ATLANTA — Patrick Sullivan was asked if he’s wistful.
No, he said.
A little while later, he was again asked if he’s wistful.
No, he said again.
We continued to talk for another half hour or so, sitting in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Atlanta’s Peachtree Center. Sullivan, the son of the late William H. “Billy” Sullivan, founder of the original Boston Patriots, was in town partially as a Pats fan, sure, but mostly because of work. His company, Game Creek Video, was sending six trucks to the city to provide remote television production units for CBS to use for its pregame and postgame shows connected with Super Bowl LIII. Game Creek would also be deploying a truck for use by the NFL Network.
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The conversation drifted back and forth between what Game Creek Video is all about to his unwavering love for the Patriots, who’ll be seeking their sixth championship in franchise history when they play the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday night. Now the interview was over. The tape recorder had been turned off, handshakes were being exchanged, coffee cups being tossed, when Sullivan returned to the question I had finally stopped asking.
“You want to know if I’m wistful,” he said.
Yes.
Yes.
“Well, this is a little more sentimental than wistful,” he said. ”Just this morning, while driving on Storrow Drive on the way to Logan Airport for the flight to Atlanta, we go past Braves Field — you know, Nickerson Field — and I could see where I sat next to my father during the very first game the Patriots played in 1960. I know exactly where the seat was, because it was right in the corner near the press box.”
Patrick Sullivan was seven years old on that warm Friday evening — Sept. 9, 1960 — when the Patriots debuted in the upstart American Football League with a 13-10 loss to the Denver Broncos. Billy Sullivan, a sportswriter turned PR man turned businessman, had cobbled together $25,000 from a group of investors (including former Red Sox outfielder Dom DiMaggio) to secure a franchise in the AFL, and the Pats of that era never really got past their image as a shoestring operation.
Billy Sullivan, left, celebrates with son Patrick after winning a lawsuit against the NFL in 1993. (Charles Krupa / Associated Press)It was fitting that the Patriots played their first game in the former home of the Boston Braves, given that Billy Sullivan had once been the PR man for the city’s National League ballclub. But shoestring is shoestring: The Patriots were never really at home at the former Braves Field, just as they were never really at home at Fenway Park … or at Harvard Stadium … or at Alumni Stadium.
It wasn’t until Schaefer Stadium was built on the cheap in 1971 that the Pats finally had a home, and Billy Sullivan had a lot to do with that. And that’s where we’ll stop the history lesson. To many people, Billy Sullivan — who passed in 1998 — will forever be revered as the man who hustled his way into getting a pro football team for Boston, first in the AFL, and, later, after the merger, in the all-powerful NFL. To some, the Sullivans were too small-time for big-time football, and that would include son Chuck Sullivan, architect of the financially disastrous Michael Jackson Victory Tour, and Patrick Sullivan, who was GM of the Patriots in 1990 when the entire franchise hit rock bottom, what with the 1-15 record and the sexual harassment incident involving Patriots players that was directed at Boston Herald sportswriter Lisa Olson.
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So here’s Patrick Sullivan, now 66 years old, and he has moved on with his life in such a fashion that he runs a successful company that allows him to keep a toe or two in the NFL. Game Creek Video owns 57 trucks, and they are rented by networks for NFL games, college games, the Big East … the list goes on and on. This year, Game Creek is handling Super Bowl pregame and postgame coverage. Next year, when Fox televises Super Bowl LIV, Sullivan’s company will be handling the whole shebang.
“I’ve said this a million times — from my work experience I really feel I’m the luckiest guy on the planet,” Sullivan said. “Because I had that first experience with the Patriots, and that really started when I was a kid, and I was able to do some things that many people will never have an opportunity to do.
“And when that ended,” he said, “I went on to have a virtually identical experience here in that I’m doing stuff, we’re participating in things, that not many people get a chance to do. It’s really fun, and it’s exciting.”
Don’t be misled here: Patrick Sullivan is not the technical brains of Game Creek Video; he’s strictly on the business side.
“If I try to do anything, everyone freaks out,” Sullivan said.
Said Jason Taubman, the senior vice president of technology for Game Creek Video, “We don’t let him touch anything. Any time he shows up with a little screwdriver or whatever and tries to make an adjustment, we knock it out of his hands. He’s not allowed.”
There is, however, at least one documented case in which Patrick Sullivan has stepped inside a Game Creek Video truck during a big game. But the incident says more about Sullivan’s still-in-place Patriots fandom than it does his interest in pressing buttons and pulling levers.
It was two years ago, when the Patriots were playing the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI at Houston’s NRG Stadium.
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“We were there in the stadium, and we’re losing 28-3, and I was like, God, this is terrible,” Sullivan said. “I just wanted to walk around because I was nervous. So I got up, I walked out, and for the first time during a game I walk into one of our trucks. I’m in the truck and the producer for Fox, which was doing the game, is a guy named Richie Zyontz, a really good guy, and a completely frustrated Jets fan.
“And he saw me, and he turned and looked at me and said, ‘Do you hear that clicking sound?’ And I’m thinking, oh, there’s something going in with the audio. And I said, ‘I don’t.’ And he’s laughing and says, ‘I do. It’s all the TVs in America shutting off this game because your team sucks.’ And I looked at him and said, ‘Don’t worry, No. 12’s here.’”
So add Patrick Sullivan’s name to the ever-growing list of Pats fans who were certain that quarterback Tom Brady, No. 12 himself, was going to engineer a comeback for the ages.
What’s revealing here is that Patrick Sullivan, Game Creek Video or no Game Creek Video, was still playing the part of lifelong Pats fan even though the family’s stewardship of the franchise ended when Billy sold a majority stake to Victor Kiam in 1988. Patrick Sullivan stayed on as GM until January 1991.
“If you knew the stuff we are doing now … we do some of the best events in the world,” said Sullivan, ticking off Pebble Beach, the Orange, Bowl, Cotton Bowl, the Daytona 500, etc. “And my experience with the Patriots gave me an opportunity to do that. And I don’t miss any of (being with the Patriots) at all. I miss some the great folks we worked with — Andre Tippett, Steve Grogan, Stanley Morgan and those guys. But what we do now is as exciting as anything I could possibly imagine.”
He does have one regret.
“I wish the Patriots had kept the Pat Patriot logo,” he said. “I think it’s the greatest logo ever developed for sports. I know I’m prejudiced, but, really, it’s the greatest logo ever. I guess I can’t complain because they still use it from time to time.
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“But that’s not my responsibility. I’ll be at the game on Sunday, but for now my job here is to ask dumb layman’s questions.”
(Top photo of Billy Sullivan, right, with ex-Patriots coach Raymond Berry: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)
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