One of television's biggest sports names long before people cared about the people who talked about sports on television has died.

George Michael, the sportscaster and longtime host of the nationally syndicated George Michael's Sports Machine, succumbed to a long battle with cancer on Thursday.

To call him ahead of his time would be an understatement. He basically invented the hyper clip style format of shows like ESPN's SportsCenter, brought a great deal of personality to TV sports reporting and sportscasting and even inspired and mentored the likes of Pardon the Interruption's Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon.