Fang's Bites

Some Back To Work Tuesday Linkage

Back to work for many of you after the Memorial Day holiday. Because of my crazy schedule, I didn’t get to enjoy it, but you don’t care about that. Let’s do links.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that Cox Communications has dropped the New Orleans Hornets allowing Fox Sports to swoop up the rights.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News takes a look at the US TV coverage of the French Open.

Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter writes that UK’s Channel 4 plans extensive coverage of the 2012 London Paralympics which will be held two weeks after the Summer Olympics.

Tim Nudd of Adweek reviews the latest WatchESPN spot.

Alex Weprin of TVNewser reports that HBO’s Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel will co-host Live with Kelly next week.

Evan Weiner at Examiner.com explains how NBC’s huge rights fee effectively ended Qatar’s bid for the 2020 Olympics.

Ed Sherman from The Sherman Report interviews legendary sportswriter Frank Deford.

Ed writes that USA Today’s Sports section is changing its reporting strategy.

Media Rantz remembers the Marv Albert arrest 15 years later. Disclosure: I’m quoted in this very well-researched article.

Will Brinson at CBSSports.com writes that Showtime/NFL Films has quietly dumped Warren Sapp from “Inside the NFL”, however, he remains on NFL Network.

Evan Sporer of SportsGrid has the great video of a soldier home from Afghanistan surprising his daughters at Sunday’s Minnesota Twins game. It has nothing to do with sports media. I’m just a huge sucker for reunion videos.

Chadd Scott at ChuckOliver.net explores how TV money has led to the “Wal-Martization” of college football.

Joe Lucia at Awful Announcing notes that former ESPN college football crackpot Craig James is running below “Undecided” in the Texas U.S. Senate Republican primary. Always a good place to be when trying to run a successful campaign.

Bob’s Blitz says former Miami sports radio talker Sid Rosenberg has a new gig.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick actually heaps praise this morning. And he does it to Hall of Fame hockey voice Mike Emrick.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette says Time Warner Cable will air some local high school lacrosse playoff games.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that the NBA Draft Lottery will air from New York’s Times Square for the first time ever.

Ken McMillan at the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record writes that apparently NFL Network will no longer air CFL games.

Ken adds that there’s no New York City radio home of the 2012 Olympics as of yet.

Ken provides the Compass Media college football schedule for the 2012 season.

And Ken has the Sports USA college football schedule as well.

Tom Jones from the Tampa Bay Times looks back at the weekend that was in sports television.

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald notes that embattled South Florida sports radio talk show Sid Rosenberg is about to start a new gig.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle says a local sports radio station is about to acquire a rival FM station.

Jerry Garcia from the San Antonio Express-News says TNT’s Shaquille O’Neal spent some time talking to a local TV station and defending his co-hort Charles Barkley.

Roy Bragg of the Express-News says the Chuckster was glad to meet the peeps in San Antonio on Monday.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch has some linkage of his own to provide.

Scott D. Pierce at the Salt Lake Tribune talks with Utah Jazz TV voice Craig Bolerjack.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post looks at the mtn.: The Final Days.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News notes that a hockey primer from 1993 still holds true today.

Steve Ladurantaye from the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that Rogers and TSN are smelling blood and plan to bid for CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada package.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Globe and Mail says Rogers Sportsnet has snatched IndyCar rights away from TSN.

The Canadian Sports Media blog looks at the silly PR hockey wars being conducted by Rogers Sportsnet and TSN.

Sports Media Watch gives us the overnight ratings for the Indianapolis 500 on ABC.

Steve Lepore at SB Nation’s Puck The Media predicts the ratings for this year’s Stanley Cup Final.

Joe Favorito says things are looking good at NBC Sports.

Jordan Golson at MacRumors talks with ESPN’s NASCAR pit reporter Dave Burns about using an iPad for his reports.

That’s going to do it for now.

CBS Sports is Proud of Its 26 Sports Emmy Award Nominations

CBS Sports is that organization that just keeps chugging along. It was in a very bleak period from 1994-1998 when it lost the NFL, no NBA, was outbid for the NHL and seemed to heading in downward spiral. But since Sean McManus came on board as its President and now Chairman, the division not only re-obtained the NFL, became a player in college football, kept its PGA Tour commitments, kept the NCAA Tournament thanks to its partnership with Turner Sports, added Showtime Sports to its arsenal and now has CBS Sports Network.

For the 33rd Sports Emmy Awards, CBS and its affiliated networks, Showime and CBSSports.com have received 26 Sports Emmy Award nods, third among the sports network groups behind ESPN and the NBC Sports Group.

Some of CBS’ nominations include Live Sports Special (The Masters), Playoff Coverage (SEC Championship), Studio Host (James Brown), Play-by-Play (Jim Nantz and Marv Albert), Game Analyst (Gary Danielson), Sports Reporter (Tracy Wolfson), Weekly Studio Show (with Showtime for Inside the NFL) and Sports Documentary (again with Showtime for Game of Honor).

In addition, the Army-Navy game received multiple technical nominations.

Here’s the CBS Sports press release.

JIM NANTZ, JAMES BROWN, GARY DANIELSON AND TRACY WOLFSON LEAD CBS’s 26 NOMINATIONS FOR 2011 SPORTS EMMY AWARDS

SHOWTIME/CBS Sports Garner Five Nominations for Epic Army-Navy Documentary A GAME OF HONOR”
CBS Sports’ Coverage of NCAA Tournament, Masters^®, SEC Football and Army-Navy Game Also Receive Nods to Highlight Network’s Other Nominations

Jim Nantz, James Brown, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson lead the list of CBS’s 26 nominations for the 2011 Sports Emmy Awards to be presented on April 30 in New York City.  Nantz, who won the 2008 and 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality -– PLAY-BY-PLAY, once again earned a nomination in that category. Brown’s nomination also is in the category in which he won in 2007, Outstanding Sports Personality -– STUDIO HOST, for THE NFL TODAY and INSIDE THE NFL on Showtime, while Danielson earned a nomination for Outstanding Sports Personality -– SPORTS EVENT ANALYST and Wolfson gained a nod for Outstanding Sports Personality -– SPORTS REPORTER. In addition, Marv Albert (CBS/TBS/TNT) earned a nomination for Outstanding Sports Personality – PLAY-BY-PLAY.

Among the other nominations for CBS Sports include multiple nods for its collaboration with Showtime on the epic Army-Navy documentary A GAME OF HONOR. The documentary garnered five nominations:

CBS Sports, teaming up with Turner Sports, also gained multiple nominations for its coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship for Outstanding SHORT FEATURE (Human Highlight Reel – Manny Ohonme: The Great Samaritan); Outstanding LONG FEATURE (NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament – Amongst Friends: A Story of Loss and Healing); Outstanding TECHNICAL TEAM STUDIO (NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament – Road to the Final Four) and Outstanding NEW APPROACHES SPORTS EVENT COVERAGE (March Madness on Demand –- NCAA.com/CBS Sports/Turner Sports).

In addition, CBS Sports’ coverage of the Masters® earned multiple nominations for Outstanding LIVE SPORTS SPECIAL and The George Wensel TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD (The Masters 3D Coverage –- CBS Sports/ESPN3D). And the Network’s coverage of the Army-Navy football game received three nominations for Outstanding OPEN/TEASE; Outstanding Post Produced AUDIO/SOUND and Outstanding MUSIC COMPOSITION/DIRECTION/LYRICS.

Rounding out CBS Sports’ nominations are Outstanding PLAYOFF COVERAGE – SEC Football Championship Game (Georgia vs. LSU); Outstanding STUDIO SHOW – WEEKLY – INSIDE THE NFL (Showtime/CBS Sports); and OUTSTANDING LIVE EVENT TURNAROUND (Tour de France -– CBS Sports/Versus).

CBS’ Showtime, along with MLB Productions, earned three nominations for its series The Franchise: A Season with the San Francisco Giants for Outstanding Post Produced AUDIO/SOUND; Outstanding MUSIC COMPOSITION/DIRECTION/LYRICS and Outstanding EDITED SPORTS SERIES/Anthology.

33rd Annual Sports Emmy Nominations Announced

We have the nominations, all 170 in 33 different categories, for the 33rd Annual Sports Emmy Awards. They just came out today. There are some surprises like massive hockey charlatan Pierre McGuire nominated in the Sports Reporter category and for some really strange reason, Skippy Bayless of ESPN2′s First Take was nominated for Best Studio Analyst. What analysis does he do besides yelling and having massive manlove for Tim Tebow?

There are some of the usual suspects are nominated, Bob Costas for Best Studio Host, Al Michaels in Play-by-Play, Cris Collinsworth for both Studio and Game Analyst.

Some of the nominations I agree with include Mike Mayock for Best Game Analyst, College GameDay and Football Night in America as Best Studio Shows and all of the movies in the Sports Documentary category. Sports documentaries were strong this year and I have trouble picking one although Catching Hell, the ESPN Films effort on Steve Bartman and the Chicago Cubs might be the weakest of the bunch, but the doc was still very good.

Ok, get ready to scroll, the entire list is below. We do need a page break so the list of nominees will after the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences press releases.

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES ANNOUNCES THE NOMINEES FOR THE 33^RD ANNUAL SPORTS EMMY® AWARDS

Winners to be Honored During the April 30^th Ceremony At Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center
Jack Whitaker to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

New York, NY – March 20, 2012 – The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) today announced the nominees for the 33^rd Annual Sports Emmy® Awards.

More than 170 nominees were announced in 33 categories including outstanding live sports special, live series, sports documentary, studio show, promotional announcements, play-by-play personality and studio analyst.  The Awards will be given out at the prestigious Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center located in the Time Warner Center on April 30^th, 2012 in New York City.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Sports will go to the Sports Commentator and Essayist, Jack Whitaker.

“This is an outstanding year for the sports community and for The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences,” said Malachy Wienges, Chairman, NATAS. “The entries received in this year’s Sports Emmys resulted in a record 175 nominees, illustrating the quality of these entries.  We are also honoring Jack Whitaker with our Lifetime Achievement Award.  I had the pleasure of working with Jack for eighteen years at CBS, and Jack is a sports icon and a class act.”

In addition to Jack Whitaker, many of the today’s leading sports broadcasters, personalities and television professionals will be in attendance as presenters at the event.

The networks of ESPN (ESPN, ESPN 2, ABC, ESPN 3D & espn.com) lead the nomination totals with 55, the NBC Sports Group (NBC, Versus, Golf Channel & nbcsports.com) garnered 32, CBS (CBS, Showtime, CBSSports.com) entries received 26 nominations, while Turner Sports (TNT, TBS, NBA TV, NBA.com & truTV) have 22.

A complete list of all nominees is attached below.

33^rd Annual Sports Emmy Award Nominations by Network Group

ESPN (ESPN, ESPN 2, ABC, ESPN 3D, espn.com) – 55
NBC Sports Group (NBC, Versus, Golf Channel, nbcsports.com) – 32
CBS (CBS, Showtime, CBSSports.com) – 26
Turner Sports (TNT, TBS, NBA TV, NBA.com, truTV) – 22
HBO Sports – 19
FOX Sports Media Group (FOX, SPEED) – 16
NFL Network – 12
MLB Network – 8
DIRECTV – 2
MLB Advanced Media (MLB.com, MLBAM) – 2
NFL.com – 2
NCAA.com – 1
PGA.com – 1

33^rd Annual Sports Emmy Award Nominations by Network

ESPN – 36
NBC – 22
HBO Sports – 19
CBS – 15
FOX – 15
TNT – 15
ESPN2 – 14
NFL NETWORK – 12
SHOWTIME – 10
MLB NETWORK – 8
VERSUS – 7  
TBS – 3
ABC – 2   
DIRECTV – 2
ESPN 3D – 2
GOLF CHANNEL – 2
NBA TV – 2
NFL.COM – 2
CBSSPORTS.COM – 1
ESPN.COM – 1
MLB.COM – 1
MLBAM – 1
NBA.COM – 1
NBCSPORTS.COM – 1
NCAA.COM – 1
PGA.COM – 1
SPEED – 1
truTV – 1

BREAKDOWN OF MULTIPLE PROGRAM/SERIES NOMINATIONS

Program/Nominations/Network

24/7: 8 -  HBO
E: 60: 7 – ESPN2
A Game of Honor: 5 – Showtime/CBSSports.com
MLB on FOX: 5 – FOX
NASCAR on FOX: 5 – FOX
NBA on TNT: 4 – TNT
NBC Sunday Night Football: 4 – NBC
FIFA Women’s World Cup: 3 – ESPN/ESPN2
Outside the Lines: 3 – ESPN
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel: 3 – HBO
SportsCenter: 3 – ESPN
The Army/Navy Game: 3 – CBS
The Franchise: 3 – Showtime
Winter X Games 15: 3 – ESPN/ESPN3D
2011 Open Championship: 2 – ESPN
2011 Stanley Cup Final: 2 – NBC/Versus
ESPN Monday Night Football: 2 – ESPN
Football Night in America: 2 – NBC
Grand Slam Tennis on ESPN: 2 – ESPN2
Inside the NBA on TNT: 2 – TNT
Joplin: City of Hope: 2 – ESPN2
McEnroe/Borg: Fire & Ice: 2 – HBO
MLB Tonight: 2 – MLB Network
NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament: 2 – CBS/TBS/TNT/truTV
NFL Films Presents: 2 – NFL Network
NFL GameDay Morning: 2 – NFL Network
NFL on FOX: 2 – FOX
Sports Science: 2 – ESPN/ESPN.com
Sunday NFL Countdown: 2 – ESPN
Unguarded: 2 – ESPN

And after the page break, all of the nominees for the 33rd Annual Sports Emmy Awards which will be handed out April 30 in New York City.

(continue reading…)

Doing Some Friday Megalinks Now

Let’s do some megalinks on this Friday. My apologies for the lack of posts yesterday. The site was swamped with people linking to my post on How to Avoid Paying the $3.99 Fee For March Madness Live and it was down for most of the day. We seem to be ok today, although the site was down for a short stretch in the morning. But we’re back up now and time for some megalinks on this Friday.

The Weekend Viewing Picks are up and running. Lots of sports as the winter NCAA Championships including the basketball tournaments are underway.

Let’s get to your links.

National

Michael Hiestand from USA Today praises CBS/Turner for bringing the NCAA head of men’s basketball officiating back to explain controversial calls.

Reid Cherner of USA Today’s Game On blog remembers a great NCAA Tournmament buzzer beater from 1981 as called by NBC’s Marv Albert.

Sports Business Daily notes the overnight ratings for Thursday’s games from the NCAA Tournament were down, but still considered a win for CBS/Turner.

Matt Carmichael from Advertising Age tells us which two schools were Googled the most during yesterday’s NCAA Tournament action.

Dan Fogarty at SportsGrid has the absolutely hilarious video of a WGN morning news anchor trying to amp up the volume at ESPN’s Dick Vitale while technical difficulties arise.

Karen Hogan from Sports Video Group writes that the National Invitation Tournament may be the NCAA Tournament’s ugly sister, but it still gets major treatment from ESPN.

To Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing who notes another Twitter feud involving CNBC’s Darren Rovell, this one with Bomani Jones.

Sports Media Watch says Thursday’s 2nd round NCAA Tournament games received slightly lower overnight ratings from the year before.

Dave Kohl of The Broadcast Booth wants to know why name calling in sports radio is a more punishable offense than inaccurate reporting.

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy asks if the NHL’s new Stanley Cup ad campaign to replace the great “History Will Be Made” promos can be as successful.

Laura Northrup of the Consumerist wonders why NBA League Pass hasn’t adjusted to Daylight Savings Time?

All Access says ESPN Deportes Radio in Chicago has picked up the Spanish rights to the White Sox.

La Liga Talk has learned that Al Jazeera has obtained the US TV rights to Spain’s La Liga from Gol TV.

East and Mid-Atlantic

The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn talks with ESPN’s Dick Vitale.

At SB Nation Boston, Boston Sports Media Watch’s Bruce Allen says social networking may have created spoiled fans.

Tazina Vega from the New York Times says the NHL is hoping to lure viewers by airing all of its Stanley Cup Playoff games on various NBC Sports platforms.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post feels the CBS/Turner NCAA Tournament collaboration has become the Home Shopping Network. Whatever.

The Post’s Justin Terranova talks with CBS/Turner analyst Clark Kellogg.

Justin has 5 questions for MSG Network NBA analyst Kelly Tripucka.

Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog notes that the Onion has skewered the DC NFL Team.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with a Turner Sports Interactive executive on how Twitter is incorporated into this year’s NCAA Tournament coverage.

South

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald says NBC will air this fall’s Miami-Notre Dame football game in primetime.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle notes that CBS/Turner’s Charles Barkley criticized Baylor’s ugly neon yellow uniforms.

David has the CBS/Turner announcing assignments for Saturday’s NCAA Tournament action.

Mel Bracht from The Oklahoman notes that Cox Cable subscribers can access the NCAA March Madness Live app for free provided they authenticate.

John E. Hoover from the Tulsa World says the Big 12′s new TV deals will ensure the survival of the conference.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer notes that Reds voice Marty Brennaman can be heard in a new UPS March Madness ad.

While Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel enjoys the NCAA Tounament, there are some things he can do without.

Ed Sherman at Crain’s Chicago Business announces he’ll no longer be writing his sports business and media blog for the publication.

Ed says he will be launching a new site on the sports media and I look forward to seeing it when it finally comes to fruition.

Brigid Sweeney of Crain’s Chicago Business notes that Bulls TV analyst Stacey King now has a new fashion line.

Paul Christian at the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin says the national Junior College championships can be seen online.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the local CBS affiliate didn’t help matters by taking up a large portion of the screen during NCAA Tournament action for weather updates.

West

Bill Center at the San Diego Union-Tribune says maybe, maybe Fox Sports San Diego will launch on Saturday provided MLB approval comes that quickly.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star looks at the Erin Andrews network sweepstakes.

Jim says the NCAA Tournament has become predictable.

Jim has his weekend viewing picks.

Richard Horgan of Fishbowl LA says ESPN will not discipline its SoCal reporters for getting a big story wrong on the Dodgers ownership bid process.

We are going to end the links there. Not as many as in past weeks, but still a hefty amount. Enjoy your weekend.

Some Quick Monday Night Linkage

Since we did our linkage this morning, there have been several stories worthy of links and they really should not wait until Tuesday. So I’ll do a set of links right now.

We start with Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead who reports on a fake tweet about ESPN’s Erin Andrews leaving the network (her contract is expiring) and the personalities at the Alleged Worldwide Leader who are negotiating new deals.

MediaRantz recaps how this tweet got circulated and had to be quickly debunked by ESPN.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing goes over an interesting Twitter feud between comedian Norm Macdonald and ESPN’s Rick Reilly.

Matt says Digger Phelps wasn’t on his “A” game during Sunday night’s Bracketology show on ESPN.

John Ourand and Michael Smith of Sports Business Journal has CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus talking about the new authentication and pay system for the March Madness mobile app.

Daniel B. Wood of the Christian Science Monitor notes that the ESPN Films documentary on Magic Johnson’s HIV-positive announcement 20 years ago shows how far we have come in our attitude on the disease.

Conor Nagle at Wei Under Par writes that NBC went into bizzaro world in attempting to cover Tiger Woods’ leg injury at the WGC Cadillac Championships.

At Puck The Media, Steve Lepore notes that the NHL on NBC hit a season low overnight rating on Sunday.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell goes inside the numbers with March Madness.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette writes that fans hoping to watch this weekend’s ECAC Hockey Championships will have to do so online (scroll down).

Katie Kramer of the Syracuse Post-Standard has ESPN’s Joe Lunardi saying that local fans give him the hardest time when it comes to his brackets.

The Washington Examiner’s Jim Williams has CBS/Turner’s Jim Nantz and Marv Albert both talking about the NCAA Tournament.

Dave Walker at the New Orleans Times-Picayune says social media has helped to popularize March Madness.

David Barron at the Houston Chronicle says the departure of Texans’ offensive lineman Eric Winston will leave a big hole at a local sports radio station.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer has the networks, announcing assignments and tip times for games of local interest from the NCAA Tournament.

Writing in OnMilwaukee, departing local sports radio host Doug Russell has one wish for the market as he leaves town.

Aaron Morton of the Deseret (UT) News explains to BYU fans where they can find truTV.

Sports Media Watch says the NCAA Tournament Selection Show had its lowest overnight ratings since 1989!!!!

Carol Einarssen at Race Journal Online has Cheers and Jeers for Fox’s NASCAR coverage.

Sox & Dawgs has video of Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine speaking with former ESPN colleagues Karl Ravech and John Kruk during Monday’s exhibition game against Miami.

And that will complete the posts for Monday

The 5th Annual Fang’s Bites NFL TV Awards

Time to hand out the 5th edition of the Fang’s Bites NFL TV Awards. On Christmas Day, I provided the list of nominees for this year’s edition. Now, with the regular season over, let’s hand out the hardware for the 2011-12 campaign.

Best Play-by-Play: The Nominees are Marv Albert, CBS; Ian Eagle, CBS; Al Michaels, NBC; Brad Nessler, NFL Network; Sam Rosen, Fox; and Mike Tirico, ESPN. The winner is Marv Albert, CBS. After leaving Westwood One Radio in 2010, Marv returned to the NFL almost a year later to the day and made it a triumphant one. Teamed with Rich Gannon, Marv joined an already deep bench at CBS Sports and made its corps even better. Usually assigned to the 4th best game of the day, Marv can make it sound exciting. Already one of the best ever broadcasters in basketball, Marv has shown that he still has it in football as well. Here’s hoping Marv gets some better games next season.

Best Game Analyst: The Nominees are Brian Billick, Fox; Cris Collinsworth, NBC; Dan Fouts, CBS; Mike Mayock, NFL Network; and Phil Simms, CBS. And the winner is Mike Mayock, NFL Network. He won Best Game Analyst in the 2010 College Football TV Awards and now, becomes the first person to win the award in the same category for two different awards. Mayock should have been appointed as the Thursday Night Football analyst after Cris Collinsworth left, but NFL Network went in a bad direction for the previous two seasons. Mike spots trends, is able to first guess rather than second guess and makes what had been a total train wreck in 2009 & 2010, a totally enjoyable listen.

Best Sunday Morning Pre-Game Show: The Nominees are Fox NFL Sunday, Fox; NFL GameDay Morning, NFL Network; and The NFL Today, CBS. This year’s winner is The NFL Today on CBS. Hosted by the great James Brown, the NFL Today may be ratings-challenged in comparison to Fox NFL Sunday, but it’s not due to the quality of the show. Yes, there are silly gimmicks like promotional crossovers for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show or the horrible Halloween abortion fronted by Kris Jenkins, but when the show goes into football with Bill Cowher or breaking down quarterback play with Dan Marino and Boomer Esiason, or having Charley Casserley discuss league issues, it’s very good. And it’s why I’ll name The NFL Today as Best Sunday Morning Pre-Game Show.

Best Studio Show, Daily or Weekly: Our nominees in this category are Inside the NFL, Showtime; NFL Live, ESPN; NFL Matchup, ESPN; NFL Total Access, NFL Network; and Playbook, NFL Network. The deserving winner is NFL Matchup, ESPN. This show was in danger of falling by the wayside after the 2009 season, but after getting a sponsor and ownership of the show squared away, the show returned to ESPN’s Sunday morning lineup and fans were the better for it. With Sal Paolantonio hosting and Ron Jaworski and Merril Hoge, the show breaks down plays and film like no other.

Best Highlights: The Nominees are NFL GameDay Final, NFL Network; NFL Primetime, ESPN; and SportsCenter 7:30 p.m. Sunday, ESPN. And our winner here is NFL GameDay Final on NFL Network. While the NFL TV partners have to buy access to highlights for a price, NFL Network doesn’t have that problem. It can take what it wants and run clips for however long it desires. NFL GameDay Final’s highlights are a reflection of that. The show has suffered since Rich Eisen left, but the highlights are still the same and game segments can run as long as 4 minutes. If you haven’t watched a game, the best way to find what happened is to watch NFL GameDay Final. One of the best wrap up shows around.

Best Studio Host: The nominees are James Brown, CBS/Showtime; Curt Menefee, Fox; Dan Patrick, NBC; and Andrew Siciliano, DirecTV. Our winner is Dan Patrick, NBC. Dan has been the studio host of NBC’s Football Night in America since 2008. He’s gone from sharing the highlights with his former ESPN co-hort Keith Olbermann to now doing them all himself and he does them very smoothly. In addition, he had to break in two analysts who had little to no experience in TV and has helped guide Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison into two very strongly opinionated personalities. Dan will have a role on NBC’s Olympic coverage this year and based on his performance on Football Night in America over the last few years, he should do very well.

Best Studio Analyst: The nominees are Bill Cowher, CBS; Tony Dungy, NBC; Marshall Faulk, NFL Network; Howie Long, Fox; Steve Mariucci, NFL Network; and Michael Strahan, Fox. And completing the NBC perfecta, we go with Tony Dungy, NBC. Tony doesn’t yell, he doesn’t pound the table and he doesn’t dress outlandishly. All Tony does is give you opinions, provide excellent breakdowns and can show a little humor too. He’s grown to be one of the better studio analysts on TV without having to resort to gimmicks. His weekly appearances on the Dan Patrick Show are also quite enjoyable. Tony Dungy deserves the award this year.

Most Valuable Network: Our nominees for this category are Fox, NBC, and NFL Network. And the winner of the MVN for the 2011-12 season is NFL Network. For greatly improving its Thursday Night Football presentation both in the booth and in its production, plus seeing its best ratings ever for the package, we give the award to NFL Network. The higher ratings had everything to do with the wider distribution for the network, however, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable still remain holdouts. But without the two providers, NFL Network saw its best numbers ever for Thursday Night Football. NFL Network is the surprise winner this year.

Best NFL Insider: The nominees are John Clayton, ESPN; Mike Florio, NBC, Jay Glazer, Fox, Jason La Canfora, NFL Network; and Adam Schefter, ESPN. I’ll go with Adam Schefter of ESPN. While all of the insiders can each claim victories of breaking stories over one another, the one who seems to have been consistent all season has been Adam Schefter. I wanted to go with John Clayton and his ponytail, but I’ll give this to Schefter.

Best Announcing Team: The nominees are Marv Albert/Rich Gannon, CBS; Ian Eagle/Dan Fouts, CBS; Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth, NBC; Jim Nantz/Phil Simms, CBS; Brad Nessler/Mike Mayock, NFL Network; and Sam Rosen/Brian Billick, Fox. And the winner of this award are “The Bird” and “The Beard”, Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts of CBS. They’ve worked together for two seasons and sound as if they’ve been doing it for six. They have great chemistry, good humor and know their roles. They rarely step on each other and make each game quite enjoyable. Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts of CBS are your winners of Best Announcing Team for this season.

Most Improved Presentation: Just two nominees for this category and they are Inside the NFL, Showtime and Thursday Night Football, NFL Network. The winner is Thursday Night Football, NFL Network. This has gone from being one of the worst produced and worst called packages to one of the best. After NFL Network jettisoned Matt Millen and Joe Theismann, Mike Mayock was brought in to replace them. And while Bob Papa was unfairly shown the door, Brad Nessler came in and clicked immediately with Mayock. And the problems that had plagued TNF in the past, late replays, garbled audio and all around bad production have gone as well. Replays are sharp, the picture seems much better than in the past and overall, the games have been quite enjoyable to watch. Thursday Night Football wins the award this season.

Best Game Coverage: The nominees are Monday Night Football, ESPN; NFL on Fox, Fox; Sunday Night Football, NBC; and Thursday Night Football, NFL Network. The winner is the NFL on Fox. Fox Sports’ announcers are a weak bunch, but their production people are among the best in sports. The HD quality is good, the replays are done well, I love when X-Mo is used to slow down a play to the point where I can see single blades of grass fly off the field. Fox does a great job on the NFL and the viewer is the beneficiary.

Rookie of the Year: The nominees are Jaime Maggio, Fox; Chad Pennington, Fox; and NFL Turning Point, Versus/NBC Sports Network. Our winner is Chad Pennington. I’ve been quite impressed with his work with Sam Rosen. Chad majored in Communications at Marshall knowing that he wanted to be in TV after his football career. Deciding to sit this season out to heal injuries, Pennington threw himself into TV with the same dedication of his playing days. He’s come off as well-spoken, well-informed and is becoming a very good analyst.

Best Debut: Only one nominee and I didn’t put this out originally. This goes to NFL Turning Point on Versus/NBC Sports Network. This show uses NFL Films footage plus takes advantage of wiring players for sound. What you have is a high quality show with lots of great football footage. This is not just a highlights show, this brings you inside the game, shows you the plays that turned a game around and explains how it happened. Very well produced by NFL Films.

Best Return to the NFL: Two nominees: Marv Albert, CBS and Melissa Stark, NFL Network. Nice to have both Marv and Melissa back, but Melissa’s return has been a part-time one. Marv’s is full-time so we’ll give this to Marv Albert of CBS Sports.

Best Move: The nominees are the Debut of NFL Turning Point, Versus; NFL Signing Long-Term TV Contracts with CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC; and Replacing Matt Millen and Joe Theismann with Mike Mayock, NFL Network. It has to be the NFL signing long-term TV contracts with all of its partners. The NFL gets about $5 billion per year starting in 2014. All of the networks keep their rights, divide three Super Bowls among CBS, Fox and NBC and ESPN gets into the postseason fray. Plus you’ll be able watch NFL games on your tablet soon. What’s better than that?

From the bests, we now move to the worsts.

Worst Play-by-Play: Our nominees are Thom Brennaman, Fox; Joe Buck, Fox; Bill Macatee, CBS; Ron Pitts, Fox; and Dick Stockton, Fox. This year’s award goes to Dick Stockton of Fox Sports. I hate giving this award to Dick as he’s had a great career calling MLB, NBA, NCAA, NFL and the Olympics, but the slippage over the last three years is too big to ignore. He’s miscalled plays, mixed up players and even forgot what city he’s in. Yes, it happens to everyone, but this is consistently occurring every week. He takes this award by a narrow margin over Thom Brennaman.

Worst Game Analyst: The nominees are Steve Beuerlein, CBS; Randy Cross, CBS; and Jim Mora, Jr., formerly of Fox. We go with Randy Cross. He’s only called a handful of games, but here’s a guy who was once the number two analyst at CBS and NBC, but he’s been exiled to the “F” or “G” games with Don Criqui. I honestly don’t know what he’s seeing on the field anymore.

Worst Studio Host: Your nominees are Chris Berman, ESPN and Stuart Scott, ESPN. And your runaway winner this season is Chris Berman. He used to be a must-see when ESPN started airing the NFL as host of Sunday NFL Countdown and NFL Primetime, but he’s now a mere caricature of himself. The “whoop!” or “He! Could! Go! All! The! Way!” or “Nobody circles the wagons … Like! The Buffalo Bills!” act is very tired. It’s time to bring Trey Wingo or Suzy Kolber or even Stuart Scott to the table to replace him. Chris should be put to pasture now.

Worst Studio Analyst: The nominees are Tedy Bruschi, ESPN; Cris Carter, ESPN; Michael Irvin, NFL Network; Eric Mangini, ESPN; and Shannon Sharpe, CBS. This is my Cleveland Browns bias showing but this goes to Eric Manmoron Mangini of ESPN. There are those who love the way Mangini breaks down plays on NFL Live and other ESPN studio shows, but I don’t see it. Perhaps I can separate my hatred for Mangini over his coaching of the Browns in 20 years, but right now, I can’t see him doing this for long.

Worst Studio Show: Your nominees are Monday Night Countdown, ESPN; NFL 32, ESPN; Sunday NFL Countdown, ESPN. This is a clean ESPN sweep in this category and we go with NFL 32. This is supposed to be a comprehensive look at all 32 NFL teams with highlights, tweets and snark thrown in. This is an abortion. I hope ESPN goes back to the drawing board and revamps this show. It needs it. The debut of the show looked as if it was thrown together at the last minute. The show hasn’t improved much since.

Worst Move: Original nominees were Bob Costas’ Halftime Commentary on Sunday Night Football, NBC; Removing Rich Eisen from NFL Total Access; and Putting Michael Irvin on Thursday Night Football Pregame, NFL Network. I add one more nominee, ESPN’s rotation of sideline reporters for Monday Night Football. And that is your winner. There was no consistency on the sideline for MNF. This year, it was either Suzy Kolber, Sal Paolantonio, Ed Werder, Rachel Nichols and then the strange cameo of John Sutcliffe (more on that later). While ESPN has de-emphasized the sideline reporter on the NFL coverage the last couple of seasons, it still needs a reporter in case of an injury or a development. It’s best if you have the same person every week. Suzy is good or if not, Sal Pal or even Rachel Nichols. Anyone. Just don’t rotate.

Worst Debut: John Sutcliffe, ESPN. A popular personality on ESPN Deportes and Monday Night Football sideline reporter on that network since 2006, the Mothership brought him over to make his English language debut for the Week 15 game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco 49ers. The game was between two 10-3 teams and it so happened it was also the night that the lights went out at Candlestick Park. While that event could not be foreseen, it was obvious that being on the big stage for ESPN overwhelmed Sutcliffe. He was nervous, he came off unprepared and ESPN stopped using him after a shaky report just after halftime. ESPN PR people have told me that John is one of the most professional people at ESPN Deportes and I don’t doubt that. But that was the wrong game to make his debut.

And that concludes this year’s NFL TV Awards.

A Few Thanksgiving Eve Links

Let’s do a few links for you on this day before Thanksgiving. And my best to you. Be safe in your travels.

We begin with John Ourand of Sports Business Daily who convenes a roundtable of fellow SBD writers to look at ESPN’s new NFL studio shows.

Mason Levinson of Bloomberg News says ESPN college football analyst Urban Meyer will not work Saturday’s Ohio State-Michigan game on ABC to avoid being a distraction over stories that he’ll be the next Buckeyes coach.

Michael Hiestand from USA Today writes that NBC Sports had no problems in switching Versus’ NHL scheduled Monday game from Bruins-Canadiens to Islanders-Penguins to air Sidney Crosby’s season debut.

Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times writes in the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center that there are still questions behind ESPN’s most recent executive shuffle.

Emma Bazilian of Adweek explores Disney’s machinations moving ESPN Dictator George Bodenheimer out of day-to-day operations and handing them to Executive Vice President John Skipper.

At ESPN’s Front Row blog, PR man David Scott looks at a new Quinnipiac University course on ESPN. Yes, ESPN.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News reports that a mediator will be hearing the dispute between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Fox Sports over the team’s media rights.

Mike says regional sports networks are seeking rebates from lost NBA games due to the lockout.

David Goetzl from MediaPost says ESPN and whiskey maker Jameson’s both share blame in the sponsorship of the documentary “Unguarded” which depicted Chris Herren’s struggles with addiction.

Stuart Levine of Variety says the NHL is teaming up with Paramount Pictures for the league’s first movie promotional tie-in.

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid says Canadian rock group Nickelback responds to fans who are petitioning them to be removed from the halftime performance during the Green Bay-Detroit game.

Karen Hogan at Sports Video Group says TSN will be all over the CFL Grey Cup this Sunday.

Ryan Durling at Bostinnovation has a Boston viewing guide for the Thanksgiving football games.

Newsday’s Neil Best says incoming ESPN President John Skipper is a noted soccer fan.

Neil previews an upcoming Bob Costas MLB Network interview with former YES analyst Jim Kaat.

Neil notes an upcoming HBO documentary on former New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath.

Neil says MLS’ New York Red Bulls are booting the media from the best seats in Red Bull Arena and making them accessible to ticket holders.

And Neil is happy to see that Marv Albert will be calling this Sunday’s Jets game on CBS.

In the New York Daily News, Bernie Augustine says Sunday’s MLS Cup on ESPN shown live Sunday nigh was beaten in the ratings by the taped English Premier League game on Fox.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has the Week 13 college football TV schedule.

Crissa Shoemaker Bree of the Philly Burbs newspapers says Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia and her company have signed a deal to exchange coverage on Philadelphia professional and high school sports coverage.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun says the NFL Network is treating tomorrow’s San Francisco-Baltimore games as one of its biggest in its short history.

Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog has Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau is still a bit perturbed almost a year later on how HBO Sports portrayed Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Bylsma in the 24/7 series.

Rachel George of the Orlando Sentinel has ESPN college football analyst Urban Meyer again denying reports that he’s signed a 7 year, $40 million contract to coach Ohio State. Whatever. We know he’s going to Columbus, it’s just a matter of time.

Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer says the Bengals have already announced that Sunday’s game against the Browns has been blacked out. Oof!

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business has his Thanksgiving winners and losers in sports business and media.

Jeff Call of the Deseret (UT) News notes that the BYU-to-the Big East courtship is now dead with the school’s media contract with ESPN being the main sticking point.

Peter Johnson of the Great Falls (MT) Tribune says fans of Montana and Montana State are pleading with ESPN to put their Football Championship Subdivision playoff games on TV instead of on ESPN3.com.

Fritz Neighbor of the Missoula (MT) Missoulian says Montana Grizzlies fans are scrambling to find an internet feed of Saturday’s playoff game.

Meg James at the Los Angeles Times says ESPN has a new Skipper in charge of the network’s day-to-day operations.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has your Thanksgiving weekend football schedule.

SoCal Tech reports that NFL Network has signed a deal with a tech company to provide news and game highlights to 12,000 gas pumps across the country.

Joshua Meyers of the Seattle Times blogs that Sounders announcer Arlo White might be a candidate to call MLS on NBC Sports Network next season.

Paul Gardner at Soccer America feels ESPN got rid of the wrong soccer announcer when it chose to drop John Harkes.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog has last week’s sports TV ratings.

And I’ll end it there.

A Pre-Hurricane Friday Megalinks Edition

As the Northeast battens down the hatches for the impending hit of Hurricane Irene this weekend and it’s not a matter of if it’s coming, but when, I’ll probably won’t be blogging much over the next few days. I’ll do my best as long as I have power, but disaster preparation will be high on the priorities the next two days.

For those of you looking for a diversion from Hurricane Irene coverage either on the Weather Channel or local news, I do have the sports and entertainment listings in the Weekend Viewing Picks. If you’re in the projected path or far from it, this will help you find the program you’re looking for.

Let’s get to the links.

National

Bob Velin of USA Today says Floyd “Money” Mayweather is ready for his HBO close-up again as he takes part in another edition of 24/7.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy says ESPN golf analyst Paul Azinger took a jab at President Obama for playing golf on his vacation while people are out of work.

Mike McCarthy and Michael Hiestand debate the validity of the Longhorn Network.

Sean Gregory of Time says ESPN The Magazine’s story making Michael Vick a white man was wrong on several accounts.

Tim Baysinger of Broadcasting & Cable notes that Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic has secured the rights to ACC sports including football and basketball.

Multichannel News says soccer-centric Gol TV will air the start of Spain’s La Liga following the resolution of a player’s strike this week.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel writes that MSG Varsity will produce local editions of its High School SportsDesk program.

Dan Fogarty at SportsGrid reports that sports media site SportsNewser will be closing up shop at the end of this month. Sad to see. The site was a very good resource for Fang’s Bites. Marcus Vanderberg and Cam Martin from SportsNewser have become good friends and I hope they land on their feet soon.

Wayne Friedman at MediaPost says the New York Jets have become an innovator in their use of social media.

Joe Favorito looks at how sports marketing powerhouse IMG redefined itself into a marketer for college sports.

John Daly in his Daly Planet blog says Hurricane Irene coverage on several local ABC stations may put a crimp for fans who want to watch NASCAR on Saturday.

EPL Talk reports that Fox will air some English Premier League matches including the Chelsea-Manchester United rivalry game live on Super Bowl Sunday.

Sports Business Daily looks at the probability of EPL games airing on Fox.

The Big Lead takes a look at ESPN’s plans for its annual all-day and all-night College Basketball Marathon coming in November.

Brady Green at Awful Announcing notes that Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis did a stab at play-by-play in last night’s game against the DC NFL team.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe notes that fantasy sports can no longer be ignored by the mainstream media and he adds that Friend of Fang’s Bites Jen Royle is a candidate to fill one of three potential vacancies at NESN.

At SBNation Boston, Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch wonders which reporter is apologizing for Patriots defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth.

Newsday’s Neil Best says Entourage tapped New York Giants owner Steve Tisch for an appearance on the HBO show.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is back from a brief vacation to hate everything in his path.

Justin Terranova of the Post speaks with CBS’ Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason on what they expect from New York’s NFL quarterbacks this season.

Justin has five questions for ESPN2 tennis analyst Brad Gilbert on the U.S. Open.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says due to Hurricane Irene, the Jets and Giants have moved the starting time of their NFL exhibition game to Saturday afternoon.

Pete says Marv Albert is happy to be calling NFL games on television once again.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette says Capital Region fans will have two opportunities to see the Jets-Giants on Saturday.

Ken talks with Versus horse racing host Laffit Pincay, Jr.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call writes about a former area high school athlete who’s doing overnight updates for WFAN in New York.

Richard Rys of Philadelphia Magazine blasts ESPN for airing every game ofthe Little League World Series.

Childs Walker, Jeff Zrebiec and Justin Fenton of the Baltimore Sun says Mike Flanagan’s friends including MASN’s Gary Thorne are still coming to grips with his death.

David Zurawik of the Sun writes that WBAL-TV is standing by its report as to why Flanagan took his own life.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog notes that an original Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic personality said goodbye last night.

Dan has the debut Geico spot featuring DC NFL Team linebacker Brian Orakpo.

Dan says last night’s Washington-Baltimore NFL preseason game set a ratings record in the nation’s capital.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic will split its feed to air pregame shows of both the Baltimore Ravens and DC NFL Team during weeks when they’re programmed simultaneously.

South

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that while Verizon FiOS signed to carry the Longhorn Network, it won’t have tonight’s launch on its system.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says the Longhorn Network is having less than an auspicious launch.

David says despite the low viewership numbers at the start, the Longhorn Network’s staff remains upbeat about its future.

Gary Dinges of the Austin American-Statesman says most Texas fans will probably miss tonight’s Longhorn Network launch barring some miracle cable and satellite pickups.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman also writes about the Longhorn Network’s launch.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says Time Warner Cable will air a slate of high school football games this fall.

Kyle Neddenriep of the Indianapolis Star notes that ESPN is in town to air a couple of high school football games this weekend.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says NBC is going all out for the NFL regular season opener between the Saints and the Packers.

Ed Sherman has his winners and losers in sports business and media.

Paul Christan at the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin says don’t confuse NFL Network with DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package.

Paul says the Minnesota Vikings without Brett Favre this season won’t be primetime darlings this season.

West

Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune says don’t confuse BYUtv with the Longhorn Network.

John Maffei of the North County Times says if the NFL wants a Los Angeles franchise, it shouldn’t poach the Chargers.

T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times tells fans to stay home and watch the games on TV.

T.J. can’t believe the Dodgers are asking fans to evaluate Vin Scully’s performance as a broadcaster.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes that Fox Sports West will air one high school football game a week and stream a whole host of them online.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says buyer beware when it comes to Twitter.

That will do it for today. Be safe wherever you are this weekend.

Finally Back To Linking

The last couple of days have been tough to provide links as I was out of the office. Glad to be back linking again, although you never know if I’ll be called away again. I’ll try to do what I can.

Mike McCarthy of USA Today attended the NFL on CBS media day on Tuesday which introduced the network’s announcing teams for this season. Mike got some interesting quotage from NFL Today analyst Boomer Esiason on Denver Broncos third string QB Tim Tebow.

Mike reported earlier this week that ESPN’s Brian Kenny is leaving the network to possibly take a position with MLB Network.

Erik Brady of USA Today writes that the late Al McGuire’s granddaughter, once a basketball player at Virginia, is now an accomplished model.

John Ourand at Sports Business Journal chronicles what NBC Sports Group is doing to position Versus as a major player in sports television.

Jon Lafayette of Broadcasting & Cable says CBS Sports officials were worried about a potential NFL lockout, but continued to sell ads and carried on with its business of getting ready for this season.

Tim Baysinger of  B&C has Marv Albert pleasantly surprised to be calling the NFL on TV again.

Over to Multichannel News and Mike Reynolds who writes that the Pac-12 Conference has hired a sports media veteran to run its seven Pac-12 Networks.

Mike says Tennis Channel has signed a new deal with the National Cable Television Cooperative that takes it off sports tiers on member’s cable systems.

R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel says MTV2 will air some live Lingerie Football League games starting on Friday.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek writes that concerns over the NFL lockout led advertisers to turn to college football for commercial buys.

Crupi adds that NFL Network has signed up another cable provider leaving Cablevision and Time Warner as the last two major holdouts.

Gregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk writes that former Patriots, Dolphins and Saints running back Heath Evans will retire and join NFL Network’s large cadre of analysts.

Mike Florio of PFT says NFL owners realize that empty stadiums don’t make for exciting TV.

Marcus Vanderberg at SportsNewser writes that ESPN is hiring another WWE veteran to join its on-air staff.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid notes that ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown crew was dressed in SWAT uniforms for an promo shoot.

Jason Dachman of Sports Video Group says the Baltimore Ravens are successfully producing all home preseason TV games in-house rather than outsource production to a local TV or cable network.

The Big Lead’s Barry Janoff recaps the NFL on CBS Media Day.

Rich Arden at ESPN’s Front Row PR blog says you can now put the Monday Night Football schedule into your Google calendar. Seriously!

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes that if it’s US Open time, then it must mean another battle between Cablevision and Tennis Channel.

Richard says after many repeated offers, MetLife is finally taking the plunge and buying the naming rights to the New Meadowlands Stadium.

Barry Bearak of the Times profiles former play-by-play announcer Dom Valentino who’s currently fighting several life battles.

Richard Huff of the New York Daily News reports that WCBS-TV sports anchor and sometimes CBS Sports reporter Sam Ryan is leaving to take a job with MLB Network.

Newsday’s Neil Best looks at MetLife slapping its name on New Meadowlands Stadium for a rather large fee.

During Tuesday’s NFL on CBS Media Day, Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union asked CBS Sports President Sean McManus about a few non-NFL related issues.

Pete says 18 years later, CBS NFL analyst Steve Tasker is still correcting those who think it was he who prevented Dallas Cowboys defensive lineman Leon Lett from scoring at Super Bowl XXVII.

Ken Schott in the Schenectady Gazette says the University of Albany is shifting its football season opener to a different radio station as its flagship has a conflict.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record writes that Time Warner Cable won’t be airing any local high school football games this season.

Matt Murschel of the Orlando Sentinel talks with ESPN College GameDay analyst Desmond Howard about his new book and his usage of social media.

Henry Unger of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution speaks with NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus about replacing the former Emperor Dick Ebersol.

Jimmy Burch of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says the ESPN College GameDay crew will be in Austin to help launch the Longhorn Network.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says the Longhorn Network’s immediate future looks rather murky right now.

Mel Bracht in the Daily Oklahoman notes that former Sooners safety Roy Williams will be a part of the school’s radio broadcasts this season.

Mel says the NFL preseason topped the local TV ratings.

Mike Baldwin of the Oklahoman says ESPN’s All-Access series on the Sooners is compelling TV.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Bengals garnered a huge local rating on Sunday.

John says the new Joe Morgan radio show is being heard locally.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers will appear weekly on the local NBC station.

The Provo (UT) Daily Herald notes that ESPN has released the 2011-12 West Coast Conference men’s basketball schedule.

Ryan Casey of the Denver Post tells us that Root Sports Rocky Mountain will air the state high school football and basketball championships this year.

The Reno (NV) Gazette-Journal reports NFL Network will be seen on the local cable provider this season.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that CBC is shooting down claims that it’s biased against Western Canadian NHL teams in its new Hockey Night in Canada schedule.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog says TSN and CBC are teaming up for coverage of this weekend’s LPGA Canadian Women’s Open.

Sports Media Watch says the PGA Championship’s ratings fell to a three year low.

SMW also has some various ratings news and notes.

Daniel Feuerstein of MLS Talk feels NBC will be a big boost for Major League Soccer.

Joe Favorito writes that Fordham University has been a fertile training ground for several of NYC’s sports voices.

Last night, I had the privilege to be a guest on the Sports-Casters podcast. Steven Bennett and Don Russ interviewed me on several subjects including the NFL on CBS, Marv Albert’s role at CBS, Joe Buck’s voice, NBC Sports Group, Olympics and a whole plethora of topics. I’m at 1:17:14 into the podcast. Michael Fabiano is also on so give it a listen.

The only Steeler fan I really like, Steelergurl, explains why she hasn’t been blogging lately. Get well soon, Lahne.

Dave Kohl at the Broadcast Booth looks at what NBC Sports Group is doing to improve Versus.

And that is going to finish out the links today.

A Monday Link Thing

Let’s do the Monday linkage. Some interesting stories out there already.

I’ll start with some housekeeping from the weekend in regards to Saturday’s passing of Nick Charles.

Sports Illustrated’s Joe Posnanski who wrote a wonderful and poignant article in March on Nick’s coming to peace with his cancer and how he attempted to make every day count, has another wonderful and poignant article on Nick’s passing.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun remembers Nick’s time in Baltimore.

Matt Schudel of the Washington Post has an obituary for Nick from another market where he worked before hitting it big with CNN.

Michael Marley at Examiner.com notes how boxer Mike Tyson made up with Nick before Charles’ passing.

Jason Levine of the Delaware News-Journal mourns Nick’s passing as well as USA Today baseball writer Rod Beaton.

Becky Schlikerman of the Chicago Tribune writes about Charles never forgetting his Windy City roots.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News also has a remembrance of Charles and calling his last fight earlier this year for HBO.

At Fight News, Nick’s Showtime partner, Steve Farhood, also gives his thoughts on Charles’ passing.

Now to other sports media and business news of the day and there’s quite a bit on this Monday.

One big story surfacing today is the potential bidding for the first half of a Thursday Night Football package that would begin in 2012. John Ourand and Daniel Kaplan of Sports Business Journal write about it. I add some thoughts as well.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have filed for bankruptcy after MLB Commissioner Bud Selig rejected the team’s 17 year deal with Fox for media rights. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times reports on owner Frank McCourt’s filing in bankruptcy court.

The Times has the Dodgers’ statement on the bankruptcy filing.

Chris Dufrense of the Times has a good story on how the Dodgers lost their toehold on Los Angeles to the Lakers.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell reports on some of the biggest Dodgers creditors.

Matthew Futterman of the Wall Street Journal writes that McCourt’s filing sets up a battle with Selig.

David McLaughlin of Bloomberg News also has a story on this latest Dodgers development.

Craig Calcaterra of NBC’s Pro Hardball Talk tells us what bankruptcy means for the Dodgers.

From Sports Business Journal, we have a couple of stories from this week’s issue.

First, Terry Lefton breaks news that the new Meadowlands Stadium, home to the Giants and Jets,  is close to having a new sponsor for naming rights.

Tripp Mickle reports that Sprint is about to roll out a new promotion with NASCAR that will benefit both fans and drivers.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today explains how NBC’s tape delayed shenanigans at Wimbledon will work this week. This is the last year of NBC’s contract with Wimbledon. Let’s hope the shenanigans end in 2011.

Mike writes that ESPN college football analyst Craig James could be starting a political career.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch reviews ESPN’s NBA Draft coverage.

Mick Mulvenney from Reuters says the International Olympic Committee says athletes can go on Twitter during competition during the 2012 Olympics so long as they don’t do it for commercial purposes.

Jason Fry writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center discusses some of the comparisons Grantland faces with the late, great The National.

SportsGrid notes some nutty behavior by some baseball announcers over the weekend.

SportsGrid has video from Wendi Nix’s subbing for Karl Ravech on Baseball Tonight from Sunday and it apparently didn’t go over well.

Fox Sports in Australia has announced that tennis analyst John McEnroe will be part of its Australian Open coverage in 2012. He had previously called matches for 7 Network, but had not been in Australia since 2004.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post feels WFAN’s Craig Carton can be a good listen when he wants to be.

Jerry Barmash at Fishbowl NY has ESPN Radio New York’s Jared Max reaction to the New York State Senate passing the same sex marriage bill last Friday.

At the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog, Dan Steinberg notes that the Nationals’ TV ratings are beginning to surpass other teams in the market.

Dan has some observations from the news conference involving Wizards top draft pick Jan Vesely who made a big splash last week with a kiss from her girlfriend at the NBA Draft.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times shares his thoughts on the sports weekend on TV.

Hal Boedeker of the Orlando Sentinel says the local NBC station won’t be airing Wimbledon this week due to its wall-to-wall coverage of the Casey Anthony trial.

Jeff Korbelik of the Lincoln (NE) Journal-Star says a new local sports radio station will pick up programming from Fox Sports and Premiere Radio Networks in addition to having some local shows.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post says soccer’s popularity is rising.

Tom Hoffarth from the Los Angeles Daily News has your Southern California sports calendar for the week.

Jon Wilner at the San Jose Mercury News writes that the Pac-12 Conference is consideration all distribution options on both TV and the internet for its in-house channel.

Bruce Dowbiggin in the Toronto Globe and Mail writes about the NHL delaying a decision about participating in the Olympics and the media rights for the new Winnipeg Jets.

The Toronto Sports Media blog says expect to hear some changes at the local Rogers Sportsnet’s radio station.

With some upheaval expected for next season, Paulsen at Sports Media Watch has some announcing suggestions for the NBA’s TV partners.

At Puck The Media, Steve Lepore notes that the NHL Awards saw increased ratings on both Versus and CBC last week.

And Steve says NHL Network will pick up TSN’s coverage of the first day of the league’s free agent signing period.

Doug Farrar at Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner wonders if NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens injured himself during the taping of a VH1 reality show.

EPL Talk looks at ESPN’s coverage of the Women’s World Cup.

The Big Lead notes that Dallas Mavs owner Mark Cuban shot a new Transformers 3 movie ad.

Jack Dickey at Deadspin says it seems Marv Albert’s conviction on sexual assault charges has been long forgotten.

And that’s where we’re going to leave it.

Turner Sports Statement on Marv Albert Joining NFL on CBS

We have a statement from Turner Sports President David Levy on the news that Marv Albert is joining the NFL on CBS for the 2011 season. Albert replaces Gus Johnson who left for Fox. Marv will continue as the lead voice for the NBA on TNT as well as continue as one of the main voices of the NCAA Tournament on CBS/Turner. However, Marv will no longer call New Jersey Nets games on YES. Here’s the statement from Turner Sports.

Statement from David Levy: President of Sales, Distribution and Sports, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. Regarding Marv Albert

“For more then five decades, Marv has been the voice of a generation of sports fans. He is the best play by play announcer in the history of the National Basketball Association and, in my opinion, one of the true broadcasting icons in sports television history. We’re pleased he will bring his talents to CBS for their NFL coverage and look forward to many more years of Marv at courtside for our telecasts of the NBA on TNT, as well as our joint coverage with CBS for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.”

That’s all.

Time For The Monday Linkage

After being in the Massachusetts office this morning and needing to run a few errands for the main RI office, I’m now ready to provide links provided I don’t get interrupted at work. You never know. And with the decision to eventually close the MA office due to the slow economy, I may be looking for work so if any blogging networks want to bring on a sports media blogger full-time, please contact me. I’m available any time.

Let’s get to your links.

We start with USA Today’s Michael Hiestand who looks at the Olympic bidding that began today.

Stephen Wilson of the Associated Press reports from Switzerland where the US networks are meeting with the International Olympic Committee, that in its bid, Fox has committed to airing four Olympiads (2014, 2016, 2018, 2020).

Sports Business Daily including reporter Tripp Mickle who’s on the ground in Switzerland looks at the Fox presentation to the IOC today.

While many observers are already handing the Olympics to ESPN or Fox, John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal writes that new NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus isn’t coming into these Olympic negotiations cold and raw.

Tripp and John have a podcast at Sports Business Journal in which they predict the winner of the Olympic bidding. Their picks might surprise you.

Funny article from Spencer Hall at SB Nation saying it would be bad if Fox got the Olympics.

Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter also looks at the Fox bid.

Over at Geneva Lunch in Switzerland (I believe this is the first time I’ve linked to a publication from Switzerland), Ellen Wallace looks at Lausanne hosting three American networks for the Olympic Games bidding.

Lawrence Donegan of the London (UK) Guardian says there could be a changing of the guard for the US rights to the Olympics.

Anthony Crupi at Adweek notes that ESPN could very well come out on top of the Olympic bidding when all is said and done.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times handicaps the Olympic bidding.

To non-Olympic bidding stories now.

John Ourand at SBJ wonders how high is too high for sports rights fees.

Kudos to SportsbyBrooks which continues to investigate Mel Kiper Jr.’s relationship with NCAA-scrutinized 7-on-7 summer football camps and why ESPN has been covering it up.

Dwayne Dunham at Technorati speaks with The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre about his blog. Disclaimer: Fang’s Bites is a member of The Big Lead Sports blogging network.

Jason Fry writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center looks at the writing for free-writing for pay debate.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says it’s not a surprise that Tiger Woods has left agency IMG after his own agent left the company.

Newsday’s Neil Best notes that hoops beat the Yankees and Mets head-to-head on two separate occasions.

Neil talks with ESPN Radio New York’s Michael Kay about his YES workload.

Neil says it’s time to go live around the clock with the Olympics.

Neil also reviews the Borg vs. McEnroe HBO documentary.

It’s like the old days when I used to have multiple links to Neil!

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post gives Shaquille O’Neal a backhanded compliment.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times enjoys Mike Milbury’s commentary.

David Barron at the Houston Chronicle has a few thoughts on this week’s sports media news.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business wants the Big Ten Football Championship to be played out of doors.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post reviews HBO’s McEnroe/Borg documentary. I’ve seen the first half of the doc and it’s very good.

Ron Kantowski of the Las Vegas Review-Journal notes the death of former Sporting News Radio host “Papa Joe” Chevalier. A couple of readers wondered why I didn’t do anything on him. First, I didn’t know he died and second, Sporting News Radio didn’t have an affiliate in Rhode Island so I never got the opportunity to hear him. From the story, he sounded like a good host. Never had the chance to listen.

I’m leaving the office now so I’ll have to end the links right here. I’ll be back later to finish up.

UPDATE, 6:10 p.m.: Time for more links.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the sports calendar for this week.

Tom notes that Marv Albert is the latest addition to the NFL on CBS roster.

Raju Mudhar of the Toronto Star says we must pay attention to Captain Blowhard. I say no!

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says HBO won’t be putting a Canadian NHL team on 24/7 in anticipation of the Winter Classic.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog is surprised that CBC did not set a ratings record on Saturday for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Sports Media Watch notes that NBC saw over a decade ratings high for the French Open men’s final.

Ben Koo at Awful Announcing can’t believe that Fox is in even in the discussion to get the Olympics.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid has Charles Barkley feeling someone at ESPN or TNT would lose his job if Shaquille O’Neal is brought on board.

That’s all.

YESSSSS and It Counts! Marv Albert Joins The NFL on CBS

Just over a year to the day after announcing that he was leaving Westwood One Radio and ending his association with Monday Night Football, the legendary Marv Albert returns to the NFL with CBS Sports. He replaces Gus Johnson who went to Fox Sports. Marv will continue as the lead announcer for the NBA on TNT and an announcer for the NCAA Tournament on CBS/Turner Sports. We have the official announcement from our friends at CBS Sports.

LEGENDARY BROADCASTER MARV ALBERT JOINS “THE NFL ON CBS”

Legendary sports broadcaster Marv Albert joins CBS Sports as a play-by-play announcer for the CBS Television Network’s coverage of THE NFL ON CBS.  The announcement was made today by Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports.

“Marv Albert is recognized throughout sports broadcasting as one of its true legends,” says McManus.  “Very few in the broadcasting industry can claim his combined accomplishments and remarkable longevity.  We are extremely excited to add Marv to our NFL ON CBS team.”

Albert will continue in his lead role as basketball play-by-play announcer for TNT’s exclusive Thursday night NBA regular-season and playoff coverage.  He also serves as play-by-play for CBS Sports’ and Turner Sports’ coverage of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship

Albert served as the play-by-play voice for Westwood One Radio’s coverage of Monday Night Football from 2002-09 alongside Boomer Esiason.  He worked for NBC Sports from 1977-97, announcing the NFL on NBC for 19 years with partners that included Cris Collinsworth, Sam Wyche, Bill Parcells and Paul Maguire, as well as college basketball, boxing, NHL All-Star Games, baseball studio and pre-game shows. Albert served as the primary play-by-play voice for the NBA on NBC.  He rejoined NBC from 2000-02 for its NBA coverage.

Albert was the voice of the New Jersey Nets on the YES Network from 2005-11 and was the voice of the New York Knicks for 37 years and the New York Rangers for 39 years, working for Madison Square Garden (MSG) Network.

Among his myriad assignments throughout his career, Albert also served as play-by-play announcer on TNT’s coverage of the Wimbledon Championships from 2000-02, as well as basketball play-by-play for the 2002 World Championships of Basketball and the 2001 Goodwill Games on TNT.  He most recently concluded his 12^th season as a basketball play-by-play announcer for TNT’s coverage of the NBA.

In 1997, Albert was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Media Award.  He has won six CableACE Awards (1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995) as “Outstanding Play-By-Play Announcer” and was named “New York State Sportscaster of the Year” 20 times.

Albert has won three New York Emmy® Awards for “Outstanding On-Camera,” and was part of the production team that won four New York Emmy® Awards for “Live Event Coverage” for Knicks basketball.

Albert had an exclusive interview with the President of the United States, Barack Obama, which aired during TNT’s exclusive coverage of the 2010 Western Conference Finals. Obama discussed many topics including the state of the NBA, the Washington Wizards and his thoughts on LeBron James’ then-impending free agency.

Albert’s brother, Al Albert, has been the longtime voice of the Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers, while his brother Steve Albert calls boxing for Showtime.  His son, Kenny Albert, is one of MSG’s voices for New York Rangers’ games on radio, as well as play-by-play for Fox’s NFL and MLB coverage. Albert has three other children: Brian, Denise, who co-hosts “Moms In the City,” an NBC-affiliated broadcast, and Jackie.

Albert attended Syracuse University from 1960-63, and graduated from New York University in 1965.

There you have it.

Cranking Out Some Mid-Week Links

As the rain continues to fall in the Northeast and the sun remains behind the clouds for one more day, I’ll provide some links for you. Trying to finish work before doing links and I’d like to provide these earlier, but sometimes, it can’t be helped. Anyway, here are the sports business and media stories that have been written today.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand isn’t too excited about ESPN’s fall lineup.

Brian Lowry of Fox Sports says the networks are a bit nervous not certain about the NFL season.

Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk says Tony Kornheiser’s comments about a former Washington Post colleague Sally Jenkins could get him in hot water with his bosses again.

However, Dan Steinberg of the Post’s DC Sports Bog says Jenkins is not even offended by the comments and even goes to bat for Mr. Tony. So there’s no war here.

Your turn, Mike?

Rob Brunner at Entertainment Weekly has apparently broken the embargo by the publisher of “Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside The World at ESPN” and revealed some juicy bits that weren’t in the first excerpt made public by GQ earlier this week.

Andrew Gauthier of TV Spy says a Buffalo TV station remembered Chicago sports anchor Daryl Hawks who died last week covering the Bulls in Atlanta. Hawks was a native of Buffalo.

Mike Reynolds at Multichannel News writes that ESPN Deportes will be offering some new programming in the fall.

Emma Bazilian at Adweek says Disney is prepared to step up in its bid to wrest Olympic TV rights away from NBC.

Toni Fitzgerald at Media Life recaps the ESPN Upfront presentation from Tuesday.

At ESPN Front Row, producer Jason Romano talks with Bob Ley about how he came up with the “ESPN Car Wash” moniker.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell finds that Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant is well liked by marketers.

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe says Game 2 of the Bruins-Lightning NHL Eastern Conference Final set a huge local rating for Versus last night.

Mike Reiss of ESPN Boston paid a visit to NFL Films.

Newsday’s Neil Best asks ESPN’s Vice President of Content John Skipper about the new book written by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.

Greg Bishop from the New York Times talks with a classy Gus Johnson who’s looking forward to working with Fox and doesn’t close the door on returning to CBS down the road.

Howard Beck at the Times talks with a sports media consultant to athletes about how LeBron James and Dwayne Wade handle their pre and postgame interviews.

Also from the Times, Melissa Hoppert looks at the NBC Sports Group’s coverage of this weekend’s Preakness Stakes from Pimlico.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union compiles the French Open TV schedule for you.

Scott Levin of Buffalo’s WGRZ-TV says Matthew Barnaby’s domestic violence case has been delayed

At the Washington Post, Mike Wise talks with TNT’s Charles Barkley who says it’s no big deal having gay teammates because he’s played with gay teammates.

Dustin Long at the Virginian-Pilot reports on the ESPN split screen that will be employed during commercial breaks on NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase races.

Scott Rabalais of the Baton Rouge (LA) Advocate says ESPN’s College GameDay will be in town for LSU’s season opener about Oregon in September.

Mel Bracht at the Daily Oklahoman says ESPN’s NBA analysts had high praise for Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki.

Ed Sherman at Crain’s Chicago Business has some sports media news.

Ed says the Bulls’ introduction during Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals took TNT’s Marv Albert and Steve Kerr back to the team’s glory days with Michael Jordan.

Robert Feder of Time Out Chicago says WMAQ-TV plans to replace the late Daryl Hawks, but does not have a timetable at this point.

NBC Chicago says the Bulls will give the Hawks family an autographed game ball from Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Atlanta Hawks, the same game he was supposed to cover the night of his death.

Jeff Wolf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal says Cleveland still carries a torch for LeBron James judging from the TV ratings.

Steve Carp of the Review-Journal writes that a Manny Pacquaio-Juan Manuel Marquez is getting closer to reality as it needs a TV partner now.

Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times writes that the networks are telling advertisers that they’re confident that the NFL season will be played, but behind closed doors, they’re saying something different.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has Dan Patrick expressing regret about the backstabbing at ESPN.

Jack Humphreville from City Watch LA writes that bankruptcy may be the best option for Dodgers owner Frank McCourt as he awaits approval of his huge TV rights megadeal with Fox Sports.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says Blue Jays announcer Alan Ashby can work well on TV and on radio, a rarity among broadcasters.

Deadspin notes that not only did CBS pass on the Colon Cowhack sitcom, but also the Mark Schlereth one as well.

A.J. Daulerio of Deadspin says the new ESPN book certainly won’t mend any fences between Michelle Beadle and Erin Andrews.

Sports Media Watch says ESPN is seeing a ratings uptick for MLB.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media has the final viewership numbers for Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference Final for Versus.

Joe Favorito says maybe it’s time baseball teams look to market rain delays.

Ok. I’m still absorbing what Michelle Beadle said about Erin Andrews. I’m not judging. Just absorbing. That is all.

Doing Some Friday Megalinkage

Now that I’ve learned that I don’t have to travel in between two offices today, I’ll do some megalinks for you.

You can check out the Weekend Sports and Primetime Viewing Picks here. Now to your links.

National

Michael Hiestand of USA Today talks with TNT’s Steve Kerr on the similarities he sees between the Chicago Bulls teams he played on with Michael Jordan and the Miami Heat of today.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News breaks news that TNT’s Marv Albert is in talks with CBS to possibly replace Gus Johnson for the NCAA Tournament. Bob isn’t national, but it’s big enough news to be placed here.

In Sports Business Journal, John Ourand and Michael Smith report on how ESPN and Fox came together for the Pac-12 TV contract.

Kimberly Nordyke of the Hollywood Reporter says Oprah Winfrey’s booking of the United Center for her overblown farewell shows has forced the NBA to juggle the schedule for the Eastern Conference Finals.

To Mike Reynolds at Multichannel News who writes that TNT is on a fast track to have its highest-rated NBA postseason in its history.

Mike has a story on the NBC Sports Group signing Saratoga Race Course for horse racing programming in the summer.

Noted FoxSports.com basketball writer Jeff Goodman announces that he’s leaving for CBSSports.com.

Also writing his farewell column is noted hockey reporter E.J. Hradek who’s leaving ESPN.com for the NHL Network.

At the Business of College Sports, Kristi Dosh says despite what rivals’ complaints, there’s nothing unfair about the new Longhorn Network.

Matt Hinton at Yahoo’s Dr. Saturday college football blog notes that ESPN.com really messed up in reporting the death of Alabama offensive lineman Aaron Davis.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell talks with PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem about a faltering Tiger Woods and what it means to the Tour.

Darren explores the new magazine put forth by energy drink distributor Red Bull.

Darren notes that Nike is coming under fire again for factory conditions in Asia.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media has the ratings for nights 25-28 of the NHL Playoffs.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid has audio of a Captain Blowhard call into the Tony Korneheiser show this week.

Dan also has video of a deeply subdued Gus Johnson talking to Dan Patrick about his move to Fox.

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy notes that Versus’ Jeremy Roenick gave praise to Patrick Marleau of the San Jose Sharks, two games after calling him “gutless”.

In Publiside, the lovely Gail Sideman advises athletes to keep using social media despite some recent incidents where some did not think before tweeting.

In Major League Programs, Dave Kohl reviews the sports media news of the week.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe quotes a WCVB-TV interview with NESN’s Jerry Remy in which he states he expects to return to analyzing Red Sox games on Monday. Remy has been out with pneumonia. Chad also breaks news that NESN’s Kathryn Tappen is being targeted by NHL Network as a possible studio host.

At SB Nation Boston, Bruce Allen says the Bruins now have the Hub’s attention all to themselves.

NESN has Heidi Watney visiting the MLB Fan Cave.

Newsday’s Neil Best notes that Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee actually saw Tiger Woods’ implosion at the Players Championship coming before it happened.

Melissa Hoppert of the New York Times discusses NBC Sports Group bringing Saratoga horse racing into the fold.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick hates everything and everybody today, but when is that different from any other day?

Justin Terranova at the Post has five questions for NBA TV’s Kevin McHale.

Ken Belson from the New York Times writes that the famed Melrose Games may leave its Madison Square Garden home where it’s been held for almost a century.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette says Siena lacrosse fans have a few ways to monitor their team’s NCAA Tournament game against Syracuse this weekend.

Ken says an NCAA Division III Lacrosse Tournament game will be online for fans to listen.

Patrick Berkery from the Philly Burbs papers talks with Comcast SportsNet Phillies analyst Chris Coste.

Dan Steinberg from the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says the Nationals’ ratings on MASN are way up from this same time last year.

Dan says the DC sports media is firing shots at each other over whether DC NFL Team quarterback Donovan McNabb refused to wear a wristband to help him calls plays because it didn’t look good.

Dan says one DC radio show is sending barbs at Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic over its reporting on the McNabb wristband.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says NBC will be all over The Players Championship this weekend.

Jim notes that NASCAR is coming to the Mid-Atlantic region this weekend.

And Jim says the NBA is heating up on both ESPN and TNT.

South

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times looks at the latest sports media news.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle talks with the man who’s spearheading ESPN’s Longhorn Network and getting it ready for launch this summer.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman has a chat with NBA TV’s Kevin McHale over Oklahoma City’s win over Memphis the other night.

Mel says the Thunder are setting local ratings records.

Mel also has his media notebook.

Midwest

Jeff Bell of Columbus Business First writes that Fox Sports Ohio will be a corporate sponsor of the local sports commission.

The Detroit News says last night’s wild Game 7 between the Red Wings and San Jose Sharks set a ratings record for Fox Sports Detroit.

Bob Wolfley from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks about ESPN getting all hands on deck for a special college basketball game on Veterans Day.

In Crain’s Chicago Business, Ed Sherman lists his weekly winners and losers.

Erin Meyer of the Chicago Tribune says the staff of WMAQ-TV is shocked over the death of sports anchor Daryl Hawks who was found in a hotel room as he was to cover last night’s Bulls-Hawks game.

Maudlyne Ihezjerika of the Chicago Sun-Times says another WMAQ-TV sportscaster died under similar circumstances almost a decade ago.

NBC Chicago has a slideshow of Daryl’s career not only at the station, but before he came to the Windy City.

Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says a local sports radio executive’s tumultuous tenure is coming to an end.

West

The Phoenix Business Journal reports that the Arena Football League’s Arizona Rattlers now have a local TV deal.

John Maffei of the North County Times talks about announcers shuffling back and forth between networks.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star says TNT’s Charles Barkley’s premonition about the Lakers ended up coming true.

Tom Hoffarth at the Los Angeles Daily News answers real sports media questions from fake readers.

Tom looks at an organization that aids reporters and writers in need of assistance.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin says golf viewership is getting out of red numbers.

We’re going to end it there. Enjoy your sports weekend

Patriots Day Monday Linkage

With this being Patriots Day in Massachusetts and Maine, it’s time to give some links. It’s a day off for some in Massachusetts and Boston has the Marathon plus the 11 a.m. Red Sox game. Both of which are traditions I have come to enjoy.

Some interesting links today. We start with John Ourand and Michael Smith of Sports Business Journal who report that ESPN and the Big East Conference are talking contract extension a year before renewal talks were to begin.

John and David Broughton of the Sports Business Journal note that the Pittsburgh Penguins are on top of the local NHL TV ratings heap.

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy crunches the NHL’s local TV numbers.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King in his Monday Morning Quarterback column has some interesting sports media notes. One, he talks with NFL Films President Steve Sabol about his treatment for a brain tumor. Steve is touched by the outreach of support from you.

Next, Peter talks with ESPN’s Jon Gruden about several quarterback prospects and yes, there’s even a “this guy” quote.

Also, Peter takes NFL Network to task for making Bob Papa audition for the job he currently has.

And if you would rather see the entire MMQB column on one page instead of clicking through five pages, you can go here.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today speaks with TNT’s Reggie Miller about his former broadcast partner Doug Collins and his own front office aspirations.

Hiestands notes the very good overnight ratings for six of the eight NBA playoff games over the weekend.

Tom Weir of USA Today says Michael Strahan will get his first opportunity to guest host for Regis Philbin tomorrow on “Live with Regis & Kelly”.

USA Today and Tennis Channel have announced a new online feature that will run exclusively on USAToday.com.

ESPN has published the list of announcers and analysts who have endorsement deals. A couple of names noticeably absent are Chris Berman who has deals with Applebees and Nutrisystem and Chris Fowler who has one with Nike.

ESPN Executive Vice President for Production, Norby Williamson wrote the new endorsement guidelines and they were posted on ESPN’s Front Row.

Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter says the NBA Playoffs took ratings away from primetime on Sunday.

Jon Lafayette of Broadcasting & Cable advises you to enjoy the NBA while you can before the inevitable lockout occurs in the summer.

Tom Conroy of Media Life Magazine reviews the new “Sports Show with Norm Macdonald”.

Marc Watts of the new Sports PR Blog which is headed by Pro Sports Communications lists the top five NBA television analysts.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell gives us his observations about purposely staying away from Twitter for just under a week.

Darren has estimates of fan attendance at various spring college football games.

Craig Calcaterra from Hardball Talk has a picture of ESPN’s Wendi Nix trying to get some answers from Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington.

At Deadline, the mysterious Nikki Finke wonders if it’s time to end live sports TV coverage to prevent occasional swear words from slipping through the cracks. It doesn’t happen all of the time and sports fans won’t stand for delays.

Glen Johnson of the Boston Globe says Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown visited the NESN booth today and said other members of Congress are jealous of the Bay State’s sports teams.

From Claire Atkinson of the New York Post, there’s a power struggle between NBC Sports Emperor Dick Ebersol and NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke over the bid for the 2014/2016 Olympics and don’t forget bids are due in a month in a half.

Also from the Post, Phil Mushnick is amazed that an MLB team used common sense.

In the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog, Dan Steinberg notes that Capitals coach used a radio appearance to insult the venerable Madison Square Garden.

Dan says the Capitals’ TV ratings are far outpacing the Wizards’.

Doug Miles of the Tampa Bay Examiner wants to know why NBC dumped coverage of golf on Sunday in favor of the NHL.

Tom Jones at the St. Petersburg Times reviews the weekend that was on sports television.

The Tennessean notes that ESPN has set the date and time for this year’s Music City Bowl.

In the Houston Chronicle, David Barron says he’s going to be away for a couple of weeks.

Tom Brew of the Indianapolis Star says Chris Denari, the TV voice of the Indiana Pacers, will finally get to call his first NBA Playoff game this week.

At Crain’s Chicago Business, Ed Sherman talks with ESPN’s Michael Wilbon about making a move back to the Windy City.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post loved the opening weekend of the NBA Playoffs.

Tom Hoffarth at the Los Angeles Daily News has the Southern California sports calendar for this week.

Randy Starkman of the Toronto Star does not like Canada’s public funding for CBC when Don Cherry makes fun of concussions.

Raju Mudhar of the Star talks with the new head of CBC Sports.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail wonders if TSN had not paid close scrutiny to an uncalled penalty, would a suspension have followed?

To the Canadian Sports Media Blog where it also tackles the controversial concussion comments by Don Cherry on Saturday.

Over to Steve Lepore at Puck The Media who says NBC did not get the job done by not producing a clear-cut replay during yesterday’s Washington Capitals-New York Rangers game during a goal review.

Steve also looks at the local ratings for this weekend’s NHL on NBC double dip.

Mocksession, headed up by the great Timothy Burke a.k.a. @bubbaprog, has a comparison of Bobby Valentine’s and Marv Albert’s very similar hairstyles. Thanks to The Big Lead for the link.

Sports Media Watch says TNT’s NBA tripleheader really did well on Sunday.

And this is where we’ll end it for now.

TNT’s 1st Round NBA Schedule

Being away from the office for most of the day has thrown me for a loop. There’s like 9,000 press releases in the Fang’s Bites inbox and I have no idea where to begin. I’ll start with the NBA, I guess. I’ll post one from TNT and the other from ESPN talking about first round schedules.

In this press release from TNT, we have their announcing teams and their schedule for the first round which goes through next Sunday, April 24. Of course, the playoffs begins TNT’s “40 Games in 40 Nights” and NBA fans will see plenty of Ernie Johnson, Jr., Kenny “The Jet” Smith and Charles Barkley. Let’s see what the schedule has in store for TNT plus a check on the network’s regular season ratings.

TNT Follows Slam Dunk NBA Regular Season with 40+ Games of 2011 NBA Playoff Coverage

TNT’s coverage tips off on Sunday, April 17, with a tripleheader
Network will be the exclusive home to the Eastern Conference Finals

Coming off its most watched and highest-rated season in its 27 years of airing NBA basketball, Turner Sports announced today coverage and telecast plans for the 2011 NBA Playoffs on TNT.  The network’s comprehensive coverage of the NBA Playoffs – with 40+ games including exclusive coverage of the Eastern Conference Finals, will tip off on Sunday, April 17, with a tripleheader beginning at 1 p.m. (ET).  Recently, Turner Sports was nominated for Emmys® for both the remote and studio playoff telecasts of the 2010 NBA Playoffs.

This season, the NBA on TNT averaged a 1.6 U.S. household rating (+45% vs. 1.1 for last year’s corresponding coverage); 2,453,000 total viewers (+42% vs. 1,723,000); and 1,826,000 households (+39% vs. 1,315,000). In addition, this season’s audience is +30% larger than Turner’s second-best regular-season audience from 1995-96 (1,885,000).  Also, TNT aired three of the top five all-time most watched NBA regular season games in cable television history this season and scored significant growth in all key demos:

• A18-34 +49%   (810,000 vs. 544,000)
• A18-49 +47%   (1,378,000 vs. 937,000)
• A25-54 +42%   (1,221,000 vs. 857,000)
• M18-34 +43%   (567,000 vs. 396,000)
• M18-49 +45%   (970,000 vs. 667,000)
• M25-54 +40%   (855,000 vs. 609,000)

The first of three games on Sunday will feature Tony Parker and the Western Conference Champion San Antonio Spurs hosting Zach Randolph and the Memphis Grizzlies at 1 p.m. (ET).  That game will be followed by Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks, making their first appearance in the Playoffs since 2004, visiting Kevin Garnett and the Boston Celtics at 7 p.m. (ET).  The final game of the night gets underway at 9:30 p.m. (ET) and will feature Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder taking on Nene and the Denver Nuggets.

TNT’s coverage of the NBA Playoffs also will feature the four-time Emmy^® award-winning studio show Inside the NBA with Ernie Johnson (host), Hall of Famer Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith.

Following is a list of roster/announce teams for TNT:

Play-By-Play/Analyst
Marv Albert/Steve Kerr
Kevin Harlan/Reggie Miller
Dick Stockton/Mike Fratello
Matt Devlin/Kevin McHale

Albert, Kerr and Miller will call the Eastern Conference Finals, with Craig Sager reporting from the sideline. Additionally, the studio team of Johnson, Barkley, Smith and Chris Webber will be live on site from the game locations for the Eastern Conference Finals.

Also, TNT’s coverage of the NBA Playoffs will include sideline reporters Sager, David Aldridge and Cheryl Miller and Marc Fein, with Lewis Johnson, Jaime Maggio, Pam Oliver and Marty Snider handling on-site reports during early-round coverage.  Webber also will appear as a game analyst and Ian Eagle will handle play-by-play duties for select early round match-ups.

Additionally, TNT OverTime on NBA.com will provide multi-camera angle coverage of games, including an “Action Cam” and a “Backboard Cam.”  Users also will have the ability to vote for which player they would like the “Home Player Cam” and “Away Player Cam” to follow per quarter.  Fans can watch each camera individually, with picture-in-picture or in the Mosaic View.  Viewers also can participate in live Gigya chats with their friends and other fans through Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and MySpace.

2011 NBA PLAYOFFS ON TNT (all times ET)

TIME/DATE	GAME
Sunday, April 17
1 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	Memphis Grizzlies @ San Antonio Spurs  (Game #1) Matt Devlin (play-by-play), Kevin McHale (analyst) and Marc Fein (reporter)
7 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	New York Knicks @ Boston Celtics (Game #1) Marv Albert (play-by-play), Steve Kerr (analyst) and David Aldridge (reporter)
9:30 p.m.	DenverNuggets @ Oklahoma City Thunder (Game #1) Ian Eagle (play-by-play), Mike Fratello (analyst) and Pam Oliver (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
Monday, April 18
7 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	Philadelphia 76ers @ Miami Heat (Game #2) Kevin Harlan (play-by-play), Reggie Miller (analyst) and Craig Sager (reporter)
9:30 p.m.	Indiana Pacers @ Chicago Bulls (Game #2) Dick Stockton (play-by-play), Chris Webber (analyst) and Jaime Maggio (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
Tuesday, April 19
7 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	New York Knicks @ Boston Celtics (Game #2) Marv Albert (play-by-play), Steve Kerr (analyst) and David Aldridge (reporter)
9:30 p.m.	Portland Trail Blazers @ Dallas Mavericks (Game #2) Matt Devlin (play-by-play), Kevin McHale (analyst) and Marty Snider (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
Wednesday, April 20
8 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	Denver Nuggets @ Oklahoma City Thunder (Game #2) Dick Stockton (play-by-play), Mike Fratello (analyst) and Pam Oliver (reporter)
10:30 p.m.	New Orleans Hornets @ Los Angeles Lakers (Game #2) Kevin Harlan (play-by-play), Reggie Miller (analyst) and Cheryl Miller (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
Thursday, April 21
8 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
	Miami Heat @ Philadelphia 76ers (Game #3) Marv Albert (play-by-play), Steve Kerr (analyst) and Craig Sager (reporter)
10:30 p.m.	Dallas Mavericks @ Portland Trail Blazers (Game #3) Matt Devlin (play-by-play), Kevin McHale (analyst) and Marty Snider (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
Saturday, April 23
2 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
2:30 p.m.	Chicago Bulls @ Indiana Pacers (Game #4) Dick Stockton (play-by-play), Mike Fratello (analyst) and Jaime Maggio (reporter)
5 p.m.	Dallas Mavericks @ Portland Trail Blazers (Game #4) Matt Devlin (play-by-play), Kevin McHale (analyst) and Marty Snider (reporter)
Sunday, April 24
6:30 p.m.	NBA Tip-Off Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)
7 p.m.	Orlando Magic @ Atlanta Hawks (Game #4) Marv Albert (play-by-play), Steve Kerr (analyst) and Craig Sager (reporter)
9:30 p.m.	Los Angeles Lakers @ New Orleans Hornets (Game #4) Kevin Harlan (play-by-play), Reggie Miller (analyst) and Cheryl Miller (reporter)
Post-game	Inside the NBA Ernie Johnson (host), Charles Barkley (analyst) and Kenny Smith (analyst)

That will conclude this post.

Our Thursday Linkage

Let’s do the Thursday links. Been up since 4 a.m. and I’m already dragging, but you don’t care. You want links so let’s provide them.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy has ESPN’s Mel Kiper really down on NFL quarterback prospect Cam Newton.

Mike says ESPN and Sunday NFL Countdown analyst Cris Carter are negotiating a new contract.

Louisa Ada Seltzer at Media Life Magazine says college basketball is the main attraction on TV this week.

Marcus Vanderberg of SportsNewser notes that Apple TV picks up two sports out of market packages.

Jesse Lawrence at the Business Insider’s Sports Page says Madison Square Garden and New York are back as the Mecca of Basketball.

Multichannel News says Big Ten Network is running a sweepstakes tied to the Big Ten Tournament.

Dan Fogarty from SportsGrid has audio of WFAN’s Mike Francesa going ballistic after the Rutgers-St. John’s game which had an absolutely bizarre ending.

Brad Cohen of SportsGrid says a Philadelphia sports radio host unwittingly threw on “F” bomb on live TV.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says the once harmonious NFL labor talks have now gotten stuck over financials.

Darren writes that a Miami bar owner is losing money over the Heat’s current six game losing streak.

Darren explains why Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel should have been fined more for covering up NCAA violations.

Newsday’s Neil Best raves about ESPN Films’ new documentary on Michigan’s Fab Five.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has CBS’ Gus Johnson and Clark Kellogg talking about Penn State’s chances to get into the NCAA Tournament.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call talks with Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia’s 76ers sideline reporter Meredith Marakovits about her first season on the job.

Keith Gabriel of the Philadelphia Daily News says the MLS’ Union is talking with Comcast SportsNet Philly to put most of its games on the regional sports network.

John Smallwood of the Daily News wonders if Charles Barkley will make CBS and Turner regret using him on the NCAA Tournament.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with Turner’s Marv Albert who gets to call the NCAA Tournament again after a nearly 30 year absence, although Marv did call college basketball with NBC throughout the 1980′s.

The Pee Dee (SC) Morning News says ESPN wants people to attend a live appearance of Mike & Mike in the Morning when it comes to Myrtle Beach next month.

Gary Smits of the Florida Times-Union says a relaxation of PGA Tour rules on groupings has allowed for a marquee trio to appear on Golf Channel today and tomorrow.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business says the local sports radio talk show host who was arrested on DUI charges last week has now been suspended by his station.

Ed says the Big Ten Network has finally unveiled who’s the top Conference icon of all-time.

Lewis Lazare of the Chicago Sun-Times says the local host has been suspended for the rest of the week.

Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune says CBS-owned WCCO-AM has lost the rights to University of Minnesota sports after a 7 decade relationship.

The Canadian Press says CBC has a new executive director for its sports properties.

And the Canadian Press says a former head of CBC Sports now has a position with the Commonwealth Games.

The Canadian Sports Media blog goes over the controversial comments made by a Toronto sports radio host in regards to International Women’s Day.

The Toronto Sports Media blog looks at more lineup changes at one local sports radio station.

Ben Koo of Awful Announcing looks at the migration of sports from free TV to cable.

New York Sports Journalism feels online viewing of March Madness will surge this year.

Emmett Jones at Sports Business Digest says Domino’s Pizza has signed an endorsement deal with the NCAA.

Sports Media Watch has some various NBA ratings notes.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says Versus had another good ratings month for the NHL.

Joe Favorito says there’s plenty of sponsor value to be had in March Madness.

And we are ending it there.

Bringing Some Wednesday Linkage

Ok, let’s bring you some linkage. Again, in the midst of a lot of stuff, but taking a break to do some now before work really prevents me from blogging.

Mike McCarthy at USA Today recaps Phil Simms comments to Sirius XM regarding his Super Bowl incident with Desmond Howard.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says the NBA is experiencing its own ratings renaissance this season just as the NFL has.

TNT’s Marv Albert held a chat with USA Today yesterday and talked about his approach to calling the NCAA Tournament this season.

If you’re a fan of the Dan Patrick Show like I am, then you’ll welcome a relaunch of his website.

Stu Hackel of Sports Illustrated says don’t expect the NHL to leave NBC/Versus anytime soon. Thanks to Steve Lepore of Puck The Media for the link.

Jeff Pearlman talks about the monotony of a postgame press conference.

Milton Kent of Fanhouse looks at CBS’ Sean McManus focusing on sports again.

The Hollywood Reporter says HomeAway’s Super Bowl ad which featured a baby doll being smashed against a window will be re-edited for future showings.

Lindsay Powers of the Hollywood Reporter says the director of the popular Volkswagen mini-Darth Vader Super Bowl ad which went viral before the game feels releasing them online will be the model for future commercials.

Philiana Ng of the Hollywood Reporter notes that Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl VII received its highest audience ever.

Jon Lafayette at Broadcasting & Cable reports that Disney showed higher earnings in the first quarter of its fiscal year thanks to ESPN and ABC.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that TNT is on pace to have its highest rated NBA regular season ever.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine writes that thanks to the Super Bowl and American Idol, Fox has climbed to number 1 in the all-important 18-49 ratings demographic.

Brad Cohen of SportsGrid gives his first-hand account of surviving Super Bowl Week in the Metroplex.

At the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center, Eric Deggans from the St. Petersburg Times writes that CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus has plenty of challenges lying ahead of him.

Marcus Vanderberg of SportsNewser says a Dallas radio talk show host went over the line in confronting Michael Vick last week.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell notes that the NFL is stepping up a notch in the ticket snafu that left hundreds of fans watching the Super Bowl in a bar instead of inside Cowboys Stadium.

Nellie Andreeva of Deadline says Comedy Central has given the green light to a Norm Macdonald-hosted sports show.

Josh Halliday of the London (UK) Guadian reports that ESPN is going to launch mobile apps for cricket and Formula 1 racing for the iPhone.

Alex Marvez of Fox Sports writes that NFL labor unrest could put the league’s annual game in London in jeopardy.

Ron Sirak of Golf Digest has the new president of Golf Channel talking about the new corporate synergy between NBC Sports and Golf Channel.

Stuart Elliot of the New York Times says amid complaints, Groupon is revising its Super Bowl ads.

Newsday’s Neil Best attended an event previewing an MSG Network documentary series on the 1986 New York Mets.

Brad Wellen of Fishbowl NY says ESPN The Magazine is packing up its Manhattan offices and heading to Bristol, CT.

Ken McMillan in the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record states that the New York Yankees will have 15 spring training games on TV and radio.

And Ken says the Mets will have a combined 19 exhibition games on the air this spring.

In the Buffalo News, Greg Connors praises Fox’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman for their work in the Super Bowl.

Dan Connolly of the Baltimore Sun writes that the Orioles have decided to return to 50,000 watt powerhouse WBAL-AM as its radio flagship station after a three year absence.

MASN says it’s pulling a simulcast of the Scott Garceau radio show effective immediately.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner explores why the Orioles decided to return to WBAL after being on FM.

Shannon Owens of the Orlando Sentinel has ESPN’s Dick Vitale giving some love and support to co-worker Stuart Scott who’s undergoing a second battle with cancer.

Mike Bianchi of the Sentinel says the 9 year old girl who sings the National Anthem at Magic games feels she could have done better than Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl. Ouch!

Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas writes that Mavericks TV analyst Bob Ortegel has decided not to return to the organization after owner Mark Cuban pulled him off the broadcasts last month.

John Henry of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has the city’s mayor feeling his town was the epicenter of Super Bowl Week thanks to ESPN.

Mike Bailey of the Houston Chronicle talks about a local news anchor who loves to hit the links.

David Barron of the Chronicle looks at Sean McManus’ elevation to CBS Sports Chairman.

Jerry Garcia of the San Antonio Express-News has an appreciation of Friday Night Lights which ends its run this week on DirecTV. I’ve never watched the show and I know my Twitter Trophy Wife, Amanda Rykoff and Jason McIntyre of the Big Lead are big fans. Had this show not run on NBC at a time when I was boycotting the network’s primetime schedule, I might have given it a chance. I guess I’ll have to watch the DVD’s. Yes, I know it’s been on DirecTV the last two years which I have, but I just didn’t want to pick it up in the middle of its run.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Super Bowl XLV set viewing records all over the place.

Bob also looks at the ratings in various local markets.

The Chicago Sun-Times says nearly all of the Cubs’ spring training games will be aired on TV, radio or the internet.

George Diaz of the Chicago Tribune despite the urgings of Fox Sports, NASCAR will not change its start times this season.

KSDK-TV in St. Louis says a local rapper is suing ESPN and two other parties for using his song without his permission.

Mike Sunnucks in the Phoenix Business Journal says Super Bowl XLV is the most watched TV program ever locally.

The San Francisco Business Times reports that Comcast SportsNet California is back up and running on Dish Network systems.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog reports that tennis is headed to Rogers Sportsnet.

Sports Media Watch says public indecency charges have been dropped against an ESPN NASCAR producer who was arrested last year.

SMW also looks at the ratings and viewership for each 2011 NFL postseason game.

SMW says the Super Bowl had slight increases in every key demographic from last year.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says Versus’ NHL Overtime is showing slight increases in viewership on non-game nights.

Joe Favorito wonders when a sports franchise will hold a Christina Aguilera National Anthem Night.

Dave Kohl of Major League Programs writes about a new talk show on New York’s Off Track Betting channel.

That’s all for now.

Sneaking In The Tuesday Linkage

I’m traveling between two offices, the big boss is here, but I’m trying to provide linkage while I can. This may be cut short.

Let’s start with USA Today’s Michael Hiestand who talks about TBS adding a batting cage to its MLB Postseason studio set.

Michael also has a check on the weekend ratings.

Andrea Domanick of Broadcasting & Cable writes that NBC’s Sunday Night Football set a ratings record.

John Consoli at Mediaweek talks about the International Olympic Committee pushing back the bidding for the US rights for the 2014/16 Games until next year.

Louisa Ada Seltzer of Media Life Magazine says ad sales for the MLB Postseason on TBS and Fox are ahead of last year’s pace.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life writes that the NBA and HBO are partnering with the new Google TV.

The SportsCOMMENTary blog speaks with a talent agent who tells athletes what they have to do to become effective broadcasters. 

Nadine Cheung at SportsNewser says HBO Sports has a job opening. 

CNBC’s Darren Rovell has the tale of OchoCincO’s cereal and a phone sex line. 

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News talks about YES being left out in the cold as TBS and Fox take over the MLB Postseason. 

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union is happy that Chip Caray is not calling the MLB Postseason for TBS.

At the Schenectady Gazette, Ken Schott says Union College hockey will be heard on new stations this season.

Ken mentions that Union will also be on TV in December.

Ken McMillan at the Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record says Fox Sports will provide coverage of the MLB Postseason on its Spanish language channel.

Ken says both TBS and ESPN Radio have set their announcing lineups for the League Division Series.

Laura Nachman likes Michael Barkann of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog previews tonight’s E:60 profile of DC NFL team owner Daniel Snyder. Just an aside, have you noticed how Friend of Fang’s Bites Ian Eagle and Snyder share a resemblance? Ian was even mistaken for Snyder when he was calling Monday Night Football for Westwood One Radio.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner also discusses the E:60 Snyder feature.

Sarah Talalay of the South Florida Sun Sentinel looks at how the Sun Life Stadium grounds crew managed to transition the field from baseball to football for last night’s Patriots-Dolphins game.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer talks with TBS’ Brian Anderson who will call the Reds-Phillies League Division Series.

John has more with Brian in his blog.

Ed Sherman in Crain’s Chicago Business notes that the Bears-Giants debacle pulled a big rating in the Windy City.

Dan Caesar at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the ratings for the Rams on Sunday slipped from last week, but still was strong.

Jay Posner of the San Diego Union-Tribune notes that the NFL is going after sports bars that transmitted the blacked out Cardinals-Chargers game. Thanks to Ben Maller of Fox Sports Radio for the link.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News writes about Dan Patrick taking his show to Fox Sports Net while keeping it on DirecTV.

Tom reviews tonight’s ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on the 2004 American League Championship Series.

Sports Media Watch says the overnight ratings for CBS’ regional coverage on Sunday were flat with last year.

SMW says ABC’s Saturday college football doubleheader was a mixed bag.

SMW notes that CBS’ primetime offering of Florida at Alabama was down from last year.

SMW says announcer Marv Albert feels hatred for the Miami Heat will only help the NBA.

And SMW tells us that MLB on Fox finished the regular season with solid ratings.

John Daly at The Daly Planet notes that ESPN is still having issues airing NASCAR races four years into its current contract.

Jeff Levine at the Biz of Football says the NFL Players Association has to control its message and stick to it leading up to its showdown with the NFL.

Let’s end it there for now.

Doing Your Friday Megalinks

Let’s do your megalinks today. Lots to get to.

There’s the Weekend Viewing Picks which contains the sports and entertainment choices for Saturday and Sunday.

Now let’s get to the linkage. Lots of of it today.

National

From USA Today’s Game On blog, Mike McCarthy talks with the producer of new Lombardi Broadway play on the ten things we did not know about the late Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.

Michael Hiestand from USA Today talks about HBO’s foray into the NHL for the latest edition of its critically acclaimed “24/7″ series.

Completing a USA Today trifecta, NHL writer Kevin Allen says bringing HBO into the fold is a big feather in the NHL’s cap.

Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated breaks news on Twitter that ESPN has hired World Cup announcer Ian Darke to be its signature voice for soccer replacing JP Dellacamera. That will include English Premier Games as well as MLS.

Stephen Wilson of the Associated Press writes that the International Olympic Committee expects to begin the bidding process for the US TV rights to the 2014/2016 Games early next year.

Forbes Magazine says ESPN is driving the Disney engine to profits. 

Noah Davis at SportsNewser talk about NASCAR.com launching a new daily show.

Etan Vlesing at the Hollywood Reporter also has a story on the HBO 24/7 NHL series.

R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel News says NBA TV will cover the league’s first-ever “Midnight Madness” preseason practice next week.

John Consoli of Mediaweek says it’s hoped that the new HBO series on the NHL will bring new fans to the league.

Stuart Levine of Variety writes that the 24/7 series deal was done as the NHL looks ahead to signing a new TV rights deal.

All Access says a former producer with the Mike & Mike in the Morning radio show has been named program director at ESPN Radio in New York. 

Kelly Dwyer at Yahoo’s Ball Don’t Lie blog profiles TNT’s Marv Albert.

Milton Kent of Fanhouse tells Ines Sainz to be a little more grateful.

CNBC’s Sports business producer Tom Rotunno lists the Top 5 Best Selling Playoff Gimmicks.

Sports Media Watch says the Philadelphia Phillies continue to set ratings records for Comcast SportsNet.

At Puck The Media, Steve Lepore provides his thoughts on HBO’s entrance into the NHL.

To Yahoo’s Puck Daddy and Greg Wyshynski who looks at what the Washington Capitals can expect to get from the HBO 24/7 series.

Yahoo’s Big League Stew blog talks with “Baseball” director Ken Burns in the latest edition of its podcast. 

Maury Brown at the Biz of Baseball is intrigued by MLB’s At Bat mobile app upgrade which now allows you to order food at the ballpark.

East and Mid-Atlantic

The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn says NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman could not hide his glee after signing with HBO.

At the Springfield (MA) Republican, Amanda Bruno gets on NESN for not airing Wednesday’s Bruins debut of rookie Tyler Seguin (scroll down).

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a fascinating article on the discovery of long lost TV footage of the 1960 World Series Game 7 between the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates. Expect MLB Network to air during the offseason.

Newsday’s Neil Best notes that New York Knicks star Amar’e Stoudamire becomes the first team member to be featured in a new ESPN NBA promo.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News says the Jets will be under NBC’s scrutiny on Sunday night. Whatever, Bob. Make more stuff up.

Phil Mushnick at the New York Post isn’t a fan of the standard press release apology.

Pete Doughety at the Albany Times Union has the MLB Network schedule through Saturday.

Laura Nachman says the Phillies are cleaning up in Philadelphia.

Shelly Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that the Penguins are happy to be on HBO.

Bob Smizik of the Post-Gazette says rumors are swirling about the demise of the ESPN Radio affiliate in the Steel City.  

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog looks at the HBO 24/7 NHL series from the Capitals point of view.

Dan has video of a new NFL apparel ad featuring DC NFL team owner Daniel Snyder and actress Alyssa Milano.

Jim Williams from the Washington Examiner talks about the new HBO series on the Penguins and Capitals.

Jim says the Wizards will be the focus of NBA TV’s coverage of the first practices of the season.

Jim says the NFL is trying to enhance the fan experience at games.

South

Tom Jones from the St. Petersburg Times has NBC’s Tony Dungy listing his three favorite TV shows.

Sarah Talalay of the South Florida Sun Sentinel writes that the Miami Dolphins are going all out to attract fans to come to the game.

Sarah says Miami Heat game tickets go on sale next week.

Shannon Owens of the Orlando Sentinel wonders if Ines Sainz should have brought up her issue with the Jets to begin with.

Dave Williams of the Atlanta Business Journal says Chik-fil-A has signed an extension with ESPN keeping its football games on the Alleged Worldwide Leader. 

Dave Walker of the New Orleans Times-Picayune says ESPN will catch up with a former Saints special teams player for Sunday NFL Countdown.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle has Fox’s Joe Buck waxing poetic on the old Oilers.

In the Daily Oklahoman, Mel Bracht says the Oklahoma City Thunder will be featured NBA TV’s training camp coverage.

Midwest

The Cincinnati Enquirer’s John Kiesewetter has info for those who want to watch the World Equestrian Games being held in Lexington, KY.

Michael Rothstein of AnnArbor.com chronicles the visit of ESPN2′s SportsNation to the University of Michigan this week. 

The Muncie (IN) Star Press says Ball State students will be producing content for Fox College Sports.

Ed Sherman in Crain’s Chicago Business has his weekly winners and losers in sports business and media.

Bob Wolfley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a closer look at ESPN’s high powered goal line cameras that will be used in Monday’s Packers-Bears game.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says Jack Clark will not work for Fox Sports Midwest for the rest of the Cardinals season.

Dan also looks at the new addition to Ken Burns’ PBS Baseball documentary.

West

Chadd Cripe of the Idaho Statesman talks with ESPN/ABC’s Brent Musburger about the Oregon State-Boise State matchup which he will call on Saturday.

The Statesman is excited about College Gameday’s visit to Boise on Saturday. 

John Maffei from the North County Times says with local blackout looming in San Diego, it might be wise to invest in NFL Network’s RedZone.

Helene Elliot of the Los Angeles Times notes that long-time Kings announcer Bob Miller is looking forward to his 38th season with the team.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has Dick Enberg being excited over his first season calling the San Diego Padres.

Tom has his news and notes in his blog. 

And that will conclude the megalinks for today.

The First Fang’s Bites Mailbag

Time to answer your sports media questions. Thanks to all who sent e-mails. Let’s make this a regular feature and I hope to do this every two or three months. And down the road, I hope to offer DVD’s, books and other swag. I don’t have anything for this mailbag, but I hope to have stuff in line for the future. Let’s get to your questions.

Hi John. From what I’ve heard, CBS and Turner will decide on announcing teams sometime soon. I suspect that you’ll see the four regional final teams for CBS, Jim Nantz-Clark Kellogg; Gus Johnson-Len Elmore; Dick Enberg’s replacement-Jay Bilas; and Verne Lundquist-Bill Rafery. Who Turner will hire is anyone’s guess. Ian Eagle who did work on TNT this past NBA postseason might move over to Turner as would Kevin Harlan who’s TNT’s NBA guy anyway. I doubt Marv would call tournament games, but you never know.

As far as the ACC Sunday Night Hoops are concerned, I know the coaches all hated the Sunday night games. They have told ACC Commissioner John Swofford as much. Under the new ESPN contract that takes effect in 2011-12, ESPNU gets a Sunday game, but I think it will be earlier in the afternoon, although ESPN could call for it to be played at let’s say, 4 p.m. ET. And unless ESPN decides to sell a few games, Fox Sports Net is done after this coming season.

No, up until the BCS and Open Championship, ESPN would have ABC in mind to compliment coverage. But as we have seen in the last two years, ESPN has decided to keep events for itself (BCS and Open Championship) and this year, chose to cut the number of NASCAR Sprint Cup races on ABC from 11 to 3. However, ABC affiliates are screaming over the lack of sports on the network and this may force ESPN’s hand in the future especially with the Olympics, MLB and NBA bidding all coming up. The ABC affiliates are the ones that are keeping ESPN in line and preventing the Alleged Worldwide Leader from hoarding everything. In addition, the NBA and MLB would still want to have their finals on network TV as opposed to cable. But the day of a major final on cable is coming.

A related question to the one from Scott. I agree that having those events on cable prevented casual fans from finding them. In addition, I was still used to turning on ABC early Sunday morning for the final round of the Open Championship this year, but I’ll be weaned off that next year. Having no suspense hurt the Open more than being on cable. NASCAR’s ratings have been down all year so even had the event been on ABC, not much more could be done on viewership. Certainly being on cable did not help the ratings.

- Do you have a favorite sport to watch on television? What about a favorite broadcaster? Favorite non-sports show?

- What do you think is the biggest misconception about sports media?

- Ultimately, do you think the encroaching columnists on ESPN has hurt the product? They now show more programs with commentators (Around the Horn, Cold Pizza) as opposed to straight sports, even if Pardon The Interruption is still pretty good.

Steve G.
North Kingstown, RI

A Rhode Island homey! And from North Kingstown to boot! Well, let me answer the questions in order.

My favorite sport to watch is baseball and Vin Scully is my favorite broadcaster. And he’s done more than baseball. Old school fans will remember he called the NFL for CBS and also did the PGA for both CBS and NBC.

With 24 and Lost gone, my favorite non-sports shows currently are Mad Men, My Boys and the Amazing Race.

The biggest misconception. That’s a tough one. One misconception is that some reporters are as passionate as the fans. That’s not true. It’s a job. Another is that people in the sports media don’t have agendas. Even I have an agenda, but I’m not telling what that is.

And I agree that the commentary shows like Around the Horn and even the Sports Reporters have gone over the top. You have columnists and sports writers mugging for the camera. Now that could be the program over the personality, but Skip Bayless and Woody Paige have become totally unwatchable and unlikable. I used to enjoy reading them, but after seeing and hearing them, I don’t anymore.

Pittsburgh

Hi Mike. Thanks for the question. You can do a little of both. You can find one of the hosts or producers and start exchanging e-mails and if he doesn’t blow you off, tell him the blog you write for, let him know you’re available as a guest. You can also let people know on your blog that you’re available to go on radio shows to talk about your team. I don’t know what it’s like in Pittsburgh if sports radio shows depend on bloggers as guests, it’s not the case here in New England. Certainly sending an e-mail doesn’t hurt. The least the host or producer can do is say no. But if you get a positive response, you have something to build on.

This only loosely touches sports media, but I was wondering if you could shed any light on the upcoming Minnesota-Texas college football series that was canceled due to a dispute over video rights. Curious what specifically the schools would have not seen eye-to-eye on (especially after agreement had already been made)? Is this related to Texas trying to start its own network and Gophers not wanting game to be aired on that, Horns wanting a cut of BTN or ESPN money, or what?

Thanks!
Tim C.

There’s no doubt that Texas which now has control of its TV rights thanks to its increased power in the Big 12 wanted a bigger piece of the pie when the series was to be played at TCF Bank Stadium in Minnesota. In college football, the home team or conference controls the rights. For the game at Minnesota, the rights revert to the Big Ten Network. At Texas, rights revert back to the Big 12. In 2016, who knows if Texas’ own network, ESPN or Fox Sports Net will have control of that game. But there’s no doubt that TV rights money was a huge part of the cancellation. Texas probably wanted a bigger payoff plus Minnesota wasn’t willing to part with a bigger payout and lose TV rights at the same time. You may see more of this with Big 12 schools down the line.

Some Sunday Links

I’ll do a few links on this Sunday before I head out to check out Baltimore today. Nice to see the Red Sox fans whom I had exchanged tweets on Twitter over the last year in person last night. Certainly a fun time.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News talks with Gavin Harvey, the new CEO of the Sportsman Channel.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a brief look at Marv Albert’s departure from Westwood One Radio and Monday Night Football.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News says New York Knicks owner James Dolan got an unlikely assist from former adversary Mayor Michael Bloomberg in courting free agent LeBron James.

Phil Mushnick in the New York Post decides to handicap the US-England World Cup match.

From the Buffalo News, Greg Connors profiles a local sports talk show host.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette says the NBA Finals Game 1 got good ratings.

Friend of Fang’s Bites Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner looks at TNT taking over for Fox on the NASCAR beat.

Barry Horn from the Dallas Morning News has your World Cup primer.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel lobbies for Kevin Harlan to take over for Marv Albert on Monday Night Football.

Artie Gigantino from the San Francisco Examiner calls Larry King’s interview of LeBron James, “a gem”

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the video of how many Los Angelenos found out about former UCLA coach John Wooden’s passing.

The Sports Media Watch says Fox had its lowest ratings ever for NASCAR. Again.

SMW also has its Weekend Ratings Predictions.

To Puck The Media and Steve Lepore who has the preliminary Versus college football schedule.

Ian Bethune of Sox & Dawgs has the hilarious video of NESN’s Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy reacting to two women at Friday’s Red Sox-Orioles game asking them out on a date.

I’m going to end it there as it’s checkout time here at the Mt. Washington Conference Center. Had a great time with the Red Sox tweeps. I hope to do it again soon.

BREAKING NEWS: Marv Albert Leaves Monday Night Football

After doing Monday Night Football on Westwood One Radio for 8 seasons, Marv Albert has announced that he will no longer do play-by-play on the package. Albert took over for Howard David in the 2002-03 season and continued through the 2009 season, calling postseason games and the Super Bowl in each of those years.

Marv says he wants to commit fully to calling NBA games. He’s been cutting back on his schedule, reducing his load of New Jersey Nets games for YES Network and now this. Marv, who’s been one of the best announcers of his generation, will be missed.

Boomer Esiason who has been doing Monday Night Football on TV and radio since the 1998 season will remain as the analyst for Westwood One. 

MARV ALBERT STEPS ASIDE AS PLAY-BY-PLAY VOICE OF MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL ON WESTWOOD ONE

New York, NY – June 4, 2010 – Westwood One announced today that legendary sportscaster Marv Albert will be leaving Westwood One’s NFL broadcast team. Boomer Esiason will continue to serve as lead analyst for Westwood One’s Monday Night Football and Super Bowl broadcasts alongside a play-by-play announcer that has yet to be determined.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my eight seasons with Boomer Esiason and the rest of the Westwood One crew, but I just felt that with my commitments to NBA telecasts and other projects, I wanted to cut down my schedule moving forward,” said Albert on his departure.

“We thank Marv for eight great seasons as the voice of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl,” commented Executive Producer of Westwood One Sports, Howard Deneroff. “There’s only one Marv Albert, and his unmistakable voice and signature style made listening to him as much of a joy as it was working with him. We wish him well in future endeavors.”

Thinking about who could succeed Marv at the Monday Night Football announcer and quickly coming to mind are Sunday Night Football voice Dave Sims and Thursday Night Football voice Ian Eagle. Kevin Harlan is another possibility. It’s been fun listening to Marv call games on the radio for the last 8 seasons.

Our Wednesday Linkage

Let’s do some links on this rainy Wednesday in the Northeast. By the way, last night I went to a great Japanese restaurant in Providence, Haruki East on Wayland Avenue. Highly recommend it. And on a rainy Tuesday night, there was a wait so that tells you it’s quite popular. Ate there with my parents and my cousin and his girlfriend. The food was definitely worth the wait. Sushi was great and so was the Tempura. Great food in a great city.

Ok, done with the restaurant review. To the links.

Starting with Michael Hiestand of USA Today, he has TNT’s Marv Albert not having the slightest idea as a young announcer that Phil Jackson would end up being a successful NBA coach.

Bruce Jenkins of Sports Illustrated says the world media including Tennis Channel failed to properly describe Roger Federer’s whiff during match point of the Madrid Open on Sunday. 

David Tanklefsky of Broadcasting & Cable comes out of ESPN upfront presentation with the impression that the network is totally embracing social media and becoming more interactive with viewers.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says Versus brought in the highest ratings for the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs since Nielsen started measuring them in 1994.

Anthony Crupi at Mediaweek notes that TNT has won the cable primetime ratings for the third week in a row thanks to the NBA Playoffs. 

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine says the NHL is red hot in the TV ratings.

Diego Vasquez of Media Life writes that sports has helped to raise broadcast TV viewing levels to even with last year.

Subbing for CNBC’s Darren Rovell, Chad Walters says teams can save money by eliminating some waste.

Phillip Michaels of Macworld reviews the ESPN SportsCenter XL app for the iPad.

Jon Friedman of Marketwatch.com says reporters covering the LeBron Watch have the toughest beat in the media.

I should not do this because this will probably get shut down, but we have a Neil Best sighting. Newsday’s Neil Best writes that Fox is looking at expanding its MLB offerings into primetime on Saturdays.

Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com writes in Press Box that the Preakness Stakes saw a ratings downtick from last year.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says Nationals fans can listen to Stephen Strasburg’s next start tonight.

Tom Jones in the St. Petersburg Times says Peter Gammons had to correct a statement he made on the Dan Patrick Show yesterday.

Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News looks at what the new ESPN/ACC rights deal means for the Big 12.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer notes that a local radio station is picking up high school football games for the fall.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press reports that former Fox NFL analyst Ray Bentley is joining a local radio station.

In the Indianapolis Business Journal, Anthony Schoettle says IndyCar is gaining more confidence in Versus. 

Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune writes that viewers found Versus in droves for Game 2 of the Blackhawks-Sharks series last night.

Phil says Blackhawks fans have to make due without TV voice Pat Foley calling the NHL Western Conference Finals due to Versus and NBC having exclusivity.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business says Big Ten conference commish Jim Delaney isn’t revealing much about the league’s expansion plans.

Curtis Zupke from the Orange County (CA) Register says NHL TV ratings continue to increase. 

Jon Wilmer of the San Jose Mercury News looks at what the ESPN/ACC deal will mean for the Pac 10′s TV negotiations.

Will Reisman in the San Francisco Examiner writes that Versus cut off the end of the third stage of the Tour of California on Tuesday.

Jayda Evans of the Seattle Times says the WNBA’s Storm had several glitches with its inaugural in-house telecast on FSN Northwest. 

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy explains why the NHL Conference Finals began on the same days for the first two games.

Sports Media Watch has the weekend overnight ratings.

SMW says Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference Finals did well for TNT, but not as well as last year’s ratings aberration.

And SMW has some ratings news and notes.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media notes that Jeremy Roenick who did a great job for NBC during the Olympics, will join NBC’s studio for its coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals.

Matthew Coller at the Biz of Hockey writes that an exciting NHL postseason is paying dividends for the league besides TV ratings.

SportsbyBrooks looks into the tight-lipped investigation into the death of LPGA golfer Erica Blasberg.

And we’ll end our links there for now. Back later with breaking news and the return of the Sports Media Weekly podcast following a week’s absence.

Monday’s Linkage

I’ll do some linkage for you. Been busy all day, but I have a nice window here and I’ll get to links after I discuss last night’s hockey action.

I’m still coming down from the USA win over Canada last night in men’s hockey. Now, there are many things that could be said about NBC not airing the game, and I’ve said plenty on Twitter last night. I even got into a debate over it. I’m a bit torn. I’m grateful that MSNBC aired the game in its entirety. During the week, CNBC would join a game that started at 7:30 p.m. Eastern in progress at 8 p.m. or sometimes later depending if a curling match was going late. As much as I have come to enjoy watching curling during these Olympics, I would appreciate someone saying that curling was running late and if one wanted to watch the game from the beginning, go to NBCOlympics.com. But there was none of that in the early portion of the games. So the fact that the game was shown in its entirety on MSNBC was appreciated. In addition, by putting the game on MSNBC, it meant the entire country could watch without a dreaded delay for the Rocky Mountain region and the West Coast. So in a sense, it was a win-win for NBC. Fans who wanted to watch the game all over the country could do so without commercial interruption (another plus).

However, many fans could not see the game in 21st Century, sparkling crystal-clear high definition. This was due to NBC Universal not making the proper arrangements with cable and satellite providers (DirecTV for me) ahead of time. NBC Universal did try to entice providers with USA-Canada to get them to pick up MSNBC HD, but no dice. But that was a small problem for me. Once the game got going, it was a minor nuisance, not a major one.

Part of me wishes the game was aired on NBC. But if that occurred, we would have run into West Coast ire from those who wanted to see the game live. I raise the argument that if ABC had taken the same tact with the USA men’s hockey team in 1980, it never would have been able to build the Miracle on Ice story as well as it did. For those born after 1980, you don’t know that ABC actually showed a majority of USA men’s hockey games live on its network. The only ones shown on tape delay were the USA-Sweden game which was the first game for the Americans in that Olympics and the USA-USSR semifinal game which ran at 5 p.m. on Friday, February 22 in Lake Placid. Again, 1980 was a different TV landscape than today and NBC certainly has more options to air hockey. But if you want to build a story, what better way than to show USA-Canada.

I get the fact that NBC is using the Olympics to appeal to a mass audience, not sports fans, and not everyone likes hockey, but one way to build a story is to show the rivalry between USA-Canada and then if there’s a rematch in the gold medal game, you have last night’s game to reference.

Yes, NBC is gearing the Olympics more towards casual fans so it packages skiing, makes figure skating like American Idol and shows more silly Mary Carillo features to make you hurl, but there is a way it can cater to hardcore sports fans. Sports fans like myself get infuriated at NBC for delaying events, but the network knows we’ll watch. It’s trying to build an audience so yes, NBC will delay skiing and other glamor events so it can add features, replays and cut a 2 hour event to 45 minutes so the casual viewer can get hooked. Based on this thinking, hockey is going to get pushed to CNBC or MSNBC, however, from what I could tell from Twitter, people were watching USA-Canada over tape delayed skiing.

But the ratings will tell us how the hockey game fared and we’re expecting that later today. Once I receive notice, you’ll see it here on the blog.

Ok, I’m done with discussing USA-Canada, let’s get to some links.

Jason Fry, writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center talks about the reporting of Olympic results and how some journalists can provide them without spoiling some of their audience.

Linda Holmes from National Public Radio writes that NBC’s Olympic coverage manages to annoy just about everyone.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says the delayed coverage on NBC is frustrating many fans.

Over to Sports Business Journal where Tripp Mickle and John Ourand report that the US TV networks aren’t showing much of a response for the rights to the 2014/2016 Olympics.

SBJ’s Olympic site says NBC’s ratings for the Olympics are up 21% from Turin.

Tripp Mickle writes that the NHL was highly visible in Vancouver for “Super Sunday”.

Back to the SBJ, Bill King has a feature asking the question, how do sports leagues handle wireless rights and how much do they commit?

Jon Show in Sports Business Daily says Tiger Woods’ negative numbers are now very high. 

Eric Fisher in Sports Business Daily writes that Sporting News Today will be going to a pay model in April, but that does not affect Sportingnews.com.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch has your Olympic viewing guide.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says perhaps Canada’s Own The Podium program could be to blame for the country’s poor performance to date at the Winter Olympics. 

Darren talks with Al Michaels about his Miracle on Ice call 30 years later.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times discusses Al Michaels’ first foray into the Olympic studio.

Marc Berman of the New York Post says that former Knicks announcer Marv Albert was not invited to tonight’s 40th anniversary celebration of the team’s first NBA Championship. Albert called it on radio and was considered part of the team by fans.

Jerry Barmash of the New York Examiner tells us that two WCBS-AM sports reporters were honored recently.

Alan Pergament of the Buffalo News says MSNBC with the USA-Canada hockey game actually beat NBC in the ratings in Western New York. Thanks to good friend, Steve Lepore of Puck The Media for the link.

Tim Lemke looks at which Olympic athletes will cash in on their success or failure.

Jim Williams talks with NBC Olympics late night host Mary Carillo.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times liked the NBC and ESPN features on the 30th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business writes a long diatribe on how Tiger Woods does not an apology to anyone.

Ed explains why the White Sox decided to participate in an MLB Network reality show.

Ed says NBC made the right call to jettison the USA-Canada hockey game to MSNBC.

Chicago Blackhawks historian Bob Verdi looks back at the Miracle on Ice. 

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post says the Nuggets are making national news for the wrong reasons.

The Los Angeles Times’ Diane Pucin looks at how social networking is helping West Coast Olympic fans cope with the NBC tape delays.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the sports calendar for Southern California.

Tom says MLB Network’s Prime 9 show will list the best baseball broadcasters of all time.

Tom wasn’t pleased with how NBC shuttled USA-Canada to MSNBC.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star feels some of CTV’s announcers have become unabashed cheerleaders for Canada.

William Houston in Truth & Rumours writes about the USA-Canada game and various CTV issues.

Ben Grossman of Broadcasting & Cable writes that Fang’s Bites fave Charissa Thompson will co-host a new reality show on Speed.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says CBS College Sports has picked up a carriage deal with AT&T U-Verse.

Katy Bachman of Mediaweek says a large group of NBC affiliates are happy with the Olympics primetime performance.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine says the Olympics have lifted NBC to third place in the 18-49 demographic.

Louisa Ada Seltzer of Media Life writes that Tiger Woods’ statement is not being well received by the media

The Sports Media Watch notes that the Tiger Woods apology did well for Golf Channel and ESPN.

SMW says NBC won Sunday night’s ratings thanks to the Olympics, but it was the lowest rated night since the Games began.

SMW tells us that NBC’s daytime and late night Olympic coverage is also outperforming Turin’s ratings.

And SMW has some various Olympics ratings news.

My Twitter Trophy Wife, Amanda Rykoff writes that NBC did the right thing in sending USA-Canada hockey to MSNBC last night.

Phil Swann in TV Predictions explains why NBC chose not to air USA-Canada.

Chris Byrne at Eye on Sports Media says Olympic curling is performing well for CNBC.

And Len Berman is back after a week off with his Top 5 stories of the day.

Those are your links. Tonight, I’ll be at a screening of the upcoming HBO Sports documentary, Magic & Bird. I’ll give you a scenesetter report on Tuesday and a review as we get closer to the airdate.

A Tired Monday Linkfest

I’m a tired man after working until 2:15 this morning. Started at 10 a.m. Sunday and worked through with a couple of breaks for lunch and dinner, but I’m tired and naturally, I’m dragging. I’ll give you the links while I can.

Starting with the Sports Business Journal which looks at the 40 years of Monday Night Football in this week’s issue.

John Ourand writes about ESPN taking a back-to-basics approach with Monday Night Football and coming out with a winning formula.

Terry Lefton looks at the mixing of celebrities and sports in the early days of MNF.

Terry writes about some of the unique products that came from Monday Night Football.

Some of MNF’s past and present staff look back at one of sports longest running series.

And you can test your knowledge on MNF and there are a couple of trick questions here.

Thanks to SBJ for opening up this special section on Monday Night Football.

John Ourand tweets highlights of an interview ESPN.com’s Bill Simmons did with the Sports Business Daily about his Twitter suspension here and here.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand has TNT’s Marv Albert again denying a scuffle with 50 Cent backstage at Jimmy Kimmel Live last week.

The Big Lead properly scolds Marv for backing off the story. And I have say I’m wrong to The Big Lead when I stated that the Bill Simmons suspension from Twitter is a non-story. Looking at it now, it’s a big story and something that stems from the ESPN policy on tweeting.

Hugging Harold Reynolds posts this interesting interview from October with Simmons’ boss, ESPN.com editor, Rob King about the Twitter policy and what Simmons has to do to get fired. It’s a very good listen.

Dan Levy of On The DL wonders in the Sporting News if ESPN’s Twitter policy includes ads.

Writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center, Jason Fry says the original critics of Patriots coach Bill Belichick of the infamous 4th and 2 call against the Colts are getting roasted now.

Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk says Detroit will be able to see the Lions’ Thanksgiving Day game.

Jesse Spector of the New York Daily News talks with my good friend, the always lovely Amanda Rykoff.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post reports that rare movie footage showing a clear shot of Ron Swaboda’s catch in the 1969 World Series, something that NBC missed, will be shown on MLB Network this week.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says there are plenty of stinkers in the NFL TV schedule for Week 12.

Pete writes that last night’s Eagles-Bears game was lower rated than last week’s Pats-Colts game.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette has some MLB Network programming news for this holiday week.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner lists his favorite NFL and college football announcers.

To the Miami Herald, Adam H. Beasley writes that the very pregnant ESPN NASCAR pit reporter Shannon Spake finished the Sprint Cup season as she’s in her final trimester (scroll down).

Tom Jones gives NBC a thumbs up for its Notre Dame coverage and looks at other issues from the weekend in televised sprots.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News gives credit to Cowboys fans for sticking with a rather boring game on Sunday.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that Kentucky basketball fans get a free preview of CBS College Sports this week so they can watch the Wildcats.

Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune reports that the Cubs’ new owner plans to block a rooftop ad for a casino by erecting signboards in Wrigley Field.

Ed Sherman from Crain’s Chicago Business also has reaction to the Cubs’ new policy.

Ed also talks with the new head of marketing for the Cubs.

Bob Wolfley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the Green Bay Packers are a mystery to some NFL TV analysts.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post has an issue with the Sporting News/Sports Business Journal list of best football broadcasters.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the schedule for the week in SoCal and national sports.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says ex-Toronto Maple Leaf Mike Johnson is carving a niche for himself on TSN and XM Satellite Radio.

Bruce Dowbiggin in the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that TSN didn’t get the job done at the beginning of yesterday’s CFL Western Final.

William Houston in his Truth & Rumours blog gets on a Globe and Mail columnist for attacking Maple Leafs fans.

Brian Gleason of the PR in Sports blog writes that the suspension of the Los Angeles Clippers broadcasters got more news for Fox Sports Net than their actions.

The Sports Media Watch notes that the SEC on CBS garnered lower ratings on Saturday.

SMW looks at the NBA and NHL ratings on the various Comcast SportsNet regional sports networks.

SMW says the MLS Cup moving from ABC to ESPN and from afternoon to primetime raised its ratings.

And SMW notes that NASCAR ratings ended its season as it began, down.

You have The Five hosted by Kristine Leahy on WEEI.com.

Those are the Monday links.

Doing the Sunday Links

While I’m working on an engineering specification from home, I’ll provide the links this Sunday morning.

Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples says ESPN/ABC forced him to go to Justin.tv to watch last night’s Oregon-Arizona game.

Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams who flipped the double bird during last week’s game against the Buffalo Bills, has taken out a full page ad in the Buffalo News wishing the Bills luck today.

Michael David Smith writing in Pro Football Talk notes that NFL Network analyst Steve Mariucci ripped the firing of Dick Jauron this morning.

Michael quotes ESPN’s Chris Mortensen in saying that the Patriots security chief will be reprimanded for knocking an NBC cameraman to the ground after the team’s game against the Colts.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes that the lowly Knicks and Nets are leading to low TV ratings for MSG Network and YES respectively. Thanks to the Sports Media Watch for the link.

Phil Mushick of the New York Post makes it clear that he hates Personal Seat Licenses. Calm down, Phil. Nothing is that bad.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News praises Cablevision boss James Dolan for not going after Allen Iverson for his hapless Knicks team.

Nancy Dillon of the Daily News says Erin Andrews’ alleged stalker was apparently following a second woman.

Barbara De Lollis of USA Today’s Hotel Check-In blog also looks at this revelation.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union provides the college football TV schedule for this week.

Neil Rudel of the Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette says Penn State QB Daryll Clark overlooked ESPN’s Todd McShay’s dis and played well against Michigan State yesterday.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with Friend of Fang’s Bites Dave Sims about calling Sunday Night Football on radio and the UFL on Versus.

Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville (FL) Sun says College Gameday will be on-site of the Florida State-Florida game on Saturday.

Tania Ganguli of the Orlando Sentinel goes behind the scenes with ESPN’s NASCAR production crew.

Ken Suguira of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the Hawks are happy to be playing the Magic on TNT this Thanksgiving night.

John McMullen of the Sports Network gives his two cents on Fox Sports Net’s suspension of Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith.

The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth also weighs in on the suspension of Clippers announcers Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith.

Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times writes that the Las Vegas sports books are feeling the effects of the sluggish economy.

The Arizona Daily Star looks at some of the more creative signs during ESPN College Gameday’s visit to Tucson yesterday.

Jeff Smith of The Oregonian says ESPN’s Chris Fowler looks forward to calling Thursday’s Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State which will be for the Pac 10′s slot in the Rose Bowl.

Chris Hamilton of The Maui (HI) News says the upcoming Maui Invitational, aired on the ESPN family of networks, has a huge impact on the local economy.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News writes that ESPN Deportes will be all over the Dominican Baseball League this winter.

Mike says ESPN is riding increased ratings momentum for MLS into tonight’s MLS Cup.

And Mike writes that the mtn. is adding 6 TCU women’s college basketball games to its schedule.

Sports Media Watch has news on various sports media personalities.

SMW also has its weekend ratings predictions.

SMW says TNT’s Marv Albert is denying the Los Angeles Times story by Diane Pucin that he got into an altercation with 50 Cent’s entourage backstage at Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Chris Byrne of the Eye on Sports Media disagrees with me that Bill Simmons’ Twitter suspension is a non-story.

Joe Favorito says two members of the Harlem Globetrotters (Flight Time and Big Easy) are using The Amazing Race to help expand their team’s brand.

We’re done with the links for now. Coming up later, the quotage from the NFL pregame shows.

Time for the Friday Megalinks

Let’s do the Friday megalinks as we steam into Thanksgiving holiday week. Lots of links to get to so let’s not waste any more time.

The Weekend Viewing Picks have what’s in store for college football, college basketball, NFL, NASCAR and plenty of other sporting and primetime viewing picks.

To the links.

National

We’re hearing rumblings of executive firings at ESPN. This has to do with an affair that was originally outed by Deadspin and confirmed by the New York Post. And there are more details including affairs involving the talent as well. As Chris Rock said, “people have gone lost their minds.”

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says both Fox and ABC will have familiar announcing crews calling the BCS.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says Milwaukee Bucks guard Brandon Jennings is taking the NBA by storm.

Darren says a plan to sell “stock” in the Boise State athletic program is off to a rip-roaring start.

Len Berman went on the Today Show this morning to pimp his new book “The Greatest Moments in Sports“.

Tom Van Riper of Forbes credits Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass against Miami 25 years ago for increasing the audience for college football.

Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports speaks with ESPN’s Jon Gruden.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that Detroit Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson will host a new program that will tour various sports stadia and arenas across the country.

The Sports Media says last Sunday’s NASCAR event on ABC fell in the ratings, mirroring the downward trend for the entire year.

SMW has notes on two sports media figures who passed away this week.

SMW mentions that ESPN’s ratings for the NBA are down thus far this season.

Chris Byrne in the Eye on Sports Media suggests how best to use links in social media.

Chris tells us that the University of Michigan sports information department is credentialing bloggers for Saturday’s Ohio State-Michigan game at the Big House.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe lists some of the best personalities in the local sports media.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette writes that Comcast SportsNet New England is ready to take on NESN on TV and on the web.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times profiles Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.

Bob Raissman from the New York Daily News is fed up of the talk leading up to the Jets-Patriots game this Sunday.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post feels the NFL should go back to the 1950′s.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union talks with ESPN/ABC’s Sean McDonough.

Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com writes in Press Box that Baltimore-Washington is becoming a huge media market.

Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post profiles John Riggins who has carved a niche for himself in the DC market.

South

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald has the highs and lows of the NFL Network’s production of the Dolphins-Panthers game.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle talks with noted college football writer and CBS College Sports host Tony Barnhart.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman notes that for the second year in a row, the State High School Football Championships won’t be televised.

In his media notebook, Mel writes that the first Oklahoma University basketball televised game was hard to watch.

Midwest

Jim Woods of the Columbus Dispatch says Erin Andrews’ alleged stalker apparently shot video of her in a local hotel room.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press writes about an 18 year kid who is calling college hockey games professionally.

Bob Wolfley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says ESPN is hopeful that Jon Gruden will be with them for the long haul.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business has his weekly winners and losers in sports business and media.

Brad Biggs of the Chicago Sun-Times has the transcript of an interview NBC’s Bob Costas did with WMAQ-TV in regards to the Bears refusing interview requests by the network for Sunday Night Football.

West

Scott D. Pierce of the Deseret (UT) News would like to see a local sports personality back on the Utah Jazz game broadcasts.

The Arizona Daily News prepares readers for College Gameday’s visit to Tucson on Saturday.

Jay Posner of the San Diego Union-Tribune is feeling melancholy over not being able to see the NFL Network.

To John Maffei of the North County Times talks with CBS’ Dick Enberg who is enjoying calling a number of “home” games this season and is being considered to join the Padres broadcast team.

Jim Carlisle from the Ventura County Star says the economy is very much different for the NFL and the Olympics based on their ad sales.

Jim writes that Fox Sports Net West is celebrating 50 years of the Lakers in L.A.

Diane Pucin of the Los Angeles Times breaks news of a scuffle between TNT’s Marv Albert and 50 Cent’s entourage backstage at Jimmy Kimmel Live this week.

The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth talks with ESPN soccer analyst Alexi Lalas about his days as L.A. Galaxy GM.

Tom has more with Alexi in his blog as well as some news and notes.

Daniel Lyght of the Fresno Bee talks with ESPN football analyst Trent Dilfer who got to call his first game this week.

Bob Condotta from the Seattle Times has the TV info for next week’s annual Apple Cup game between Washington and Washington State.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Glove and Mail gets on his high horse and scolds a Denver Post reporter for reporting a shouting match that was overheard behind closed doors.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star talks with former Rogers Sportsnet personality Mike Toth.

William Houston of the Truth & Rumours gets on the Globe & Mail for having its reporters and editors taking part in the Olympic Torch Relay.

Dan Barnes of the Edmonton Journal writes about the effect of CBC’s wildly successful Battle of the Blades will have on figure skating in Canada.

The Canadian Press reports that Rush’ Neil Peart is recording a new version of TSN’s Hockey Song (formerly the theme to Hockey Night in Canada).

And that’s going to end the megalinks. Back later with press release stuff and maybe a late night linkage session.

Westwood One Radio Unveils 2009-10 NFL Announcing Teams

After battling the ESPN College Football schedule press release for over an hour and a half as I edited it and tried to get it to format properly, this release from Westwood One Radio arrived in the Fang’s Bites inbox. This should be considerably easier to edit compared to ESPN’s mile long release. Take a look at who will call NFL games for the league’s national radio partner.

ANNOUNCES

ALL-STAR BROADCASTERS

FOR THE 2009-2010 NFL SEASON

-- The Best NFL Announcers on Radio Featuring Hall of Fame Players and Broadcasters –

-- Marv Albert & Boomer Esiason Return as Lead Monday Night Football Team –

-- Kevin Harlan & Warren Moon join the NFL on Westwood One with Dave Sims, James Lofton,

Ian Eagle, Randy Cross, Howard David, Dan Reeves, Kevin Kugler,

and Mark Malone rounding out the lineup --

New York, NY – July 22, 2009 – Westwood One announced today its lineup of all-star broadcasters for the 2009-2010 NFL season. Marv Albert and Boomer Esiason will return as the lead announcers for Monday Night Football and Super Bowl XLIV. In addition, veteran NFL broadcaster Kevin Harlan and Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon join Westwood One and will also provide play-by-play and analysis for Monday Night games and the Playoffs. Dave Sims returns as play-by-play announcer for Sunday Night games and will be joined by NFL Hall of Famer James Lofton. Ian Eagle and Randy Cross will team up for Westwood One’s Thursday Night broadcasts.

“The best quality games call for top quality broadcasters and we are thrilled to have assembled such an amazing lineup for the 2009 NFL season,” said Gary Schonfeld, President of Westwood One Network. “Legendary sportscasters, Hall of Fame NFL players, winning NFL coaches and an unparalleled schedule of games will make for great radio this fall. Fans, stations and advertisers are in for a real treat.”

Full broadcast teams for the NFL on Westwood One are as follows:

Sunday Afternoon Doubleheaders

Play-by-Play: Howard David

Color Analyst: Dan Reeves

Play-by-Play: Kevin Kugler

Color Analyst: Mark Malone

Sunday Night Football

Play-by-Play: Dave Sims

Color Analyst: James Lofton

Monday Night Football

Play-by-Play: Marv Albert (or Kevin Harlan)

Color Analyst: Boomer Esiason (or Warren Moon)

Thursday Night Football

Play-by-Play: Ian Eagle

Color Analyst: Randy Cross

Westwood One has been an NFL network radio partner for more than four decades and the exclusive network radio partner since 1978. As the exclusive radio partner of the NFL, the Westwood One 2009 NFL broadcast schedule features 57 national games, including: the Hall of Fame game, Opening Night game, 17 Monday Night games, including one doubleheader, 16 Sunday Night games, seven Thursday and Saturday Night games (including Thanksgiving Night), Thanksgiving Day doubleheader, Christmas Night, 12 Postseason games, including the NFL Playoffs, the AFC and NFC Championship Games, the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl and Super Bowl XLIV in South Florida. Westwood One also delivers specialty programs, including: The NFL Today, NFL Preview, NFL Insider, NFL Sunday, and NFL Fantasy Football Forecast.

In addition to the 57 game primetime package, Westwood One will also present a weekly Sunday afternoon doubleheader starting Sunday, September 13, 2009 and continuing each Sunday through January 3, 2010.

Westwood One is home of the most prestigious sports broadcasts on radio. Westwood One’s lineup includes regular season NFL football, the Playoffs and the Super Bowl; NCAA Football and Basketball including the Final Four; College World Series; Frozen Four; the Olympics; the Masters and more.

WESTWOOD ONE 2009-2010 NFL BROADCASTERS

Marv Albert, the voice of Monday Night Football on Westwood One, returns for his eighth year as play-by-play announcer. For over 25 years, Albert has served as primary play-by-play voice for the NBA on NBC and TNT, along with play-by-play announcing for NFL football, college basketball, boxing, NHL All-Star games, and has hosted studio and pre-game shows for Major League Baseball. Albert has won six Cable Ace Awards, three New York Emmy awards and was named New York State Sportscaster of the Year an unprecedented 20 times. In 1997, he was awarded the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, one of the highest honors given to sports journalists.

Boomer Esiason provides color commentary for Westwood One’s critically acclaimed Monday Night Football broadcast team and this marks his ninth year broadcasting for the network. Esiason co-host’s The NFL Today for CBS Sports and also served as the Monday Night Football analyst for ABC Sports for two seasons before joining Westwood One. Boomer also spends mornings co-hosting a daily radio show on WFAN in New York, and co-hosts NFL Preview each week on Westwood One as well. Prior to embarking on a broadcasting career, Esiason was one of the most prolific quarterbacks in NFL history. He spent 14 years in the NFL and quarterbacked the Cincinnati Bengals to Super Bowl XXIII. In 1988, Esiason was named NFL MVP by the Pro Football Writers of America and the Associated Press and was named the NFL’s Man of the Year in 1995.

Kevin Harlan makes his return to Westwood One to do play-by-play for Monday Night Football games. Harlan was the play-by-play voice of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four on Westwood One from 2003-2007 and currently calls play-by-play for CBS Sports’ coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and NBA Basketball on TNT. Harlan joined CBS Sports in 1998 as an NFL play-by-play announcer, after having served in the same capacity for Fox Sports since 1994. A veteran football and basketball broadcaster, this will be his 26^th consecutive season broadcasting the NFL and this year’s NBA season marks his 23^rd broadcasting the NBA. Harlan spent nine seasons (1985-93) as the voice of the Kansas City Chiefs and was the voice of the Minnesota Timberwolves for nine seasons as well.

Warren Moon returns to Westwood One as an analyst, where he worked for three seasons from 2001-2003. He is also entering his 6^th season as the radio analyst for the Seattle Seahawks, and has served in numerous capacities over the years on television, including a stint in the booth for the Pac Ten College Football Game of the Week on FOX. Moon began his pro career with the Edmonton Eskimos in the Canadian Football League, winning an unprecedented five straight Grey Cups. He signed with NFL’s Houston Oilers in 1984, and played 17 seasons in NFL where Moon completed 3,988 of 6,823 passes for 49,325 yards and threw 291 touchdowns. Despite spending his first six professional seasons in the CFL, Moon ranked third all-time in NFL passing yardage and fourth in touchdown passes thrown at the time of his retirement. Moon was selected to nine Pro Bowls; was named the NFL’s Man of the Year in 1989 and was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Dave Sims returns for his fourth season as Westwood One’s play-by-play announcer for Sunday Night Football. Before switching to primetime, Sims called Westwood One Sunday afternoon games as well as the NFL Playoffs for nearly a decade. The two-time Emmy Award winner has also called play-by-play for NCAA Basketball regular season games and tournament coverage for the past seven years and in 2003, also hosted the NCAA Women’s Final Four. In addition to his Westwood One duties, Sims called the Big East Football TV Game of the Week for many years, is currently the TV play by play voice of the Seattle Mariners and has written for the New York Daily News.

James Lofton returns to Westwood One after a seven-year coaching stint with the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders. Lofton served as analyst and sideline reporter for the NFL on Westwood One from 1999 - 2001. He was the No. 1 draft pick of the Green Bay Packers in 1978, beginning a long career as an NFL wide receiver. In 16 season playing for Green Bay, the Los Angeles Raiders, Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, and the Philadelphia Eagles, Lofton caught 764 passes for 14,004 yards, which was the most in NFL history at the time of his retirement. In 13 playoff games, Lofton caught 41 passes for 759 yards and eight touchdowns, including a seven-reception game in Super Bowl XXVI. He was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

Ian Eagle enters his second year as play-by-play announcer for Westwood One’s NFL Thursday night coverage. For the past two years, Eagle also called the action for Westwood One’s coverage of the SEC Basketball Championship and the Regional Semi-Finals and Finals of the NCAA Tournament. Eagle is primarily known for his work with CBS Sports, calling NFL games and NCAA Basketball games since 1998. He also has served as the play-by-play announcer for the NBA’s New Jersey Nets television broadcasts since 1995, after having called play-by-play for radio broadcasts the previous year. He was the play-by-play radio voice for the New York Jets in 1997 and hosted Jets pre- and post-game shows on WFAN from 1993 to 1996. Eagle joined WFAN Radio in New York in 1990 as a producer and debuted as host of his own show in 1992. Eagle was awarded the Bob Costas Award for Outstanding Sportscasting while attending Syracuse University.

Randy Cross returns to Westwood One as an analyst, where he worked for three seasons from 1990-1992 including the network’s coverage of Super Bowl XXIV. He will continue to call games for CBS Television as well, where he has worked as a booth analyst from 1989-1993 and then again from 2002 – present. Cross also served three years as a studio analyst for THE NFL TODAY on CBS and four years at NBC Sports as an analyst for its NFL broadcasts, selected Notre Dame games, the 1995 Fiesta Bowl and as a reporter for Super Bowl XXXII. A 13-year NFL veteran and three-time Pro Bowler, Cross was a center and guard for the San Francisco 49ers and helped lead the team to three Super Bowl championships. A two-time All-American at UCLA, he was the 49ers’ second-round pick in 1976 and missed only eight games over 13 years.

Howard David returns to Westwood One as play-by-play announcer for Sunday Afternoon games. David spent 23 years with CBS Radio/Westwood One broadcasting College Football, College Basketball, Masters Golf, US Open Tennis, the Olympics and NFL Football including six seasons as the voice of Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl. David‘s broadcast background also includes calling play-by-play for the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, as well as NBA Basketball with the New Jersey Nets, Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics. He has also hosted talk shows at WQAM in Miami, Sporting News Radio and currently co-hosts a show for Sirius NFL Radio. David was chosen as New Jersey Sportscaster of the Year four times, the NY “Air Award” for broadcast excellence and is also a recipient of a New York Emmy Award.

Dan Reeves, former NFL player and head coach, returns to Westwood One for his fourth season as an analyst. Reeves played for the Dallas Cowboys from 1965-1972, during which the Cowboys went to the Super Bowl twice. After his retirement, he became a Cowboys’ Assistant Coach under Tom Landry for nine seasons, three of which resulted in Super Bowl appearances. In 1981, Reeves was named head coach and Vice President of the Denver Broncos, making him the youngest head coach in the league at the time, at age 37. Reeves piloted the team to three Super Bowl appearances in his 12 seasons at the helm. Reeves then took over as head coach of the New York Giants from 1993-1996, and in 1993 was named NFL Coach of the Year by the Associated Press. From 1997-2003, Reeves coached the Atlanta Falcons and in 1998, Reeves won his second Coach of the Year Award for leading them to the Super Bowl, his NFL record ninth appearance in the big game. Reeves won 201 games in 23 years as a head coach, ranking him 7^th in NFL history. All six coaches ahead of him on the career list of victories have already been enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Kevin Kugler transitions from NCAA Football on Westwood One and makes his debut as play-by-play announcer for Sunday Afternoon NFL games. For the past three seasons, he has been the lead voice of the College Football Game of the Week and has called the past five College World Series for the Network as well. Kugler also serves as the radio play-by-play announcer for the NCAA Men’s Final Four broadcast and as the lead announcer for Westwood One’s regular season college basketball package. In addition, Kugler broadcast the Masters and the 2008 Summer Olympics for Westwood One, including calling the Gold Medal Basketball game in Beijing. Kugler also co-hosts a daily sports talk show in Omaha, and recently won the Nebraska Sportscaster of the Year Awards for the 5^th time in the past six years.

Mark Malone returns for a second season as an analyst and sideline reporter for the NFL on Westwood One, and will add duties as the host of NFL Insider. Malone spent a decade with ESPN where he hosted many NFL shows including Edge NFL Match-up, NFL Tonight, and Monday Night Countdown. Prior to joining Westwood One, he served as Sports Director for WBBM-TV in Chicago, where he garnered four Emmys for his work. Malone, an All-American quarterback at Arizona State and first-round draft pick of the Pittsburgh Steelers, played for 10 years in the NFL, quarterbacking the Steelers to the 1984 AFC Championship Game.

Jim Gray joined Westwood One in 2001 as host of the network’s Monday Night Football pre-game and halftime shows and this marks his ninth season fulfilling the same role for the network. Gray also serves as courtside reporter for Westwood One’s coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four and as on-course reporter for the Masters. A prominent network television reporter for over two decades, Gray currently covers boxing for Showtime, is a contributor to NBC’s Today Show, and also has served as a courtside reporter for the NBA on CBS, NBC, ABC and most recently ESPN. Gray’s numerous credits include: seven Olympic Games, 22 Masters, twelve Super Bowls, seven World Series and 15 NBA Finals. Gray has won eight Emmy Awards and also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Scott Graham joins Westwood One as the new pregame, halftime and postgame host for the network’s Sunday NFL coverage. Graham has spent over twenty years as a radio and television sportscaster including play-by-play for both the NFL and NFL Europe on FOX. He has also spent the last 13 seasons as The Comcast Network’s primary play-by-play voice of college basketball, and continues to call college hoops for ESPN. On the radio side, Graham served as the play-by-play voice of the Philadelphia Phillies for eight seasons from 1999-2006. For nearly a decade prior to that, he hosted the pregame and postgame shows for the Phillies on CBS Radio in Philadelphia. He currently hosts a daily show on Sirius/XM’s MLB Channel. Since 2003, Graham has narrated a variety of programs, commercials, and features produced by NFL Films. His voice has most often been heard on NFL Game of the Week, in weekly game previews on NFL.com, and in various season highlight films for NFL teams.

Nice to see Tommy Tighe out of the studio host role. He was unlistenable with his stupid puns and silly rhymes. Scott Graham is a good choice to replace him. Much better than Tommy Tighe. I’m also glad to see that Howard David is back on Westwood One’s NFL coverage. Great radio play-by-play man. More later.