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AMERICAN CENTURY CELEBRITY GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

July 14, 2006

Jon Miller

Mark Roithmayar

STATELINE, NEVADA

THE MODERATOR: We have Mark Roithmayr, president of Autism Speaks, and Jon Miller, senior vice president, NBC Sports. Mark, why don't you start.

MARK ROITHMAYR: Sure. I just want to do a very large thank you to American Century Investments and SFX. It is a thrill for Autism Speaks to be invited back for a second year to be one of the benefitting charities. It's also an honor to be in partnership with the Lance Armstrong Foundation which does some fabulous work on the cancer side.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Golf Channel and NBC also for promoting our causes; it's an honor and pleasure. Autism Speaks was founded a year and a half by Bob and Suzanne Wright. Bob is the chairman of NBC Universal. They founded Autism Speaks after their grandson was diagnosed with autism. We are struck by numbers like 1 out of 166 children are diagnosed with autism every year in America; that's 1 out of 104 boys. That means that every set of parents getting the news their child has autism, and for parents who have children with autism, it is a severe developmental disability. It's like your child is locked in a mystery unable to communicate, socialize and often doing self repeating injurious behavior.

The Wrights had a plan in founding Autism Speaks, and their plan was to have a foundation that had the bandwidth to fund all the science needed to unlock the mystery and the bandwidth to give the 1.5 million families in America affected by autism a collective voice and a foundation that could provide the opportunity for the central public to become part of the autism crusade.

If you think about breast cancer and in the 90s and how everybody knew somebody who had breast cancer, but there was no large organizations bringing the general public into the cause, what breast cancer organizations have done for breast cancer in the last ten years; this is what Autism Speaks is looking to do for autism in the decade ahead of us.

A year ago, Jon, I'm happy to say that American Century Investments and this tournament provided us with our coming out party on a national basis for Autism Speaks. In the last year, we've raised $30 million; we founded our first research grants in the past year. We've merged with the National Alliance of Autism Research which had formally been the highest funded autism organization. Now we've doubled what their budget once was. We have also begun working with the federal government because the NIH National Institute of Health are not presently giving enough money to autism research.

There is something called the Combatting Autism Act before Congress right now. Autism Speaks, along with groups like Cure Autism Now are leading a charge that in the next month, both the Senate and House are expected to vote on this bill that would bring them almost $200 million to autism research in the next year.

We've accomplished a lot in the past year since he were here a year ago. We're proud of that, but there's so much more to do on the research side not just looking for a cure, but treatments for families affected by autism. So, much more an the awareness side, so much more on the advocacy side to come, and more than anything else being here in Tahoe again, we get to raise money, we get to increase awareness. And what we really are doing is getting into the homes for the 1.5 million families affected by autism.

Just in conclusion, again need to thank American Century Investments. We could not have a better corporate partner in this crusade. Thank SFX, the Golf Channel. And Jon, really a personal thank you to you, Gary Quinn, the whole crew at NBC, as well as all the celebrities and players and the tournament this week, we're very grateful.

JON MILLER: Thank you. It's good to have you here and good to have Autism Speaks back. This is the 17th year for the American Century Championship, and there's been a long legacy of charitable giving to the event, which quite honestly first couple years it didn't becomes much of a primary focus as it has the past several years.

Over the past six years we've identified different charities every year. We started off with the 9/11 Fireman's Widows and Orphans Fund that we donated to for a couple years, and we followed up with two year's Mark Cuban's Fallen Patriot Fund. Last year we added Autism Speaks, and now the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We think the tournament in addition to providing a lot of fun and entertainment really has a very important purpose now in raising funds and as much as raising funds and raising awareness. So we're proud of what the tournament has been able to achieve that way.

I believe that the total fund raising figures so far for this tournament is approaching close to $3 million. So an event that started in 1990 as a summer replacement television show for NBC has now raised over $3 million in charity, but has raised millions and millions more obviously in awareness for some very significant charities, and we're happy to be part of that. Terrific.

A couple of other announcements we wanted to make here for the tournament. This will be the first time that the American Century Championship have been broadcast in High Definition. As you know, High Definition has become a very important initiative in the television industry. NBC Sports has been leading the way with High Definition Television broadcasts, and we made our maiden voyage with our new Hi Def truck this past spring at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Came out great and we followed up with the U.S. Women's Open at Newport. And we're happy to say the pictures come you go out of Lake Tahoe are going to being spectacular. So for those people that have the ability to get our broadcast this weekend in High Definition, it's going to be a real treat.

We have started something new this year thanks to Phil Weidinger and the team out here. We now have a tournament records and statistics book that's been published. I encourage you to take a look at it. It's got a track of all the players that have played over the past 17 years, all of their statistics, their money winnings, etc., how much has been given to charity, as well. And it's also going to be available on the Web and available in hardback form, so you'll see it. That book will get thicker and thicker obviously as the years progress.

And then last thing I wanted to talk about which had become a big question and had a lot of calls on was the Rick Rhoden question. Rick Rhoden has been a big part of this event for many, many years, has played well. I believe he's won here five or six times and he's been a big friend and a big partner and player friend of all of ours.

This year Rick Rhoden, fortunately for him, received his Champions Tour card. And we've instituted something a long time ago we refer to as the Brody rule; that if you were a professional golfer playing on a professional tour, that it really didn't it wasn't right for you to also come out here and compete against the celebrities who this is not their primary vocation.

Rick was great with that. He's playing at the Senior TPC this weekend. And I think what's interesting is that even if we had invited Rick, we were informed by the PGA TOUR that he would not have been given a release because as a PGA TOUR member, he would have been required to play in the Senior TPC, which he is playing this weekend in Dearborn Michigan. We wish him luck.

Last time I checked he shot a 72 in the first rounds I think he's seven strokes behind Fuzzy Zoeller, so clearly Rick is doing quite well. I know that all of the players here while they may miss him, wink wink, because it might give them a better chance to compete, I know they are all wishing for him to do quite well this weekend.

So that's the answer to the Rick Rhoden question in case anybody had any thoughts on that. Open it up for questions.

Q. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the Brody Award and maybe for this year?

JON MILLER: The Brody Award is obviously something we feel is very important. It goes to honor John Brody who was one of the regional players that we had out here and has been a big part. As you know, suffered a tough break when he had a stroke several years ago. We wanted to recognize someone who really gives back to the community by their performance, both on and off whatever they are playing field or in this case, sheet of ice might be.

We're going to be giving the Brody Award to Mario Lemieux this year, and that ceremony will take place out on the first tee shortly after we do the long drive contest. So we're happy to say that Mario Lemieux will be receiving the award this year. John Brody is in town to present the award, so we're excited that he's here.

Q. You mentioned before that there's an awful lot of autism related organizations out in the world or in the USA. What is the interaction that Autism Speaks plays with those other organizations and how does it all fit?

MARK ROITHMAYR: The vision that the Wrights always had from the beginning with the foundation is how can they bring the community together as a whole. There are about 600 or 700 autism non profits across the United States right now, most of them are very small, local grass roots based helping on respite issues in local community.

What we are looking to do with Autism Speaks, the vision has always been how can we collectively bring them together. So since the launch a year and a half ago, there's been two mergers into Autism Speaks. One, Autism Coalition For Research and Education, and the second I had mentioned, the National Association for Autism Research, NAAR. We are looking into discussions with a couple of others right now to see if we can bring together nationwide a very strong group. So that's one way we work on it.

Second way we work on continuing things like in Washington, D.C., the Combatting Autism Act, we do look to bring the entire community together to speak as one voice.

And ultimately the third part of this, particularly these small grass roots organizations, we're going to set up funding mechanisms, so that we can be funding through them to help real life families in local communities.

Q. How do locals in our community here are able to contribute and how are they able to do so; is there a Web site?

MARK ROITHMAYR: Here in Lake Tahoe? First thing is visit Autism Speaks. Wonderful Web site, AutismSpeaks.org. There are a variety of opportunities to get involved.

Right now the Autism Speaks speaks footprint is about across a little more than half the United States. These other potential mergers that I'm talking about, we're looking to ultimately be in the next three to five years be in every state in the country. But what we do initially if we're in a community where we're not organized yet, we will work with local families, local individuals to form fund raising committees that ultimately form into chapters.

Q. I guess for both of you, but I know Dan Marino had a big role in this last year bringing this charity to the tournament. Was he just not able to play this year do you know?

JON MILLER: Dan was invited to play but had another conflict and was not able to make it. He's obviously been a big part of this event over many, many years. He's a big factor in helping to raise awareness through his efforts.

MARK ROITHMAYR: And the Dan Marino Foundation, Dan and his family, pioneers in the crusade for autism. And we stand here today, Autism Speaks on the shoulders of Dan Marino and his absolutely wonderful foundation. They have offered us advice and guidance in going forward, and how we setup our organization, and we work in partnership with him to do day. They are fabulous.

Q. We do a lot of support with women's basketball. Can you tell us about how the WNBA supports autism?

MARK ROITHMAYR: We have a variety of the teams across the country working with us on a local basis, and not just with Autism Speaks, but with many of the autism organizations. So you've got folks like the Charlotte Bobcats have been involved, like the Los Angeles Lakers that have been involved.

Interesting for us, just about two months ago, Autism Speaks was adopted by the Advertising Council as an official charity of the Advertising Council. We've just launched a nationwide public service campaign through them and agency pro bono agency of record, BBD&O. It's a wonderful campaign, again targeted at those parents of child bearing age, parents who have young children. Often for parents, when you have a new baby, at six months, 18 months, 24 months you're weighing the baby and seeing how tall the baby is getting. But there are also subtle developmental signs that parents can look for that are early indications of autism. In fact, you can catch these signs early the younger you can diagnose, the better outcome the child can have.

What's wonderful, many of the sports organizations, many of the basketball teams, we're talking with Major League Baseball right now, many of the hockey and football teams. The NFL did a big fund raiser for Autism Speaks, because so much of their core audience are parents having children and families that are very interested in the message. When it's 1 in 166, any sports arena you're going to, there are lots of people in that arena who are affected by autism.

End of FastScripts.

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