Agents used to be like firemen: they ran from one crisis to the next, reacting to offers and ultimatums, never knowing what tomorrow would bring. At CAA, we prided ourselves on making tomorrows. Could we create a more brilliant one for Dave? We put five people on the project under Lee, and I asked them to analyze Nielsen ratings and late-night time slots and every conceivable bidder for his services. All the data I needed was distilled into three pages of single-spaced type, and we spent hours and hours discussing the game theory of how to play the networks against each other. By late summer I
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