Former Producer Suing Roy Firestone

A former producer of Roy Firestone’s sports interview show on ESPN has sued Firestone and several others for $3 million for each of six allegations surrounding what he called “stealing” the show from him.

George Wallach, who created and co-produced “SportsLook,” the show on which Firestone was the host on the USA Network from 1980 to 1983 and then on ESPN through 1990, accuses his former partner, producer Bob Seizer, of joining with Firestone in “stealthy connivance to pirate business unfairly.”

Wallach says that Firestone and Seizer conspired to squeeze him out by creating “Up Close,” a virtually identical show that replaced “SportsLook” at the beginning of this year, after Firestone’s contract with Wallach/Seizer Productions expired last Dec. 31.

The only difference between the shows, says Wallach, is that “Up Close” is owned by Firestone and Seizer, while “SportsLook” was owned by Seizer and Wallach.

Firestone, through a lawyer, denied any wrongdoing Thursday. “Once his contract is over, Roy is a true free agent,” said attorney Robert M. Dudnik of Los Angeles.

Dudnik rejected Wallach’s claim that the idea for the show was stolen. “If someone’s going to do an interview show on a fairly static set, it’s naturally going to look similar,” he said.

In the lawsuit, filed Oct. 25 in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Wallach discloses that he tried to persuade Firestone to stay with the “SportsLook” show beyond 1990, offering him a three-year contract at $500,000 a year, plus an interest in a new production company.

Firestone rejected the offer, which Wallach says would have made him the highest-paid announcer on cable TV.

“Up Close,” shown at 3:30 p.m., PST, and midnight on ESPN, has an average audience of 350,000 households, down from 400,000 for “SportsLook,” an ESPN spokesman said Thursday.