it was
13:53and and how incredible it was uh and what he built uh thank you john yep thank guys awesome john
14:00freaky great point though at the statue you know you think about the legacy because how much he means
14:04to atlanta obviously we globally and locally you can think about ted uh harvey schiller worked for ted
14:09you know stan cast and terry mcgurk of course uh you know derrick schiller now the braves president
14:13the connection there but yeah and and just how many uh things he was a part of that were just
14:17so
14:18and again we even talked about like the the other stuff like being a captain of like an america's
14:22winning yacht and all the stuff he did you know that kept the captain outrageous he was known as
14:26again we said he spent a whole day talking about him yeah i mean that's why i think people have
14:30this
14:31illusion of this you know uber rich guy traveling the world and doing these extravagant things which
14:38he did but he also was a normal guy who saw normal people and and related to them mike and
14:44i think that's
14:44why there's such an admiration for him john mentioned that whole thing about you know winning the race a
14:49couple of times i it was like ted turner won i remember like hearing that right and you're seeing
14:54his boat you're like whoa uh guys we'll continue to talk about this because it is a big deal uh
14:59and
14:59it's a big deal to our city again i said to mike today there are cities around the country that
15:04have
15:04individuals like ted turner some do some not maybe not as influential but atlanta's not atlanta without
15:11this guy and uh that's what we're honoring today and certainly his memory and our condolences go out
15:16to him and certainly his family
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