Fang's Bites

Going For Some Tuesday Links

Let’s bring you some linkage. Two days in a row! This is something!

Shameless plug department: I wrote Some Long Overdue Tuesday Sports Media Thoughts earlier this morning and make sure you give it a gander. Many thanks.

Sam Gustin of Time writes that News Corp.’s purchase of a minority stake in YES could help Fox challenge ESPN down the road.

Alicia Jessop at Forbes notes how the NFL successfully marketed to women to the point where they are now 44% of the league’s fan base.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reports on the potential megadeal between Fox and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In part two of his interview with SiriusXM’s Dino Costa, Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report goes into the relationship the Mad Dog radio host has with his boss, Chris Russo.

Salvej Schou of Entertainment Weekly says a Hollywood movie executive is angry at NFL Network for censoring at the last minute, a Rich Eisen interview with actor Bradley Cooper.

John Koblin of Deadspin speaks with some media professionals on the plagiarism issues plaguing ESPN.com and writer Lynne Hoppes.

Media Rantz looks at the impending launch of Fox Sports 1.

Les Carpenter of Yahoo! has a profile on former New Orleans Saints quarterback turned popular sports radio talk show host, Bobby Hebert.

Carl Marcucci of Radio & Television Business Report writes about CBS Sports Radio’s new morning show.

Newscast Studio looks at CBS Sports Network’s new college football studio.

Fox Soccer may have lost the English Premier League rights in the US, but Fox Sports in Australia has retained the rights to all of the EPL’s games Down Under.

The New York Post’s Kirsten Fleming talks with NBC’s Michelle Beadle.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette says NBC Sports Network has added a college hockey game to its schedule.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union writes that there’s no change to the NFL schedules in the next few weeks.

Ken McMillan at the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says CBS Sports Network will be re-airing a host of Army-Navy football games next week.

Dave Hughes in Press Box notes that Baltimore’s CBS-owned sports radio station will drop all ESPN Radio programming in favor of CBS Sports Radio in January.

Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says TNT is once again comparing the Wizards to the hapless Harlem Globetrotters whipping team, the Washington Generals.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle looks at the local weekend ratings for Thanksgiving weekend.

Scott Wright at The Oklahoman says Fox Sports will air three high school championship games on its Oklahoma Plus channel.

The Detroit Free Press summarizes an ESPN The Magazine interview with controversial Lions defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh.

Sports Media Watch notes that Fox Sports drew close to the rear in the college football ratings for Week 13.

SMW says an Iron Bowl blowout did not help the SEC on CBS’ ratings.

And SMW looks at college football TV ratings on ESPN, ABC and NBC.

Joe Lucia at Awful Announcing delves into the Fox/Dodgers deal.

Joe Favorito likes how the Green Bay Packers have embraced Movember.

Brian Clapp at Sports TV Jobs says the future is very bright for sports broadcasting.

That is going to wrap up our links for today.

Breaking Out The Monday Linkage

It’s been a while since I’ve done linkage. I’ll provide some on this Cyber Monday.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says having Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship Game will bring in some monster ratings for ESPN.

Chris Chase of USA Today’s Game On notes that the NFL had Rich Eisen and NFL Network pull an interview segment with actor Bradley Cooper due to NFL gambling references.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch talks with Turner Sports’ Chris Webber and reviews the weekend in sports television.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life writes that Notre Dame is as close to a guaranteed ratings success for college football as anything.

Etan Vlessing of the Hollywood Reporter says the NHL’s TV partners are caught trying to fill programming holes due to the lockout.

Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report has the first of a two part interview with SiriusXM’s Dino Costa.

Brad Gagnon of Awful Announcing writes that the Sunday NFL pregame shows are dramatically losing viewers this season.

The Big Lead notes that ESPN college football analyst Jesse Palmer had to apologize for doing the “Hook ‘Em Horns” sign upside down.

Bruce Allen at Boston Sports Media Watch throws some cold water on some silly agendas by the Hub’s sports writers.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says don’t expect too many changes to YES with News Corp. buying a minority stake in the channel.

In the New York Post, Phil Mushnick says Rutgers’ move to the Big Ten is all about the money. Tell me something I don’t know, Phil.

Newsday’s Neil Best talks with John Gilchrist who played Mikey in the iconic Life cereal commercials.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has the college football TV schedule for Week 14.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call talks with Eastern PA native Lisa Salters about returning home for ESPN’s Monday Night Football tonight.

It’s official. David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun hates CBS.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner feels Maryland’s move to the Big Ten makes sense.

Tom Jones at the Tampa Bay Times has his review of the weekend in sports television.

Over to Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News who has a profile of ESPN’s Ed Werder and his daughter’s successful battle to beat a nasty brain tumor.

David Barron looks at a few items in his regular sports media column.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has ESPN’s Trent Dilfer commenting on the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line.

Paul M. Banks at the Chicago Sports Media Watch notes the high overnight rating for Notre Dame-USC.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post says compares the current Broncos radio analyst to the very first one.

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

And Tom has the five things he learned from this weekend.

Sports Media Watch says the move of the Thanksgiving Night game from NFL Network to NBC paid off in spades this year.

SMW says the Thanksgiving afternoon game on Fox suffered a drop from the year before.

SMW notes that the early Thanksgiving Day game on CBS had the best ratings of the three games on Turkey Day.

Joe Favorito says Atlantis in the Bahamas is fast becoming the place for premiere college basketball teams.

Adam Herman at the New York Rangers Blog says the NHL instructed NBC Sports not to air a charity hockey game this past weekend.

That’s going to do it for now.

Bringing Out Some Wednesday Sports Media Thoughts

Time for some overdue sports radio thoughts. I apologize for the inconsistency in posting. I’ve been sick since last week and its hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s no fun not having a voice and certainly not good to feel wrecked every time I awake. I hope to get better soon, but this bug continues to linger.

But you visit to to get the latest news and some occasional reviews and thoughts so let’s provide some now while I can. As usual, they come in bullet form.

• With ESPN reportedly close to wrapping up a long term contract with the BCS for the new college football playoff that begins in 2014, it’s amazing to think how much money is being paid for the contract. Sports Business Journal reports that ESPN would give the BCS $500 million annually over a 12 year span for not just two semifinal games and the championship, but for three “contract” bowls that would include the Rose, Sugar (originally the new “Champions Bowl”) and Orange Bowls.

  Not only does this keep the college football postseason in ESPN’s possession once the BCS system is done next year, but it also continues ESPN’s tight Kung-Fu grip on college football.

  Now, the other networks including CBS and Fox do have rights to BCS conferences, but they have to deal with ESPN as a partner (Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC). There isn’t much that ESPN doesn’t have its hands on and if it doesn’t want to keep rights to a league, it won’t. But until the day occurs when ESPN will let a conference slip to another network (ahem, Big East), ESPN is going to have a major say in college football for a long time to come.

• It’s really strange when WFAN’s Mike Francesa can be a Voice of Reason, but in the case of ESPN’s Rick Reilly, Mikey was dead on. After the Monday Night Football game on ESPN between Kansas City and Pittsburgh, Reilly was seen on camera instructing postgame host Stuart Scott to give him credit for allegedly breaking the news of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s shoulder injury on Twitter. However, as pointed out rather deftly by Deadspin’s Tim Burke, it had already been reported by his ESPN colleague, Adam Schefter, and as Francesa said, it was quite apparent to anyone watching ESPN that Big Ben was hurt.

  Ever since Reilly went to ESPN, he has become a small fish in a very big lake. When he was at Sports Illustrated, he was a big fish in a small pond, so he was very noticeable. In fact, when he was at SI, one could surmise that he was the star of the magazine, writing the Point After on the back page.

  But after being lured to ESPN for a lot of money, Reilly hasn’t found a signature role to stand out. His pieces on SportsCenter have been rather forgettable. ESPN has tried to employ him as an essayist at The Open Championship and major tennis events rather unsuccessfully. Do you remember his show “Homecoming” which ran for about twenty minutes? Of course you don’t.

  Whenever Reilly tries to report something, he gets mocked by blogs or even his own colleagues.

  I don’t know when Reilly’s contract with ESPN expires, it’s really not my concern, but when it does, the Powers That Be should ask for some of their money back because Reilly has been mailing it in for the past few years.

• You may not be familiar with the name of Dino Costa, but subscribers to SiriusXM are. Dino is the nighttime host on Mad Dog Radio. His Twitter feed is an interesting follow. And while I may disagree with some of his tweets, Costa is quite entertaining. And his radio show is a very good listen. If you have the opportunity to listen to him, by all means do so. Costa will tell you that he’s a good listen, but that’s fine.

  Last week, Dino called into his boss’ show, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, as the two have been feuding on-air, to tell him he (Russo) is a has-been. Mad Dog Radio’s Steve Torre tries to play peacemaker in this clip.

   

  There are two trains of thought. Either this is real and the two are at war, or it’s another stunt that Mad Dog is attempting to pull off, but I don’t think Costa would fool his listeners and play them. In any event, Costa is quite good and if you have SiriusXM, give the man a try if you haven’t already.

• CBS has created a mash-up of Queen’s iconic “We Will Rock You” with the network’s NFL theme “Posthumus Zone” and it’s pretty good. Queen’s Brian May teamed up with Helmut VonLichten to form a re-mix. It will be CBS’ theme for Super Bowl XLVII in February. I didn’t know what to think when I saw the press release on Tuesday, but after giving a listen to the mash-up, I found that I liked it. Good job, CBS.
• Saw “Skyfall” over the weekend and loved it. As a James Bond fan, I loved the dark feel to this chapter. Daniel Craig has made Bond into his own and you can see he’s more comfortable in the role. Dame Judy Dench as “M” is tremendous. Javier Bardem was great as the villain and it will be nice to see Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris in future Bond films. There were some nice nods to the past while bringing the movie into the 21st Century. Great direction from Sam Mendes. Can’t wait for Bond 24.

And we’re done.