Fang's Bites

Some Tuesday Late Links

We have some links for you on this Tuesday.

First, from Awful Announcing via Sports by Brooks, we get the call from Bob Lamey of the Colts Radio Network totally blowing the call of the missed FG attempt by Adam Vinitieri during Sunday night’s Colts-Chargers game. Oops. Thanks to Boston Sports Media Watch for the link.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today gives us the overnight ratings from selected events over the weekend.

Neil Best of Newsday wonders what the Mets’ David Wright was wearing on SNY last night. And Neil points out that it was 35 years ago last Thursday that HBO carried its first sporting event, a Rangers hockey game! Finally, this has been reported by other sources, but Neil gives his take on the NFL Network’s/HBO’s Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth not taking sides in the dispute between the NFL and Time Warner Cable.

Friend of Fang’s Bites, Darren Rovell of CNBC, wonders how long sponsors and fans will stay with NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt, Jr. if he continues his losing streak.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News blogs in Farther Off the Wall about the HBO documentary on Ohio State-Michigan and about FSN’s double coverage of the Kings-Ducks game. Tim Cronin of the Chicago Daily Southtown has his take on the HBO documentary which airs tonight.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News writes that ESPN finished ahead of sister network, the Disney Channel in the cable primetime ratings for the week ending November 11. Reynolds also writes about the NFL Network holding Fan Appreciation Day this weekend at several stadia across the country.

Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post profiles Kelli Johnson of Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, who covers the Redskins for the channel.

Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News in his Talking Points blog points out several errors made by Ron Jaworski during last night’s Monday Night Football broadcast of the Seattle-San Francisco game. Also from the Mercury News, John Ryan blogs sarcastically about NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman doing a weekly show on XM Satellite Radio.

From the Youngstown (OH) Vindicator, we get a story about Ray Mancini wanting to tell his side of the story in regards to his tragic fight with Deuk-Koo Kim that not only ended in his death, but his mother and the referee. A documentary on the fight airs tonight on ESPN Classic. Joe Amarante of the New Haven (CT) Register talks to the producer of tonight’s documentary.

Mike Lewis of the Bedford (IN) Times-Mail writes that Indiana University fans aren’t happy about not being able to see half the school’s basketball games because of Insight’s refusal to carry the Big Ten Network. Jeff Richgels of the Capital (WI) Times reports that a Madison assisted living center that bought the Dish Network to get the Big Ten Network only to find that it couldn’t get BTN, will get the channel after all.

In Tuesday Morning Quarterback, ESPN.com’s Gregg Easterbrook looks at the State of High School Nation, or some trends in High School Football. And ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber has her monthly column and she gives praise to E:60.

The Minnesota Wild has picked up a TV affiliate in the northeast part of the state.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call says this Saturday’s Lehigh-Lafayette game, the nation’s oldest college football rivalry, will have plenty of TV coverage.

Brent Hunsberger of The Oregonian writes the Portland Trail Blazers’ fast start has also helped the ratings on the new Comcast SportsNet channel there.

That’s it for today. I will be watching the ESPN Classic documentary as well as HBO’s The Rivalry documentary. I should have reviews of both in tomorrow’s links.

Wednesday Update

As I’m watching the WTA Sony Ericsson Championships from Madrid, Span online (since I don’t want to have the website shut down, I won’t link to it, but if you really want to see them, you can e-mail me for the site), it’s time to give you some links. But before I get to them, let me say that since Versus is picking up the world feed for the WTA Championships, I suspect that Tim Ryan and Tracy Austin are not in Madrid, but calling this in a studio either in New York or Los Angeles. We have not seen either on camera. We know Pam Shriver is there because she’s conducting interviews courtside. I wish networks won’t do this, but it’s done to save costs. But can calling a game or match off a monitor be conducive to good TV? ESPN has done this with certain events and now it appears Versus is doing it now. CBC did it with certain events in the Winter Olympics last year. I wonder if NBC will try it with the 2008 Summer Olympics. Hmmm.

ESPN Classic will air a program next Tuesday marking the 25th anniversary of the Ray Mancini-Deuk-Koo Kim fight. For those of who don’t know, this was a fight that led to the death of Kim after he was knocked out in the 14th round. In addition, it led to the end of 15 round boxing matches. Mancini will be interviewed and highlights of the fateful 13th and 14th rounds will be shown. I remember CBS showing the fight with Tim Ryan and Gil Clancy on the call. Very sad outcome.

Matthew Sprague of the Berkshire (MA) Eagle says with ESPN’s College Gameday coming to town, it means that the Williams-Amherst rivalry has gone national.

Matt DeYoung of the Grand Haven (MI) Tribune says it was a mistake to allow ESPN to move the Central Michigan-Western Michigan game to a Tuesday night.

NBC Sports has some quotes attributed to John Madden regarding this Sunday Night’s Indianapolis at San Diego game.

The Washington Business Journal reports that MASN has released a 180 game college basketball schedule.

Gregg Easterbrook showcases readers’ e-mails in today’s edition of TMQ.

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel suggests to Magic fans who have Bright House cable to listen to the radio and it’s free.

Just a few links this afternoon. Primetime Viewing Picks coming up.

Some Tuesday PM Links

Let’s give you an afternoon update. First, let me thank Neil Best of Newsday for putting Fang’s Bites on his Blogroll. It’s much appreciated. Neil has been prolific since starting his Watchdog blog back in May which is about when I re-launched this site after being dormant for two years. Since then, this blog has grown as has Neil’s so it’s nice to get recognition from one of the best sports media writers in the country (and that’s not blowing smoke).

We start with Neil who writes that the final ratings are in for Patriots-Colts and it amounted to a 20.1 rating translating to over 30 million viewers. That means the game hooked casual fans of the NFL. For CBS, it has the two highest rated games of the season, Pats-Colts and Pats-Cowboys which garnered 29.1 million viewers. Best also has a preview of one of the stories on tonight’s E:60 magazine which airs on ESPN tonight at 7.

And if you want a full rundown of the stories on E:60 tonight, here’s the press release from ESPN.

Mike Reynolds writes in his Multichannel News blog that if the Patriots are 15-0 going into their last game against the Giants, the NFL can use it as leverage against the cable companies. You see, the Patriots-Giants game is scheduled for a Saturday night in Week 17 …. on the NFL Network.

Jim Williams of the DC/Baltimore Examiner regurgitates a press release from Versus on the premiere of Dennis Miller’s new show. As much as I have grown tired of Miller (I saw him open for Louie Anderson at a nightclub at Misquamicut Beach in RI in the late 1980′s), I will take a gander at this show tonight.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle writes in his Four DVRs, no waiting blog about the joke Keith Olbermann made at the expense of the Texans-Raiders game on Football Night in America.

More reason to hate ESPN. Yesterday, we told you about the behemoth teaming up with Microsoft to provide content to Xbox Live. Now, it’s hooked up with ticket broker StubHub to provide tickets to fans through the ESPN.com website. StubHub will be integrated all throughout the website. Great.

Although I’ll give praise to ESPN when it does something good and College Gameday will be on site for its first Division III game. Steven Dravis of the Berkshire (MA) Eagle reports Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso will host the show from the site of the Amherst-Williams game this Saturday. The show marks the 150th edition in its history.

Usually, I won’t link to news about local sports anchors, but here’s one that caught my eye. The first female sports director on a local TV station, Heidi Soliday has been let go by KCCI of Des Moines, IA. She had been with the station for 31 years. According to reports, she had not been on the station in recent weeks leading to speculation that she was no longer employed there.

Continuing in Iowa, the Big Ten Network has picked up another small cable company, this one is called Long Lines. Dave Dreeszen of the Sioux City Journal has the story.

Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post says a contest held by WUSA TV in DC to choose the top Washington Redskin legend is flawed.

Adrian Peterson, the Hollywood Writers’ Strike and a peace offering to Patriots fans are among the items touched upon in Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

Len Ziehm of the Chicago Sun-Times writes about Comcast SportsNet’s plans to air what he calls the “Magnificent 7″ home Blackhawks games starting next Sunday. Carol Slezak writes in the Sun-Times that the plans by new Blackhawks Chairman Rocky Wirtz got off to a good start by allowing home broadcasts.

That will do it.

Some Tuesday Night Links or TBS Hot Corner was Pretty Popular

Checking around the ‘net for links this evening, I came across a few things that I did not cover earlier today so I’ll give you some stuff before turning in for the evening.

Before going into the links, watching the coverage of the Red Sox Rolling Rally from New England Cable News through MLB.com was ok. Most of the interviews inside Fenway Park came from NESN so I don’t understand why MLB.com did not pick up NESN’s coverage anyway. With NESN being the Red Sox rightsholder and the only broadcasters allowed to do anything in the park while other outlets had to remain outside, it would have behooved MLB.com to pick up NESN unless the channel did not give permission. New England Cable News has a decent stable of reporters including sports anchor Chris Collins and the venerable R.D. Sahl who seems to have been in television since the 1950′s, but gives a nice historic perspective. It wasn’t bad, but I would have preferred to see NESN online. As far as I know, NESN did not offer its live coverage of the Rolling Rally online, but I have recorded it so I can compare it to NECN’s. At least Tom Ellis wasn’t involved otherwise, he might have recited a poem that no one would have wanted to hear.

A quick aside here. I knew someone who used to work at NECN and she told me that Tom would deviate from the teleprompter and the guys in the control room would have no idea where he was going or how long he would take before introducing a report. It would be a miracle if his broadcasts ended on time, but I don’t know if does that anymore. Anyway, let’s get to the links.

I knew there was a reason why I was live blogging TBS Hot Corner for all of its live webcasts during the League Division and National League Championship Series. Besides wanting to see Heather Catlin and Kelly Cross, the show was pretty decent and actually gave some pretty good information. As I mentioned in my posts, the Atlanta segments were well produced while the segments from MLB.com looked like they were produced in a dentist’s office. Well, it seems many of you were watching as well. Neil Best of Newsday blogged today that Sports Business Journal has done a story this week on TBS Hot Corner’s popularity and the online show had a million views during its coverage. Neil put up a picture of Alyssa Milano and while she was involved in Hot Corner, she was not on the live show albeit for one phone call. I cannot link to the Sports Business Journal story because the site requires a subscription, but you can get a four week trial subscription if you so choose.

The Sports Media Watch blog has the overnight ratings for Monday Night Football which had no sports competition from baseball and won the night for cable programs. Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News has more on the ratings for MNF. Kimberly Nordyke of the Hollywood Reporter says 14 million viewers on average watched Monday Night Football.

Last week’s Monday Night Football contest between Indianapolis and Jacksonville was the most watched cable primetime program for the period ending October 28..

Reynolds of Multichannel News adds that TBS and ESPN were tied for the top spot for the cable primetime ratings in October. And Reynolds writes that FSN Southwest hopes that the San Antonio Spurs can pace the channel to the top spot of the NBA Regional Sports Network ratings again.

John Dempsey of Variety writes that TBS saw a 123% increase in viewers in October as compared to a year ago thanks to the MLB Postseason.

Ed Sherman of the Chicago Tribune writes that Fox’s Jay Glazer appears to be the spokesman for Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher.

David Hinckley of the New York Daily News says baseball sleezebag Scott Boras manipulated the media during Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday.

Blogging for Broadcasting & Cable, Jim Cheney says that he doesn’t find Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as objectionable as he used to, but adds Fox crammed the commercials into each World Series game.

Michael McCarthy of USA Today has comments from TNT’s Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith in advance of tonight’s opening of the NBA season.

Gregg Easterbrook tries to tell us in his latest version of “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” that last week’s crazy column on “Good vs. Evil”, a comparison between the New England Patriots (“Evil”) and the Indianapolis Colts (“Good”) was satire (whatever), and he also rails against the NFL Sunday Ticket being on DirecTV. Keep it up, Gregg. You’ll have no friends by the end of the season.

James Fussell of the Kansas City Star writes that the NFL is increasing its marketing to women. Also from the Star, Jeffrey Flanagan says CBS’ Kevin Harlan wishes he could call the Green Bay-Kansas City game this Sunday instead of it being on Fox. Harlan has ties to both teams.

Albert Breer of the Dallas Morning News writes that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is enlisting powerful Texas state legislators in an attempt to get the NFL Network on cable systems in the Lone Star State. The Wisconsin State Legislature is looking at ways to get the NFL Network and the Big Ten Network on state cable systems. Alex Weprin of Broadcasting & Cable writes about the NFL Network’s plans to air 36.5 hours of coverage on the Patriots-Colts game this Sunday. John Consoli of Mediaweek also writes about the NFL Net’s plans for the Pats-Colts. The NFL Network will carry its second college football regular season game this Saturday.

Mike O’Hara of the Detroit News reports that Fox is pulling back two Lions games to prevent NBC from picking them up for primetime.

Diane Sherrer of the Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette says NBC will show the start of the New York City marathon this Saturday on the Today show, then hand it off to NBC Sports.com which will show it live online (don’t forget it’s $4.95).

Nathan Summers of the Greenville (NC) Daily Reflector says MASN is in a dispute with Suddenlink Communications to get its channel shown in the area.

The Business First Journal of Louisville says Churchill Downs will air a daily half hour horse racing preview show online as well as on HRTV. Lenny Shulman of Bloodhorse.com writes that the ratings for the Breeders’ Cup on ESPN last Saturday saw only a marginal increase from last year and a viewership well below NBC’s ratings two years ago. Fred Angst of the Thoroughbred Times has his version of the story.

David King of the San Antonio Express-News writes that the 15 lateral play by Trinity to beat Millsaps can still be seen online, but not on YouTube. It can be seen over at ESPN.com, but of course, you can see it on Fang’s Bites here.

The Danbury (CT) News-Times says the UConn Huskies game against Rutgers will be on ESPNU this weekend, but many across the Nutmeg State will not be able to see the game because the channel is not carried by Comcast.

Plenty of links tonight. Back on Wednesday with more.

Our Tuesday Night Update or How Does Gregg Easterbrook Still Have His ESPN.com Gig?

Here’s a brief update for you.

Gregg Easterbrook is not making friends out in the blogosphere. I like his Tuesday Morning Quarterback column, but it’s getting hard to defend him especially when he makes totally inane comments and tries to present them as facts. Earlier this month, ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber correctly took Easterbrook to task for stating his opinions on the New England Patriots and coach Bill Belichick as reported fact. This week’s TMQ is no exception. Bruce Allen of the Boston Sports Media Watch dissects what Easterbrook writes and offers rebuttals, paragraph by paragraph. Bruce links to a Kissing Suzy Kolber blog entry which also takes Easterbrook to task for his slanted writings. It’s one thing to state your feelings on the Cameragate story, but it’s another to totally take your opinions and state them as fact. I can see another column by Schreiber wondering if Easterbrook has learned anything. I’m not a Patriots fan by any means, but Easterbrook is making the Patriots a sympathetic character, if that’s possible. And read the comments in the KSK entry. Great stuff. And Deadspin is speechless. Finally, you have this reader who’s been motivated to write the ESPN Ombudsman to complain.

Let’s get to some other links before my head explodes on this Easterbrook subject.

Chris Pursell of TV Week writes in his Pressbox blog about the NFL streamlining its Draft.

Over to the Sports Media Watch, first we get the final ratings for Game 7 as well as for the entire American League Championship Series. It’s noted that TNT has decided to add the Czar of the Telestrator, Mike Fratello to the announcing team of Marv Albert and Reggie Miller for the NBA and this is indeed a good move.

Here’s CBS’ announcement about Joe Torre appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman next week.

That’s going to do it. I’ll be back tomorrow morning.

A Tuesday Afternoon Update

Well, I found some linkage for this afternoon. Let’s get to them.

Good friend, LC of the anti-Glenn Geffner blog, 38 Cliches, has the news that regular listeners of the Red Sox Radio Network outside of Boston won’t be able to hear Goofner during the World Series unless they log on the internet. ESPN Radio has national exclusivity except in the home cities so only flagship station, WRKO in Boston will carry the call of Joe Castiglione and Goofie. MLB.com will also have the WRKO call through its Gameday Audio service. Everywhere else will have to listen to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan and I think that’s an upgrade even with Morgan doing the analysis.

Maury Brown from the Biz of Baseball website reports that MLB has reached an agreement to broadcast the World Series in China.

In ESPN.com’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback, Gregg Easterbrook goes after the Patriots once again and puts the Colts in iconic status. This will anger Pats fans to no end, but in every other NFL city, give fans a laugh.

From the NFL, we discover that it plans to move the kickoff of Monday Night Football up a half hour to 8 p.m. Eastern Time if the World Series reaches a Game 5. Don’t forget that the Red Sox-Colorado game would be played directly across the street from the Green Bay-Broncos game next Monday. But I do believe Fox would schedule the World Series for 7 p.m. ET as it did during the American League Championship Series when it went up against Monday Night Football.

And in an attempt at streamlining, the first round of the NFL Draft would be moved from noon ET to 3 p.m. and the time in between picks would be reduced from 15 to 10 minutes and for the second round, the time would be reduced from 10 minutes to 7.

Neil Best of Newsday is just nuts this afternoon blogging like crazy. I’ll give you some selected entries. First, he writes that the Jets’ Thomas Jones is very patient for putting up with Craig Carton of WFAN every Tuesday. Best mentioned this in his column today, and also puts it in his blog that ESPN’s Brian Kenny will join boxing charlatan Max Kellerman on 1050 ESPN Radio in New York. And Best makes an impassioned plea for help after listening to WFAN’s Mike & the Mad Dog every day for 5.5 hours.

UPDATE AT 4:15 P.M. – Neil Best breaks the news that Max Kellerman was suspended from his 1050 ESPN Radio show Monday for an undisclosed disciplinary problem.

Frontier Airlines, based out of Denver, will show the World Series on its flights according to the Rocky Mountain News.

Christian Toto of the Washington Times speaks with Bernard Goldberg of HBO’s Real Sports. Speaking of Real Sports, Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News previews one story the show will air tonight, concerning former Cowboys Ron Springs and Everson Walls.

Susan Chandler of the Chicago Tribune has more on the Blackhawks allowing Comcast SportsNet to air home games starting this season. Ed Sherman from the Tribune says the home games on TV will revitalize a sleepy fan base. Lee Ziehm of the Chicago Sun-Times also writes on the increased amount of home games on TV. And bombastic Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti welcomes the Blackhawks to the 21st Century. William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail says the first of nine home games will air starting November 11.

So there you have it. I’ll give you the Primetime Viewing Picks next and later tonight, I’ll have my monthly real-time review of HBO’s Real Sports.

Tuesday Night Update

As the Red Sox are in danger of falling behind in the ALCS, 3 games to 1, I’ll do an update now.

Neil Best of Newsday blogs that WFAN’s Mike Francesca has made the claim that he was a potential candidate to be on Monday Night Football during the time Dennis Miller was selected to join the broadcast. And Best reports that Major League Baseball has lost a lawsuit attempting to control the content that appears on independent fantasy websites.

Bruce Allen of the Boston Sports Media Watch site looks at the ratings in Boston for Sunday’s Patriots-Cowboys game.

Once again, ESPN’s Monday Night Football topped the cable ratings last week. Game 4 of the Indians-Yankees ALDS finished second. And overall, TBS won the primetime cable ratings. The Sporting News picks up an Associated Press story stating that TBS is still happy with its postseason deal with Major League Baseball.

David Barron in the Houston Chronicle reports that some Comcast customers missed the last few innings of Game 4 of the NLCS because of a scheduled channel switch with FX. Nice going, Comcast. Barron also reports that Jeff Van Gundy will stay with ESPN/ABC as an NBA analyst.

Kirk Bohls of the Austin (TX) American-Statesman is not happy his Yankees are out of the playoffs.

Among the things Gregg Easterbrook is writing about in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback are not kicking to Devin Hester, squash cultivation, all-Christmas radio in October (most likely a Clear Channel station … yup!), the hypocrisy of the NFL and expensive hotels.

The ESPN family of networks will carry “more than 1,050 men’s college basketball games” this season. That’s a lot.

Marise Strauss of Media in Canada says both CBC and TSN have scored in the ratings for their hockey broadcasts.

So in lieu of not having TBS Hot Corner to write about, I give you this update. Enjoy.

Tuesday Update or "I Cry at Cinderella"

I’ll explain the title in a moment. Time to give you a few links this afternoon.

Last night, WCBS Yankees announcer Suzyn Waldman was doing the postgame show and what she did has become fodder on blogs and sports radio stations across the country. And it’s unbeknownst to me why WCBS put this on its website as a podcast. But it’s great for you the reader. You can listen to Suzyn as she literally breaks down in the locker room as she describes the Yankees coaches crying at Joe Torre’s statements in the postgame press conference. Yankees coaches crying? I can understand because they feel it’s the end of a long run. But a broadcaster crying on the air? There’s a time and a place and that’s not the place for it. Awful Announcing has its take on the whole thing.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell looks at the Roger Clemens deal with the Yankees now that their season is over.

Those of you visiting in the new NHL Store in New York may notice a new studio there. It will be used for XM Satellite Radio to air live shows and interviews. The Orbitcast satellite radio blog has the story.

Neil Best of Newsday has an anecdote of TBS’ Chip Carey being the batboy for the Atlanta Braves in the early 1980′s during which time Joe Torre was the manager.

Brian Davis of the Dallas Morning News says the Big 12 is in a holding pattern for October 20 because ESPN has yet to decide which games it wants to televise leaving FSN and Versus in the lurch.

Hall of Fame Houston Astros broadcaster Milo Hamilton is recovering from a heart attack over the weekend. Hamilton has called games in Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Chicago.

William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail says the new Hockey Night in Canada had a low key debut last Saturday.

Among the things Gregg Easterbrook is discussing in his Tuesday Morning Quarterback are using the tight end more, the problems with the Buffalo Bills, democratizing the skies, the hypocracy of the movie industry and suspending players who are no longer in the NFL.

That’s it.

Tuesday Night Stuff

Time for some links on this Tuesday night.

Let me say The War is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen. It’s compelling, the footage from the front lines taken by newsreels or by official military filmmakers is amazing. And hearing how people coped at home in four cities, Waterbury, CT; Mobile, AL; Lucerne, MN; and Sacramento, CA humanized the stories. Plus, the use of letters from soldiers and their families from home helps to give the viewer a sense of what everyone went through. It’s a device Director Ken Burns has used in The Civil War so well. Great TV. Tomorrow night, The War chronicles D-Day. Watch this when you can.

Ok, to the links.

The Sports Media Watch blog looks at the drop in ratings for ESPN’s Monday Night Football through the first three weeks of the NFL season.

Neil Best of Newsday blogs that The Daily Oklahoman columnist Jenni Carlson has written a reply to Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy’s tirade against her last Saturday.

ESPN.com’s Gregg Easterbrook has his usual Tuesday Morning Quarterback column.

Not that this comes as a surprise, but a study shows that sports websites are mostly visited by males aged 18-34.

Milwaukee Bucks fans can see 70 games on FSN Wisconsin this season.

Ray Frager in his Medium Well blog at the Baltimore Sun says Fox’ Curt Menefee made a reference to “The View” to former QB Tim Hasselbeck. His wife, Elizabeth is a panelist on the show.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Frank Fitzpatrick writes that the ratings for Phillies games on Comcast SportsNet are up this season.

Darren Rovell from CNBC writes that the sexual harassment lawsuit filed against the New York Knicks will not affect them at the gate.

The 38Cliches blog looks at the comments at the petition site to remove Glenn Geffner from the Red Sox radio booth. And LC celebrates the long-awaited return of Dave O’Brien to the Shaw’s/Lowe’s/TD Banknorth/Covidien Red Sox Radio Network airwaves.

Will Leitch over at Deadspin has his take on the latest chapter of the ESPN/MLB feud.

And from the great Awful Announcing blog, apparently Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban likes to hold his rod.

Have a good night. See you Wednesday.

DirecTV apologizes. Sort of. And an Mini-Update to Boot.

If you’re a subscriber to DirecTV and its NFL Sunday Ticket Superfan service, you’re eligible to watch games online through Supercast. Now on Sunday, I and many subscribers had difficulty accessing the site. I chronicled this twice on Sunday. I’ve sent e-mails to their public relations department to get an answer, but so far, no response. But I did get this form letter via e-mail today:

September 11, 2007

Dear Valued SuperFan Customer,

Unprecedented demand for the NFL SUNDAY TICKET™ Supercast™ function caused technical difficulties that prohibited some subscribers’ access to the online games this past Sunday. If you were unable to access the online games, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. We are excited that so many fans want to experience this brand-new feature and have corrected the issue to ensure that all future Sunday games will be accessible online through the NFL SUNDAY TICKET Supercast feature.

With NFL SUNDAY TICKET Supercast, you get live streams of every NFL SUNDAY TICKET game right on your PC, anywhere in the world*:

• Live streams of every NFL SUNDAY TICKET game, plus the RED ZONE CHANNEL™
• Real-time player and team stats and scores
• Highlights from every game as they happen

We’d like to thank you for being an NFL SUNDAY TICKET SuperFan™ customer, and we will continue to make improvements to our service to bring you the best NFL SUNDAY TICKET and DIRECTV experience possible.

Sincerely,
The DIRECTV NFL SuperFan Team

To be honest, it doesn’t explain why it happened or how many people tried to access the site. In addition, I asked DirecTV if it plans to increase the amount of servers for Week 2. If I get an answer, I’ll certainly let you know. Very frustrating.

I’ll give you a few links here as well.

The TBS Hot Corner has launched on MLB.com. This is a broadband daily show that will focus on the baseball pennant races and then during the postseason, be a compliment to TBS’ coverage, similar to what TNT’s Inside the NBA Extra was on NBA.com. Today’s edition is hosted by Heather Catlin who was on the North Carolina Tar Heels volleyball team, employed by FSN South and quite an attractive woman. Anyway, if she gets featured on TBS this October, I would not at all be unhappy.

The Spots Media Blog notes that both Sunday and Monday Night Football had lower rated debuts this past weekend than last season.

The shotgun formation, the overuse of TV news helicopters, the new Washington Redskins cheerleader outfits (they look great!) and a whimsical look at the fall TV season are just part of what Gregg Easterbrook is writing about in the latest edition of Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which I notice is being published in the afternoon, Eastern time, so can it really be called “Tuesday Morning Quarterback”?).

I guess that will do it for now. I’ll be back Wednesday.

Tuesday Night Linkage

Time to give you a few links tonight before heading to bed.

It appears that the NFL’s TV partners will not have to deal with the silly 45 seconds of online video rule for their websites. The Sports Business Journal’s Eric Fisher, Dan Kaplan and John Ourand report that the 45 second rule does not apply CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC, but other sites such as newspaper and TV station websites still must adhere to the rule. According to the article, the networks feel that their exorbitant rights fees should buy them rights to online video. The 45 second rule is of course, supposed to direct fans to NFL.com. We’ll see if the league eventually relaxes this silly rule down the road.

Michael David Smith of the AOL Fanhouse blog reports that ESPN will lower the amount of silly guests in the booth on Monday Night Football. Kamau High of AdWeek says ESPN has begun a new promotional campaign for MNF and I have to say it’s actually not as obnoxious as other ESPN campaigns. TV Week’s Chris Pursell in his Pressbox blog talks with Keyshawn Johnson who begins his first season as an NFL analyst for ESPN. Advertising Age’s Andrew Hampp has a story on the networks scoring profitable ad deals on the NFL.

The great Gregg Easterbrook has the latest edition of Tuesday Morning Quarterback which includes railing against the Preposterous Punt, his all-haiku predictions and a look at the Appalachian State-Michigan game.

The Sports Media Watch blog has the announcing teams for college football on the Disney Sports Networks.

Kira Bindrim of Crain’s New York Business writes that ratings for the US Open are down compared to last year while attendance at the National Tennis Center is up.

Randy Petersen of the Des Moines Register reports that Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz doesn’t have the Big Ten Network at home meaning his family can’t watch his games through Mediacom. Centre (PA) Daily Times’s editor Bob Heisse in his “Back in Happy Valley” blog wonders what if Comcast decided to settle up with BTN? And Heisse adds one more post regarding overflow games. Michael Zuidema of the Grands Rapids Press says the Appalachian State upset is the first shot from BTN in its battle with Comcast.

The Appalachian State athletics department says ESPN is in town to tape a segment on the upset for College Gameday.

Last Friday, NBC Universal announced it would no longer sell shows for download on iTunes saying prices were too low. Tonight, it’s announced a deal with Amazon.com to sell downloads on that site and for higher prices.

That’s a lot of links for a Tuesday night and I like it. I’ll have more Wednesday morning.

Time for the Tuesday Update

Kind of slow on this Tuesday afternoon, but I still try to find links for you because you’re a loyal visitor.

Well, CNBC’s Darren Rovell is officially smitten with Ana Ivanovic. He has another post on her, this one on her sponsor on the WTA Tour. And in case you’re skeptical about Ana’s beauty (you really shouldn’t be by now), Darren has put together a slideshow of some of her best pics.

Jeff Bell of the Business First of Columbus paper has Ohio State University Athletic Director Geoff Smith telling fans to find another way to watch his school’s first two games. Smith is skeptical of the Big Ten Network reaching an agreement with cable companies before Thursday’s launch.

Iowans will be able to see the University of Iowa’s season opener on Mediacom cable this weekend. It will be on ESPNU.

A while back, I reported on ESPN being made available at gas pumps so it can reach the disenfranchised viewer. Well, the device called “Gas Station TV” will use Hughes Network Systems (the first owner of DirecTV) to send signals to the pump.

Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes about an era coming to end in September, the Braves on TBS. I have truly enjoyed watching the Braves on TBS, but the channel will be showing MLB games on Sundays next season rather than just one team as it has for three decades. In addition, TBS will begin a promotional pitch for the MLB postseason which will be airing for the first time this year. Bon Jovi will be featured as part of that pitch.

Over at ESPN.com, Gregg Easterbrook has his TMQ column and today, he gives his NFC preview plus he gets on colleges that schedule cupcakes for out-of-conference games.

That’s it for now. I’ll have the Viewing Picks coming up.

Late Tuesday Update

Here are some links for you today.

Even though the Big Ten Conference is having trouble launching its channel, other college conferences are looking into launching channels of their own. Michael Smith and John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal report that the Southeastern Conference may forge ahead with plans to launch a channel and that current TV syndicator, Lincoln Financial Sports, could be a partner in that venture. The SEC’s contracts with CBS and ESPN expire in 2009 and it’s expected both will renew. But LFS whose contract also expires in 2009 may turn over its rights to the SEC a year early and sign up with Comcast to help distribute a SEC channel. Charter may also be involved and of course, keep an eye on Fox which owns a 49% stake in the Big Ten Network. We’ll monitor this over the next few weeks.

Michael McCarthy of USA Today looks at the TV ratings of selected sports telecasts.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says big money donations to college athletic departments such as Nike’s Phil Knight to the University of Oregon won’t pay dividends right away, but certainly down the road.

NBC Sports has signed an agreement with the Associated Press to be the exclusive news agency to distribute NBC-produced content and stories for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Paul Gough of the Hollywood Reporter has more.

Wayne Friedman of TV Watch wonders if big ticket events like the Olympics are worth the money for advertisers.

ESPNU has gained carriage agreements with Time Warner Cable in New York and New Jersey to be placed on the digital basic tier. Big win for ESPNU. According to the press release, ESPNU is available in 20 million homes nationwide.

ESPN Radio has named a new Senior Vice President/General Manager.

XM Satellite Radio is getting ready to kickoff college football season with games from six of the BCS conferences starting August 30. The Orbitcast blog which keeps track of all things satellite radio has more.

Sanford Nowlin of the San Antonio Express-News looks into another round in the battle of the NFL Network vs. Time Warner, Cablevision and Comcast.

John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury News writes in his Morning Buzz blog that he feels Keith Olbermann and NBC’s Football Night in America is a strange fit and even more so with a special edition of MSNBC’s Countdown being aired this Sunday before the NFL preseason game. But as one poster commented, perhaps Ryan forgot of Olbermann’s past work with ESPN and Fox Sports.

I love Gregg Easterbrook’s TMQ (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) on ESPN.com. It usually runs from August until February during NFL season with two special editions for the NFL Draft. This week, Gregg writes about the disparity between the NFL and NBA. As usual, Gregg is right.

Good amount of links and we’re doing well even without having Neil Best of Newsday on which to depend. Primetime viewing picks coming up.