Keith Theodore Olbermann is an American sports and political commentator and writer.
65 Facts About Keith Olbermann
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Keith Olbermann was a sports correspondent for CNN and for local TV and radio stations in the 1980s, winning the Best Sportscaster award from the California Associated Press three times.
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Keith Olbermann received attention for his pointed criticism of right-wing and conservative politicians and public figures.
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From September 2016 until November 2017, Olbermann hosted a web series for GQ, titled The Closer with Keith Olbermann, covering the 2016 US presidential election, later renamed The Resistance with Keith Olbermann after the victory of Donald Trump.
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In January 2018, Keith Olbermann returned to ESPN's SportsCenter program, expanding in May to some baseball play-by-play work.
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Keith Olbermann was born January 27,1959, in New York City, the son of Marie Katherine, a preschool teacher, and Theodore Keith Olbermann, a commercial architect.
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Keith Olbermann attended the Hackley School, a private Ivy League Preparatory school in nearby Tarrytown.
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Keith Olbermann became a devoted fan of baseball at a young age, a love he inherited from his mother, who was a lifelong New York Yankees fan.
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Keith Olbermann is referenced in Sports Collectors Bible, a 1979 book by Bert Sugar, which is considered one of the important early books for trading card collectors.
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At college Keith Olbermann served as sports director for WVBR, a student-run commercial radio station in Ithaca.
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Keith Olbermann graduated from Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in 1979 with a BS in communication.
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Keith Olbermann began his professional career at UPI and the RKO Radio Network before joining then-nascent CNN in 1981.
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In 1992 Keith Olbermann joined ESPN's SportsCenter, a position he held until 1997 with the exception of a period from 1993 to 1994 when he was at ESPN2.
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Keith Olbermann joined ESPN2 as its "marquee" personality to help launch the network.
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In 1995 Keith Olbermann won a Cable ACE award for Best Sportscaster.
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Keith Olbermann made $350,000 at the end of his tenure at ESPN.
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Early in 1997 Keith Olbermann was suspended for two weeks after he made an unauthorized appearance on The Daily Show on Comedy Central with then-host and former ESPN colleague Craig Kilborn.
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In 2004, Keith Olbermann was not included in ESPN's guest lineup for its 25th anniversary SportsCenter "Reunion Week", which saw Craig Kilborn and Charley Steiner return to the SportsCenter set.
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In 1999, Keith Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net to be the star anchor for their sports news show Fox Sports News Primetime, which was an ill-fated competitor to SportsCenter.
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In May and July 1999, Keith Olbermann guest-starred ten times on Hollywood Squares.
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In 2005 Keith Olbermann made a return to ESPN Radio when he began co-hosting an hour of the syndicated Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, a tenure that lasted until Patrick left ESPN on August 17,2007.
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Keith Olbermann left the show prior to the start of the 2010 season.
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Shortly before rejoining ESPN, Keith Olbermann signed a contract with TBS to host the studio show portions of its coverage of the Division Series and National League Championship Series.
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Keith Olbermann replaced Matt Winer, who had been in this role since his departure from ESPN to join the Turner Sports family, and was originally supposed to host the show with TBS' Dennis Eckersley.
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Keith Olbermann was suspended by ESPN in 2015 for the week following Penn State University's annual philanthropy THON due to a Twitter exchange he had with Penn State supporters.
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In 2016, Keith Olbermann wrote an article for Bill Simmons' company "The Ringer" after Muhammad Ali's death.
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In January 2018, Keith Olbermann returned to ESPN , presenting occasional commentaries on SportsCenter throughout the first half of 2018.
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Keith Olbermann hosted two Sunday editions of NBC Nightly News and once co-anchored a Saturday edition of the Today show.
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Keith Olbermann became frustrated as his show was consumed by the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
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In 2003, his network won an Edward R Murrow Award for writing on the "Keith Olbermann Speaking of Everything" show.
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Keith Olbermann revived his association with MSNBC in 2003 briefly as a substitute host on Nachman and as an anchor for the network's coverage of the war in Iraq.
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Keith Olbermann's own show, Countdown, debuted on MSNBC on March 31,2003, in the 8 pm ET time slot previously held by programs hosted by Phil Donahue and, briefly, Lester Holt.
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Countdown's format, per its name, involved Keith Olbermann ranking the five biggest news stories of the day or sometimes "stories my producers force me to cover", as Keith Olbermann put it.
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Keith Olbermann had been criticized for only having guests that agree with his perspective.
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On October 13,2004, Keith Olbermann launched Bloggermann, his Countdown blog, hosted on MSNBC's website.
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Keith Olbermann used the open format of the blog to expand on facts or ideas alluded to in the broadcast, to offer personal musings and reactions.
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However, in February 2007, Keith Olbermann launched a new blog, The News Hole.
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On February 16,2007, MSNBC reported that Keith Olbermann had signed a four-year extension on his contract with MSNBC for Countdown which provided for his hosting of two Countdown specials a year to be aired on NBC as well as for his occasional contribution of essays on NBC's Nightly News with Brian Williams.
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Keith Olbermann co-anchored, with Chris Matthews, MSNBC's coverage of the death of fellow NBC News employee Tim Russert on June 13,2008.
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Keith Olbermann presented a tribute, along with several fellow journalists, in honor of Russert.
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In November 2008, it was announced that Keith Olbermann had signed a four-year contract extension worth an estimated $30 million.
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The rivalry continued when in 2006 at Television Critics' Association in California, Keith Olbermann donned a mask of O'Reilly and made a Nazi salute, leading to a letter of protest from the Anti-Defamation League.
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Keith Olbermann maintained that he had stopped joking about O'Reilly because of O'Reilly's attacks of George Tiller, and soon resumed his criticism of O'Reilly.
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On October 28,2010, days before the 2010 US elections, Keith Olbermann donated $2,400 each to three Democratic candidates for Congress: Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and Arizona Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabby Giffords.
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Grijalva had appeared on Keith Olbermann's show immediately before Keith Olbermann mailed the donations.
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On January 21,2011, Keith Olbermann announced his departure from MSNBC and that the episode would be the final episode of Countdown.
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Keith Olbermann was heavily involved in the development of the rest of the network's news programming.
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Keith Olbermann was fired from Current TV on March 30,2012.
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On March 12,2013, it was announced that Keith Olbermann settled his $50 million legal claim.
50.
The series, titled The Closer with Keith Olbermann, aired twice weekly on GQ.
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Yael T Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star said that Olbermann "crossed the line in a major way with his comments".
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The next night, Keith Olbermann chose to "double down", as The Huffington Post's Danny Shea described it, on his criticism of Brown by adding the word "sexist" to his original description of the Republican candidate.
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Keith Olbermann has accused the Tea Party movement of being racist due to what he views as a lack of racial diversity at the events, using photos that show overwhelmingly Caucasian crowds attending the rallies.
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Keith Olbermann declined the invitation, citing his father's prolonged ill health and hospitalization and stated that the network has minority anchors, contributors and guests.
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On his February 14,2008, "Special Comments" segment, Keith Olbermann castigated Bush for threatening to veto an extension of the Protect America Act unless it provided full immunity from lawsuits to telecom companies.
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Keith Olbermann stated that Bush never should have started the war in the first place, and he accused Bush of dishonesty and war crimes.
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Keith Olbermann suffers from a mild case of celiac disease, as well as restless legs syndrome.
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Keith Olbermann had cited the need to spend time with his father for taking a leave of absence shortly before his father's death, occasionally recording segments to air at the beginning of the shows which Lawrence O'Donnell guest hosted in his absence, giving his views on the state of the American health care system and updating viewers on his father's condition.
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Keith Olbermann is a dedicated baseball fan and historian of the sport, with membership in the Society for American Baseball Research.
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Keith Olbermann argues that New York Giants baseball player Fred Merkle has been unduly criticized for his infamous baserunning mistake.
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Keith Olbermann contributed the foreword to More Than Merkle, a book requesting amnesty for "Merkle's Boner".
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Keith Olbermann was one of the founders of the first experts' fantasy baseball league, the USA Today Baseball Weekly League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and he gave the league its nickname "LABR".
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Keith Olbermann wrote the foreword to the 2009 Baseball Prospectus Annual.
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In March 2009, Keith Olbermann began a baseball-related blog entitled Baseball Nerd.
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Keith Olbermann has written a series of articles on baseball cards for the Sports Collectors Digest.