Yet, even as the league prepares to pay tribute to Sabol, the company he created finds itself battling for survival against people who seem to think it has outlived its usefulness.
Its budget has been slashed, its workforce has been gutted by two rounds of layoffs and buyouts, and it essentially has been reduced to an assembly line for cheap, quick-turnaround content for the NFL Network, which, 8 years into Bornstein's tenure, remains barely watchable.