Fang's Bites

Some Quick Tuesday Linkage

On my way to New York for the Fox Sports 1 unveiling and I’m going to try to do some links with the limited wifi that Amtrak has provided. It’s not the best, but it’ll do for what I need today.

Let’s begin with Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch who along with Matt Yoder from Awful Announcing, John Ourand from Sports Business Journal and Randy McClure of Rush the Court, conducted a sportscaster draft for the NCAA Tournament. Fascinating stuff.

At Awful Announcing, Matt Yoder explains the reasoning behind his draft picks.

In the shameless plug department, I have a post at AA on “What if” Keith Olbermann returns to ESPN. That is a huge “what if,” by the way.

On this site, I ask “What Can We Expect From Fox Sports 1 and 2?”

David Lieberman of Deadline has a Fox official telling its investors that Fox Sports 1 and 2 are expected to lose money at first, but it’s all about the long-term with the new channels.

Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter says Fox is downplaying expectations about Fox Sports 1 competing with ESPN.

At $ports Biz USA, Mike McCarthy talks with Jay Glazer about his new Fox Sports 1 show.

Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report says ESPN is reminding Fox about who has a 33 year head start in the all-sports cable business.

Richard Sandomir and Amy Chozick in the New York Times have an extensive look at the new Fox Sports venture.

Even with Fox starting a new network to compete with ESPN, it still has formed an Unholy Alliance with the Alleged Worldwide Leader. John Ourand of Sports Business Journal has the story.

Addy Dugdale at Fast Company looks at the new Fox Sports 1.

Good article from Paulsen at Sports Media Watch on how SportsCenter has drifted into the abyss. I was thinking about using a Matrix reference, but I’ve used them up on Twitter.

Jason Lisk of The Big Lead profiles ESPN college basketball analyst Sean Farnham who will get a plum assignment at the ACC Tournament next week.

Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead tweets that Tom Rinaldi and his traveling piano have been re-signed by ESPN.

Will Leitch from Sports on Earth feels a Keith Olbermann return to ESPN is not a good idea.

Michael Hiestand from USA Today has the weekend sports ratings.

Mark Blaudshun in A Jersey Guy reports that the remnants of the old Big East plan to play its first postseason tournament without Syracuse, Pittsburgh and the Catholic 7 in Hartford. Good choice.

Mike Reynolds at Multichannel News says ESPN Deportes will continue carrying Mexican League soccer.

Dieter Kurtenbach from the South Florida Sun Sentinel says 11 months after joining Miami’s WQAM, controversial talk show host Dan Sileo has been fired.

Mel Bracht in The Oklahoman notes that the Thunder are featured twice this week on TNT.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says University of Kentucky athletics has signed a promotional deal with Time Warner Cable.

Robert Feder of TimeOut Chicago writes that a former Windy City sportscaster refused to take part in a farewell to two long-time news anchors.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has five things he learned from the weekend.

Joe Favorito says World Tennis Day on Monday helped to give the sport a global boost.

Back to Paulsen at Sports Media Watch, he notes that the PGA Tour experienced its fourth straight week of ratings declines.

And let’s end with one of the silliest moments on ESPN from Monday. Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy notes that ESPN’s Stephen A. “A is for Awkward” Smith didn’t realize that ties were eliminated from the National Hockey League in 2004.

That will end the links for today. As long as I have wifi or 3G access (I know, 4G LTE users are laughing at me), I’ll provide tweets and a live blog on the Fox Sports 1 press event and upfronts today in New York. If communication is cut off, then all bets are off, but I’m willing to go out on a limb that we’ll have wifi access somehow, at least for the press conference this afternoon.

Keep your RSS, Twitter and any other syndication feeds updated.

Some Wednesday Linkage

Let’s do some linkage while I have some time.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand notes NBC’s hiring of Tiger Woods pal Notah Begay to its golf team. He replaces Dottie Pepper who went to the PGA of America.

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand profiles ESPN PR pioneer Rosa Gatti who is retiring from the network after working there since the early days.

John & Tripp Mickle write that NBC remains as a wild card in the NASCAR Sprint Cup talks.

Over to the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center where Manny Randhawa definitely had an agenda in an interview with Deadspin editor Tommy Craggs over the site’s Manti Te’o coverage. Craggs shoots down several of Randhawa’s loaded questions.

To the Bleacher Report where King Kaufman analyzes the Craggs interview. It should be noted that Randhawa did some writing for B/R, but not now.

Michael O’Connell of the Hollywood Reporter says thanks to the Super Bowl and the Grammys, CBS will win the February sweeps while NBC without the NFL has fallen harder than a 3 ton boulder.

In Multichannel News, Broadcasting & Cable’s Tim Baysinger writes about ESPN getting out of the UK and selling its channels to BT Group.

At The Sherman Report, Ed Sherman notes that Leigh Montville is still producing high quality columns.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell says NASCAR needs to find a way to keep the increased audience that watched the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

Sports Video Group tells us that the MLS’s FC Dallas has signed a TV rights deal with Time Warner Cable. Fox Sports Southwest previously held the rights.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call says the Iron Pigs announcers will call some Philadelphia Phillies Spring Training games.

Eric Deggans from the Tampa Bay Times writes about the shaky debut of CBS Radio’s FM sports radio station.

John Kiesewetter from the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Reds Radio Network has switched games to air Aroldis Chapman’s Spring debut.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch says it’s time to end the live postgame interviews.

Houston Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times says ESPN’s Brent Musburger autographed a Katherine Webb poster.

Mark Blaudschun of A Jersey Guy looks at ESPN and the Big East getting back together again.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog says the proposed NHL realignment is good for TV, but not necessarily good for some teams.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media wonders how Olympic hockey would look on CBC and NBC.

Sports Media Watch has some various ratings news.

And we’ll end it there for now.

A Quick Early Wednesday Sports Media Notebook

Time to open up the Fang’s Bites Sports Media notebook as we hit midweek. Lets go over some of the stories that are circulating about the sports media. They’re in bullet form.

• How much is too much? The sports rights fee ceiling keeps going higher and higher. As fees for sports programming go up, so do your cable and satellite bills. While sports gets more expensive, sports networks, both national and local continue to pay because they’re consistent programming and they’re a hedge against original dramas, sitcoms and reality TV that fail to catch on with viewers. John Ourand in this week’s Sports Business Journal explains why the sports rights fee bubble may not burst for quite some time, if ever. And if the rights continue to go up, who’s going to pay? You, me and viewers who have yet to cut the cord.
• On a related note, when the Los Angeles Dodgers finally submit their megabucks contract with Time Warner Cable for MLB approval, it will include plans to show the team’s games in three languages. You’re probably thinking, “What? Three languages? I know Emglish so Vin Scully can continue calling games and then Spanish to serve the large Hispanic community in L.A. What’s the third?”

  Well, the third language would be Korean! Bill Shaikin and Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times report that this would mark to the best of anyone’s knowledge that an MLB team would be broadcast in three languages. And if you’re wondering why the Dodgers would plan Korean broadcasts, just harken back to the 1990′s when the team signed Chan-Ho Park and the organization continues to sign Korean players. And there’s a large Korean population in Los Angeles as well.

  The Dodgers are definitely thinking outside the box. And when the contract with Time Warnervis finally submitted for MLB approval, it will be worth between $7-8 billion over 25 years.

• In Golf Digest, Franz Lidz has an interesting profile of CBS/Golf Channel personality David Feherty. His interview show, aptly titled “Feherty” premiered for its second season this week.
• And the 4th incarnation of Boston Sports Blogapalooza has been set for April 6 at The Harp (pronounced “The Haaahhhp!” by Boston natives). My friend, Joe Gill of Boston Sports Then and Now does a great job organizing the event and I look forward to attending the next one.

  If you live in the New England area, it’s a great event to attend.

Ok, it’s time to close the notebook. Back soon with another edition.

Quick Mid-Week Links

I’ll do some linkage here.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand says Dick Vitale finally gets to call the NCAA Final Four, but for an international audience.

John Ourand at Sports Business Daily reports that Fox is in talks with Regis Philbin to host a show on Fox Sports 1.

Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report wonders if having Gus Johnson on the World Cup will work for Fox.

Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter talks with CBS Sports Head Honcho Sean McManus about the network’s handling of Super Bowl XLVII.

Rick Kissell at Variety says the Super Bowl put CBS on top of the 18-49 ratings demographic and probably put it there to stay for the rest of the TV season.

George Winslow of Broadcasting & Cable says online streaming of the Super Bowl set a record.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News has NBC looking forward to the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Anthony CrupiCrupiCrupi of Adweek says CBS did not experience a post-Super Bowl bounce on Monday.

Brian Steinberg of Advertising Age notes that Fox is already pitching advertisers for Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey.

Bill Cromwell from Media Life Magazine says Budweiser’s touching Clydesdale Super Bowl ad was the most popular among the publication’s readers.

Jeff Pfeiffer at Channel Guide says Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl received its highest ratings ever on Sunday.

The Nielsen Wire blog has the final viewing numbers for Super Bowl XLVII on CBS. Still close to my prediction of 108.2 million.

The Tampa Bay Times’ Eric Deggans writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center says CBS failed to address the main issues facing the National Football League before, during and after its Super Bowl broadcast.

Brandon Costa of Sports Video Group says ESPN has blanketed the country with satellite trucks in order to cover National Signing Day today.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell asks if movie ads were the true winners on Super Bowl Sunday.

The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn writes that former Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield will co-host a new reality show on MLB Network. Wait until you read about the premise.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says NBC will begin its Olympics coverage from Sochi a day early.

Newsday’s Neil Best says Lindsay Vonn’s injury at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Championships put a damper on NBC’s Olympic media kickoff event on Tuesday.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette says Time Warner Cable has added MSG Plus and MSG Plus 2 in the Capital Region.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that Tennis Channel will air Rafael Nadal’s return to tennis today.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call feels CBS did not step up to the magnitude of Super Bowl XLVII.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun says some local TV stations did not distinguish themselves during coverage of the Ravens Championship Parade.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle reports that the Astros are changing radio stations.

Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman says Super Bowl XLVII set a local ratings record.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that the Reds will remain on its flagship station and with it, air more Spring Training games.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says on his weekly radio show appearance, Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers offered the olive branch to Brett Favre.

Danny Ecker from Crain’s Chicago Business looks at how Windy City businesses fared during Sunday’s Super Bowl.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News looks into Fox’s announcement of using Gus Johnson on soccer.

The Toronto Globe and Mail runs a Canadian Press story reporting that former pitcher Jack Morris will become a Blue Jays TV and radio analyst.

The Canadian Sports Media blog wasn’t happy about CTV cutting off Super Bowl coverage early for the second year in a row.

EPL Talk is not thrilled about having Gus Johnson on soccer.

Jason McIntyre at The Big Lead says SportsNation co-host Charissa Thompson has a new boyfriend and he works with the Alleged Worldwide Leader as well.

In Awful Announcing, Allen Kenney writes that due to ESPN’s high college football rights fees, Disney’s profits fell in the first quarter of its fiscal year.

Dave Kohl at The Broadcast Booth looks at the coverage that National Signing Day is receiving.

And that will conclude our linkage.

Time Warner Cable and Los Angeles Dodgers Announce New Regional Sports Network

It will launch sometime after the 2013 season, most likely in 2014 in advance of that year’s MLB regular season. Time Warner Cable will distribute it. The Los Angeles Dodgers will own and program it. The Dodgers will receive $7-8 billion annually over a 25 year period. And with the new channel, it means the new channel will seek $5 per subscriber and it also means that cable and satellite bills will go up.

It also means a probable battle between cable and satellite providers just before and after the regional sports network’s launch as the providers balk at the subscriber fee.

One can’t blame the Dodgers for taking the money. They had Fox and Time Warner waging an all-out battle for the rights. Both companies offered megabucks to bring the team into the fold.

However, one has to wonder if the rising sports rights fees will eventually price consumers from watching their favorite teams and sports on television.

We have a statement from the Dodgers:

DODGERS’ STATEMENT ON NEW REGIONAL NETWORK

Dodger President and CEO Stan Kasten released the following statement this morning regarding the new Los Angeles Dodgers regional sports network:

“The launch of the new regional sports network is a historic development for the Dodgers and our passionate fans,” said Stan Kasten, CEO of the Los Angeles Dodgers. “Our commitment from day one has been to build the Dodgers into the best team possible, both on and off the field. Our fans deserve the best - the best players, the best baseball, and the best experience – whether that’s at the newly renovated Dodger Stadium or on television.”

“Our mission is to have the most fan-friendly sports programming, and we welcome ideas and suggestions from our Dodger Community. We look forward to sharing updates with fans in the coming months. In the meantime, we remain very excited about the upcoming 2013 season where we will be showcasing our incredible new roster and the many enhancements to Dodger Stadium, as well as continuing our commitment to broadcast excellence with our current partners Fox Sports and KCAL 9.”

As the statement mentions, the Dodgers will remain on Fox Sports Prime Ticket and KCAL-TV for the 2013 season.

We’ll continue to monitor this story as developments warrant. The new network is still pending MLB approval, but that appears to be a formality at this point.

Report: Dodgers To Go With Time Warner For Media Rights

Last November, it appeared that Fox Sports was the clear favorite to retain the media rights for the Los Angeles Dodgers. When the story surfaced, it seemed it was just a mere formality for Fox and its owner, News Corp. to sign the papers and make an announcement. That deal was for a reported $6-7 billion over a 25 year period which is a huge hunk of change.

But since then, the Dodgers have continued talks and last weekend, the Los Angeles Times’s Bill Shaikin reported that Time Warner Cable was becoming the favorite to take over the team’s rights starting with the 2014 season. Now, we have a report from Bloomberg’s Alex Sherman and Scott Soshnick, that an announcement that the Dodgers and TWC have struck a deal could come as early as this week.

In the story, Sherman and Soshnick report that the Dodgers would receive $7 billion over a 20 year period meaning $350 million annually. Time Warner would clear an entire channel that would be devoted to the Dodgers, similar to how it is handling the Lakers with its SportsNet channel. In addition, the Dodgers would retain the full rights, Time Warner would get the rights to air the games and sell advertising on the new regional sports network.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says this could all come to a screeching halt if Fox Sports decides to match the offer providing that the Time Warner offer is a straight rights deal, which it appears is not.

Fox Sports Prime Ticket has already lost the Lakers to Time Warner and if it loses the Dodgers, then that would be a huge blow.

The plot is thickening for the Dodgers’ rights and we’ll continue to monitor.

Some Quick Midweek Links

I keep getting bogged down with family stuff. I’m going to try and provide some linkage now.

Deadspin’s Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey have the story of the day exposing the inspirational Manti Te’o's girlfriend story as one huge hoax.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing has Twitter reaction to the Te’o girlfriend hoax.

Michael Hiestand talks with ESPN’s Stuart Scott about his cancer recurrence.

Michael asks who has to more to gain from this week’s interview, Lance Armstrong or

Scott M. Gleeson at USA Today’s Game On blog notes that Brent Musburger’s favorite Miss Alabama, Katherine Webb, will cover Super Bowl XLVII for Inside Edition.

Speaking of Brent, TMZ caught up with him as he was at an airport to talk about ESPN’s apology over his comments on Ms. Webb.

George Winslow of Broadcasting & Cable notes that ESPN Deportes is venturing into social media.

Todd Spangler from Multichannel News says Google says Time Warner Cable is withholding its Metro Sports network from Google’s TV service in Kansas City.

David Gianatasio of Adweek writes that Nike’s new ad featuring Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods taps a familiar theme.

Simon Dumenco from Advertising Age facetiously speculates on what Lance Armstrong revealed to Oprah Winfrey.

Brandon Costa at Sports Video Group says NBC and local regional sports networks are scrambling to hire crews and production trucks for a hastily scheduled National Hockey League season.

ESPN.com’s Kristi Dosh, the Sports Biz Miss, says NHL teams are offering perks to lure fans back to the arena.

Newsday’s Neil Best says the TV networks are glad to see the National Hockey League back.

Jerry Barmash of FishbowlNY writes that MSG Network is ramping up for the 2013 NHL season.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Daily Gazette says thanks to the scheduling, there will be no New York Rangers blackouts in the Capital Region this season.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has compiled the 2013 NHL TV schedule for the Capital Region.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun notes that this weekend’s Ravens-Patriots AFC Championship Game will get Super Bowl treatment from CBS.

In the Washington Post, Dan Steinberg in the DC Sports Bog has the transcript of WaPo columnist Sally Jenkins sitdown with PBS’ Charlie Rose about Lance Armstrong.

For her part, Jenkins says she’s not mad at Armstrong.

The Washington Examiner’s Jim Williams has ESPN’s Chris Evert being bullish on Serena Williams’ chances to sweep the Grand Slams this year.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says a long-time local sportscaster ends his TV tenure tomorrow.

Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman says the AFC Divisional Playoffs topped the local ratings.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a local sportscaster leaving for Chicago.

Danny Ecker of Crain’s Chicago Business writes that the Chicago NHL Team has renewed its radio deal with WGN.

Joe Flint from the Los Angeles Times reports that Fox may convert Fox Soccer into an entertainment channel.

And that’s going to do it for now.

The Big Dozen Sports Media Stories of 2012

Time for the look back at the Year in Sports Media in 2012. Lots of great stuff. The year has been very interesting and we have seen a lot of things.

Just doing a Top Ten is never enough for the Year in Review. It’s always an even dozen with some honorable mentions mixed in.

Let’s go over what were the Sports Media Stories of 2012.

12. Embrace Debate Leads To Rob Parker Suspension

One of the silliest stories in 2012 was ESPN’s commitment to debate programming. Two shows were revamped to accommodate more debate among ESPN personalities, First Take and Numbers Never Lie. Due to outrageous statements made on First Take, mostly by Skip Bayless, the show received lots of attention and increased ratings. But the pressure to stand out may have caught up with Rob Parker who questioned whether DC NFL Team quarterback Robert Griffin III’s authenticity.

It led to Parker’s suspension and allegedly more oversight over the shows. We’ll see if it leads to some more control and fewer outrageous statements.

11. Steve Sabol (1942-2012)

One of the pioneers in sports television passed away in 2012. Steve Sabol’s impact on the National Football League’s popularity through NFL Films cannot be measured. With his father Ed, the Sabols brought fans closer to the game by thinking outside the box. Games weren’t just regular contests, they became movies with Hollywood production values and full orchestrations. Instead of showing games from high in the stadium, NFL Films went to field level and made extreme closeups of the players. In addition, Ed and Steve introduced slow motion photography to sports.

In 2011, Ed Sabol was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. It would behoove voters to induct Steve sometime soon to join his dad.

10. Big Media Taps Into New Media

2012 saw Turner Sports purchased the much-criticized and now-improving Bleacher Report, USA Today buying Big Lead Sports and NBC Sports aligned itself with Yahoo! Sports. This is more than getting pageviews and improving comScores, this is about expanding portfolios and attracting younger audiences. According to comScore, Yahoo! has been the most popular sports news site for several years outpacing ESPN.com. Bleacher Report may get criticized for its multiple and questionable slideshows, but its hiring of some respected editors and writers have increased the quality of the site to the point where Turner Sports purchased the site for beaucoup bucks. And I have to make this disclaimer, Fang’s Bites is an independently-owned blog that is affiliated with USA Today Media Group. We will see more purchases in 2013.

9. NASCAR Renews with Fox

Fox Sports was the first of NASCAR’s TV partners to renew its ties with the sport taking the first half of the Sprint Cup season. For an estimated pricetag of over $2.4 billion through 2022, Fox remains with NASCAR in a relationship that dates back to 2002. Fox is expected to put some of its races on its new all-sports channel, but we’ll get to that later. And expect live on-streaming in this new contract. However, NASCAR’s ratings are a question-mark, but bidding for the second half in 2013 is expected to bring even more money. It’s all going to be quite an interesting year for NASCAR.

8. NBC Steals English Premier League and Formula One From Fox

October turned out to be a good month for NBC Sports Group as far as acquisitions were concerned. It first obtained the rights to Formula 1 as Fox gave just a nominal bid. Then a couple of weeks later, it emerged as the frontrunner to the English Premier League and then won out over a concerted combined bid from ESPN/Fox. While NBC Sports Network won’t be known as a college sports destination or for MLB, perhaps it can become an international sports channel with the EPL, Formula 1 and Olympic Sports. NBC Sports Network will have some sports to watch year-round with the English Premier League, Formula 1, MLS and the NHL (when it finally returns).

7. NFL Network Picks Up Its Last Two Holdouts

Since 2010, NFL Network has been gaining momentum in picking up carriage agreements with the major cable providers. It finally was able to sign deals in 2012 with its last two remaining holdouts, first Cablevision in August and then the very last one, Time Warner Cable in September. Thanks to the increased audience, NFL Network’s Thursday Night Football package had record ratings for its new 13 game schedule. It was a struggle for NFL Network to get all eight major cable and satellite providers on board, but after eight years, it finally got it done.

6. MLB New TV Contracts For A Lot of $$$

It started in August when ESPN renewed rights for its three nights of baseball games, a return to postseason and an increased amount of games for a total of $5.6 billion over eight years. Then in October, MLB announced deals with Fox and Turner for a combined $6.8 billion through 2021, providing them with TV Everywhere rights, postseason deals and a package of regular season games. For Fox, it allows the network to put games on its anticipated all-sports cable channel, but again, more on that later.

5. CBS & NBC Announce New Sports Radio Networks

2012 brought two new national networks to the sports talk radio scene. Within two days of each other, NBC Sports Radio and CBS Sports Radio were announced by both companies and with respective partners Dial Global and Cumulus Radio. NBC Sports Radio has been airing limited weekend programming since September, however, CBS Sports Radio chose to wait until this month to begin full operation with a 24/7 lineup. Both have a long way to go to match the firepower and the reputation of ESPN Radio that has been on the scene since the early 1990′s, however, CBS has hired familiar names like Jim Rome, Doug Gottlieb, John Feinstein, Scott Ferrall and Dana Jacobson. NBC will wait until the NCAA Final Four to finalize its weekday lineup. No matter the case, ESPN Radio finds itself with some formidable competition to join Yahoo! Sports Radio and Fox Sports Radio for listeners.

4. ESPN Free Agency

We had some big names leave the ESPN nest, Erin Andrews, Steve Berthiaume, Michelle Beadle, Cindy Brunson, Doug Gottlieb, Dana Jacobson, Michael Yam to name a few, but many stayed including Scott Van Pelt. This seemed to be quite the year for free agency for ESPN. In some cases, the network chose not to renew and wave goodbye to those departing, others decided not to return for other opportunities while in others, ESPN went out of its way to make sure its desired talent stayed. For the first time, ESPN was transparent in making statements about its free agency signings or departures. In the past, it had issued terse statements when media inquiries were made.

3. Fox Spending Spree

As the year-end was approaching, Fox Sports through its parent, News Corp., went on a spending spree unlike any other in sports media. It not only set up an all-sports cable channel for operation in 2013 (again, more on this later), but it bought into the YES Network which will eventually lead into a majority share of the New York Yankees regional sports network and fully purchased Sports Time Ohio for the Cleveland MLB Team. In addition, Fox is reportedly close to signing a long-term deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for its media rights. News Corp. had money to spend with the company splitting off its publishing holdings into a separate company and of course, the proverbial fiscal cliff where tax credits were about to change. Will we see more of Fox’s financial muscle in 2013? I think that’s a safe bet.

2. The Emergence of Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2

While NBC Sports Network was attempting to bid for major sports properties, Fox Sports was quietly forming its cable sports strategy for 2013 and beyond. We began hearing rumblings about Fox rebranding Speed into an all-sports channel that would be named “Fox Sports 1″ then at the end of the year, the company’s Fuel channel would also be rebranded as “Fox Sports 2″.

In its new contracts with MLB, NASCAR, the Pac-12, UFC and other sports properties it signed in 2012, Fox had a provision to put games and events on Fox Sports 1. As part of its new contract with Major League Baseball, Fox Sports can place 40 regular season games on cable as well as several postseason games. We should expect a number of NASCAR Sprint Cup races on FS1 and most likely see some UFC events as well.

The strategy is in place. Let’s see how it’s enacted in 2013 and beyond.

1. NBC’s Olympics Both Fail and Succeed

Up until the London Olympics begin in late July, NBCUniversal had been downplaying both ratings and financial expectations stating that it expected to lose money and the ratings for a tape delayed event would not be as good as in 2008 when events were carried live from Communist China. Somewhere along the way, something happened. NBC broke even financially on the Olympics and they became the most watched event in US television history. That was the successful part.

The failure was the tape delayed aspect when many viewers wanted to watch events live. The #NBCFAIL hashtag on Twitter quickly spread like wildfire during the first weekend of the Olympics. In addition, online streaming was sluggish and haggard. But even with the delays and streaming problems, Americans still watched in droves. When the games were said and done, NBCUniversal could pat itself on the back.

Honorable Mentions:

Struggles of new regional sports networks to gain carriage agreements.
NHL Does Well; But Shoots Itself in the Foot with the Lockout
Tim Tebow Overload
ESPN Continues Dominance in College Sports

Back For Some Tuesday Links

Let’s do some linkage. I need to do this more than twice a week.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch looks at the potential replacements for Jon Gruden in the Monday Night Football booth should he decide to leave as rumored.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal has a plethora of subjects in his latest media column.

Rachel Bachman of the Wall Street Journal says the expansion of the Big Ten to the Atlantic seaboard is purely for television.

Andy Fixmer and Scott Soshnick at Bloomberg report on a story that bears watching, YES Network will retain the media rights to the New York Yankees through 2042 which opens the door for News Corp. to buy a stake in the channel.

Andy and Alex Sherman from Bloomberg write about Fox opening the door for Fox Sports 1.

Alicia Jessop at Forbes writes that the NBA will stream D-League games on YouTube.

Anthony Crupi at Adweek tells us that NBC is garnering big ad rates for its Thanksgiving Night NFL game.

A story from the weekend, Awful Announcing’s Joe Lucia notes that CBS/Sports Illustrated/Turner’s Seth Davis apologized for calling UFC “homoerotic”.

Todd Spangler from Multichannel News notes that ESPN has rebooted its “Watch ESPN” Xbox 360 app.

Toni Fitzgerald at Media Life says NBC’s Sunday Night Football killed the competition in primetime.

Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report says the NFL game experience doesn’t compare to watching it on your TV.

Jordan Rabinowitz of SportsGrid has video of NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Brad Keselowski drinking on SportsCenter after celebrating his win.

The lovely Kristi Dosh at ESPN.com says both Rutgers and Maryland are in desperate need of the TV money that both institutions will receive as members of the Big Ten Conference.

Ryan Hannable of Boston Sports Media Watch speaks with WEEI’s Glenn Ordway.

Tony LaRoce in the Providence Journal talks with Providence College basketball radio voice John Rooke about a book he’s written about Rhode Island radio.

Richard Sandomir and Amy Chozik of the New York Times write that News Corp.’s stake in YES could value the network as high as $3 billion.

Nate Silver of the New York Times looks at the geography of college football fans across the country and delves into the crazy conference realignment.

Newsday’s Neil Best checks on the progress of Madison Square Garden’s “transformation.”

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says Time Warner Cable airs an AHL game on Friday.

David Zurawik in the Baltimore Sun writes that the Big Ten’s TV acumen will help Maryland in the long run.

In the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog, Dan Steinberg has ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, a noted Maryland alum, weighing in on the Maryland to the Big Ten move.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner speaks with Jim Rome about his new Showtime series.

Stephen F. Holder of the Tampa Bay Times says the Bucs have a long way to go if the team wants to sell out its game against Atlanta and avoid a local TV blackout.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says former Astros analyst Jim Deshaies is a candidate for the Cubs TV job.

David says overtime helped push the Texans’ ratings upwards in Houston.

The Indianapolis Star transcribed some of the things ESPN’s Bob Knight said during last night’s Indiana-Georgia game. It marked the first time Knight had called an Indiana game for ESPN.

The Chicago Tribune has an infographic on how many TV viewers each school in the Big Ten can bring to the table.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post says Altitude has had to make a programming adjustment without the Colorado Avalanche this season.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has five things he learned from the weekend.

SportsRantz looks at the reported morning show for CBS Sports Radio.

Classic Sports TV and Media explores when was the actual first college football primetime broadcast.

Tony Manfred at the Business Insider Sports Page notes that this week’s Sports Illustrated cover is basically an ad for adidas.

Sports Media Watch says CBS saw rating increases for its NFL windows on Sunday, but the late games are the second-lowest rated for this season.

SMW notes NBC’s Sunday Night Football wasn’t as big a draw with Ravens-Steelers.

And that will do it for today.

Some Thursday Linkage

Let me try to squeeze some linkage into the site today. It’s been crazy the last few days here.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch has your 2012-13 college basketball viewing guide.

Michael Hiestand from USA Today talks with former Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl who will work for the ESPN family this season.

Sports Business Daily recaps one of the sessions at its Sports Media & Technology Conference in New York. This included ESPN Junta Chief John Skipper.

From the ESPN Ombudsman, the lovely Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute explores how ESPN handles rumors and how it reports them.

At The Sherman Report, Ed Sherman notes TNT’s Charles Barkley’s comments on sideline reporters.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable says the NFL is marketing a $60 USB computer plug-in.

Media Life Magazine has CBS crowing about being close to selling out Super Bowl XLVII.

Timothy Burke at Deadspin goes over why NBA League Pass is a massive ripoff.

Dylan Murphy of SportsGrid notes that Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has for all intents and purposes, lost the women’s vote. Good job, Mike.

Dylan has a frightening story on the man stalking Michelle Beadle.

Speaking of Pro Football Talk, Josh Alper from PFT has the sensitive Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers unhappy about his puff 60 Minutes profile.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell says the Los Angeles Dodgers are finding plenty of suitors for their TV rights.

Jerry Barmash of Fishbowl NY talks with Marv Albert about Brooklyn’s return to professional sports.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette notes an area native getting a promotion at ESPN.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says the NFL won’t flex in Week 12.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call talks with a local radio personality who used to pick high school football games.

Erik Spanberg from the Charlotte Business Journal has former NFL GM Bill Polian smiling about his ESPN NFL gig.

Michael Casagrande at the Orlando Sentinel talks with ESPN’s Samantha Steele.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle says the viewing for the late ESPN on NBA Radio voice Jim Durham is this Sunday.

The Oklahoman’s Mel Bracht talks with TNT’s Reggie Miller.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Time Warner Cable will air Marquette basketball games this season.

Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune tells us that we’re paying more and more to watch sports on television.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News looks at the entries for this year’s All Sports Los Angeles Film Festival.

Sports Media Watch has some on-air personnel news.

Snap, Crackle Pop has some edgy MSG Network New York Knicks ads that had to be taken down.

Cork Gaines at the Business Insider’s Sports Page has screengrabs of some funny ESPN mustaches.

We have this week’s column from Dave Kohl at The Broadcast Booth.

Stephen Douglas at The Big Lead notes that ESPN has transformed NFL insider John Clayton into a cartoon metalhead.

Matt Yoder from Awful Announcing has video of former San Francisco Giants whiner Jeff Kent angry at everything after being booted from Survivor.

And that’s it for now.

Some Monday Sports Media Thoughts

Time to provide some sports media thoughts as we begin another workweek. Of course, they will be in bullet form.

• What was once the place for sports networks to convene to put pressure on cable has suddenly become the place to hold out. DirecTV was once the provider to pick up sports networks before anyone else. It was one of the first providers in the country to pick up NFL Network, the Big Ten Network, the mtn., CBS Sports Network (when it was known as CSTV then CBS College Sports), Outdoor Life Network and others. Now, it has become a holdout like Time Warner Cable which was the last major cable provider to pick up NFL Network and still refuses to carry MASN in North Carolina.

  Now, DirecTV has refused to pick up the Pac-12 Networks and Time Warner SportsNet citing fiscal responsibility. It has not talked with the Pac-12 lately and has no new talks scheduled for Time Warner, thus preventing West Coast fans from seeing college sports and the Los Angeles Lakers. DirecTV says it does not want to pick up all of the Pac-12 Networks (it has seven overall) and wants to charge an extra fee for anyone who wants to watch it. And the satellite provider is balking at Time Warner’s price per subscriber ($3.95) for the Lakers channel.

  DirecTV appears to have drawn its line in the sand. The Athletic Director at Cal-Berkeley changed her TV subscription from DirecTV to Comcast so she can watch Pac-12 Network and the Lakers training facility changed its subscription from DirecTV to Time Warner Cable as ESPN LA’s Arash Markazi tweeted on Sunday.

  Not a great sign that the Lakers’ practice facility switched to TWC from DirecTV this week. They probably wouldn’t if a deal was imminent.

  — Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) November 4, 2012

  So whenever DirecTV decides to pick either or both of the channels, it could very well be at its own terms.

  Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times reports that Cox Cable is the latest to agree to carry Time Warner SportsNet’s English and Spanish channels. It leaves DirecTV and Dish as the last remaining holdouts and of those two, only DirecTV would probably pick up TWSN as Dish has not been willing to carry sports networks as freely as DirecTV.

• NFL Network’s A Football Life has scored touchdowns in each and all of its episodes this season. From the season premiere on Ray Lewis to the look at the final year of the Cleveland Browns 1.0 to the Los Angeles Rams Fearsome Foursome to the latest edition on Chris Spielman, the documentaries from NFL Films have been of high quality. This all began last year when it spent one season with Patriots coach Bill Belichick and showed viewers some humanity behind the man inside the hoodie.

  The access NFL Films has received with each of its subjects, plus the archival footage it has culled through its own library or through news footage or personal home movies, A Football Life has become appointment viewing. The next one on coach Jimmy Johnson during his Dallas years should prove to be quite compelling television.

• There’s been 10 weeks of the college football season and I can now provide a review of the Fox College Saturday pregame show. I’ve been waiting for improvement since Week 2 (Week 1 was pre-empted in most of the country by a Fox Saturday Baseball overrun), but it hasn’t been there. Erin Andrews is not suited to be a studio host. She’s been better on the sidelines, although the MLB Postseason in October wasn’t her best work.

  There is no chemistry between Erin and analysts Eddie George and Joey Harrington. They struggle to get through highlights and there’s doesn’t appear to be any real energy. Oddly, when Patrick O’Neal is teamed with George and Harrington on FX, they have much better chemistry and energy.

  I have a feeling Fox will try this studio team for one more season before making any changes. Fox has too much money invested in Andrews to take her off the show after one season, however, the show remains a train wreck.

• Heard Friend of Fang’s Bites, Jen Royle on WEEI in Boston auditioning last week to become the update anchor for the station’s morning show, Dennis & Callahan. I felt she had the best chemistry among all those trying out. Here’s hoping she gets a gig out of it.
• I wish there was a way to get KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” off ads and TV shows. This song is the bane of my existence. And as it was pointed out on the old “Best Week Ever” on VH1 that it was overused on a slew of ABC’s shows as a female empowerment song in 2006. And don’t ask me why I can remember these references off the top of my head.

  As I digress, if the song can be removed from commercials and movies, it would make me very happy.

Ok, I’m done.

Al Jazeera’s beIN Sport Picks Up Time Warner/Bright House Cable

Just announced by the Al Jazeera-owned beIN Sport, the network that has rights to La Liga of Spain, Serie A of Italy and Ligue 1 of France, has been picked up by the Time Warner Cable/Bright House combo meaning it increases its availability across the country.

In addition to the three leagues, Al Jazeera’s beIn Sport airs away games of the US Men’s National Team in World Cup qualifiers and English League games.

Not sure if this is a sports tier deal, but soccer fans who have missed La Liga and Serie A since their move from Gol TV in August will now get access as long as they have Time Warner/Bright House.

The two providers have agreed to pick up both the English and Spanish feeds of beIN.

Here’s the announcement.

Time Warner Cable & Bright House Networks To Launch beIN SPORT, The New Soccer and International Sports Network

beIN SPORT Scores New Affiliation Agreement with Country’s Second and Sixth-Largest Cable Operators

MIAMI, FL – November 2, 2012 – beIN SPORT, the new independent 24-hour global network dedicated to live and exclusive coverage of the world’s best soccer and international sports, today announced it will be carried by Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will offer the network in English and a separate network in Spanish on TV and on demand. Additionally, both networks will be made available to authenticated subscribers through the TWC TV website (www.twctv.com) and applications inside the home and through beIN SPORT’s website (www.beinsport.tv) and applications inside and outside the home.

With beIN SPORT, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks customers will have access to exciting soccer and international sports programming, including top soccer leagues and tournaments from Europe and South America, including games from Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, France’s Ligue 1, South American World Cup Qualifiers and Copa America 2015. The network also carries the away games of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team in the qualifying rounds of the 2014 World Cup.

Availability of both channels will vary by market.

“U.S. international sports fans are underserved and beIN SPORT fulfills that need. Our original programming and vast, exclusive coverage is designed to meet the desire of viewers to ‘be in’ the game and be involved in the international sports community,” said Yousef Al Obaidly, managing director of beIN SPORT. “We are excited to offer Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks customers the unmatched play of international competition captured only on beIN SPORT.”

That’s it.

Some Quick Thursday Links

I’ll do a few links on this Thursday. Can you believe it’s November already?

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says the NBA’s television partners are still setting their lineups as the season begins.

Hiestand reports that the Mitt Romney campaign is throwing a monkey wrench at ESPN in its attempts to get the GOP Presidential candidate to appear on the Mike & Mike radio show.

Sports Business Daily looks at some of the sports facilities in the Northeast that sustained damage due to Hurricane Sandy.

Patrick Rishe of Forbes says NBC is betting that soccer will produce eyeballs for NBC Sports Network.

Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter says Lakers fans are still shut out from seeing their team’s games on several cable and satellite providers.

R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel News says TNT had to revise its NBA plans tonight after the Knicks-Nets game was canceled.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek talks with the polarizing Frank Caliendo about his move from Fox to ESPN.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine says the World Series on Fox may have finished with its lowest ratings ever, but it was still able to gain a victory over NBC in the important 18-49 demographic.

Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report talks with NBC/NFL Network’s Alex Flanagan about her crazy schedule during football season.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell goes over the New York City Marathon’s first live national TV coverage since the 1990′s.

Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times talks with Captain Blowhard about his new role on ESPN’s NBA Countdown.

Jerry Barmash of FishbowlNY notes that WFAN will begin its FM simulcast on Friday.

Jonathan Tannenwald of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Goalkeeper blog talks with an NBC Sports exec about the acquisition of the English Premier League.

Dave Hughes of DCRTV writes in Press Box about Baltimore’s sports radio ratings.

Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says Comcast SportsNet has hired a replacement for the opening left behind by Kelli Johnson who left for CSN Houston last month.

LSUSports notes that Tiger alum Lolo Jones will be the celebrity prognosticator on College GameDay this Saturday.

Mike Graham at the Dallas Morning News discusses Texas Tech’s new media rights deal with Fox Sports.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle notes that the big cable and satellite providers have not made a deal with Comcast SportsNet for the Rockets games.

David said the Rockets’ season opener scored lower ratings as compared to last year.

The Oklahoman’s Mel Bracht talks with women’s basketball legend Nancy Lieberman about her new role as studio analyst for Thunder games.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch notes a former Indianapolis Colts cheerleader becoming a popular Windy City TV personality.

Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune says a Real Salt Lake MLS playoff game next week may not be on live TV.

Eric Pincus of the Los Angeles Times says the Lakers updated their fans on the carriage dispute between several providers and Time Warner SportsNet.

Joe Flint of the Times says uncertainty about the Los Angeles Dodgers’ TV rights is influencing the reluctance of cable and satellite providers in regards to picking up the Time Warner regional sports network.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the five things he learned over the last week.

Sports Media Watch says Hurricane Sandy may have affected the ratings for the Celtics-Heat NBA season opener on TNT.

Steve Lepore at SB Nation’s Puck The Media says English Premier League games on NBC Sports Group should compliment the NHL, not compete with it, whenever it returns from its dreaded lockout.

Dave Kohl at The Broadcast Booth looks at some various sports radio news from across the country.

The Big Lead notes that ABC is considering to option a sitcom based on ESPN’s Sage Steele.

And that will do it.

Bringing Back The Friday Megalinks

It’s been too long since I’ve done a links post and why not do this with a Friday megalink post.

Your Weekend Viewing Picks have all of my sports and entertainment suggestions.

Now to your linkage.

National

Michael Hiestand of USA Today talks with Fox’s Erin Andrews about her being put under a bigger microscope now that she has higher profile gigs.

John Ourand & Michael Botta from Sports Business Daily handicap the bidding for the US rights to the English Premier League.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News writes that the EPL bidding is going to a second round.

At Sports on Earth, Will Leitch makes no bones about being a Joe Buck apologist.

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy looks at the ratings for three KHL airings on ESPN2.

To The Godfather, Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina who notes that in Hot Clicks, ESPN’s Samantha Steele is taken. Sorry, fanboys.

Jim Romenesko notices that ESPN.com is trying to play eye doctor.

Jane McManus of espnW looks at MLB’s new dress policy for reporters.

Sports Rantz explores the revamping of the 6 p.m. ET SportsCenter that could lead to more appearances for Lindsay Czarniak.

Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report talks with CBS’ Doug Gottlieb about his first job in broadcasting.

At the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center, Ronnie Ramos says reporters should throw objectivity out the window when it comes to social media.

Ken Kerschbaumer of Sports Video Group says YES Network is finding a TV-friendly environment at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

David Goetzl of MediaPost says ESPN is trying to expand the SportsCenter brand beyond television.,

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid has today’s New York Post cover involving the Yankees.

Kristi Dosh as ESPN.com says GoDaddy’s hiring of a new ad agency could lead to the dropping of spokesperson Danica Patrick.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell says it’s good that the Chicago White Sox listened to their fans and dropped ticket prices for next season.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing has the worst sports tweets of 2012 to date.

Leah Goldman of the Business Insider’s Sports Page has what you need to know about ESPN’s Samantha Steele.

Joe Favorito looks at the Battle for the Big Apple, NBA style.

Dave Kohl of The Broadcast Booth takes a look at Joe Buck’s rare NFL/MLB doubleheader on Sunday.

Bob’s Blitz talks about CBS Sports Radio giving writer John Feinstein a daily show when the network launches in 2013.

East and Mid-Atlantic

The Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal and Maine Hockey Journal have formed a partnership on local sports coverage.

At the Boston Globe, Chad Finn reviews Comcast SportNet New England’s NFL Pregame Live show.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette talks with a former WEEI morning show personality.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says Time Inc. has tapped a Sports Illustrated web editor to head its entire sports portfolio.

In the New York Post, Phil Mushnick wants everyone to be like him.

Jerry Barmash at Fishbowl NY notes that the Yankees and Giants top the local TV ratings.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union compares and contrasts Fox and TBS in the MLB Postseason.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call notes that a local sports talk show host is no longer employed at his radio station.

In Press Box, Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com has Baltimore Ravens voice and local sports anchor Gerry Sandusky explaining why he won’t change his name.

Also in Press Box, Dave says the Washington Nationals are seeking a bigger rights fee from MASN.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says the City Paper will not mention the DC NFL team by its regular name.

Dan says Fox was filming a spot regarding DC NFL team QB Robert Griffin III this week.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says the Nationals’ brand is seeing more attention after its regular season success.

South

Rick Stroud at the Tampa Bay Times says Sunday’s game involving the Saints and Bucs did sell out in time.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle has some college football announcer pairings and a few local news and notes.

In his media notebook, Mel Bracht at The Oklahoman looks at Bill Simmons making the dangerous move to television.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says Time Warner Cable picks up three local high school football games this weekend.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has ESPN college basketball analyst Dan Dakich handicapping the Big Ten.

Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune says the Cubs, WGN and Comcast SportsNet will quickly decide on a replacement for Bob Brenly who left and took his talents to the Southwest.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch wonders why the Sun-Times would hire Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy to be a columnist.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that the local Fox TV station had to juggle severe warning alerts while airing the Cardinals in the NLCS.

West

Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic says the Diamondbacks have named their new TV broadcasting team.

John Maffei of the North County Times writes on a former San Diego Charger who’s deciding whether he wants to play in the CFL or pursue broadcasting full-time.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star explores the cast changes to ESPN’s NBA Countdown pregame show.

In his media notebook, Jim says the Pac-12 Network can be found online for subscribers of participating cable and satellite providers.

Jim has his Weekend Viewing Picks.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News is fed up of cable carriage disputes.

Tom has some stuff that didn’t make it into his column.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail talks with former NHL coach and TV analyst Mike Keenan on how to survive the lockout.

The Toronto Sports Media Blog has some of the local sports radio ratings.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog says MLB got a rare ratings win over the CFL last Friday.

And that will conclude the megalinks. Enjoy the sports weekend.

College Football Viewing Picks For Week 8, 10/20/2012, All Times Eastern

Schedule courtesy Matt’s College Sports

Pregame & Studio Shows
College GameDay live from Gainesville, FL — ESPNU, 9 a.m./ESPN, 10 a.m.
BTN Football Pregame — Big Ten Network, 11 a.m.
ACC Blitz — ACC Network, noon
College Football Today — CBS, 3 p.m.
College Football Scoreboard — ESPN2, 3 p.m.
College Football Scoreboard — ESPN, 6 p.m.
BTN Football Postgame — Big Ten Network, 6:30 p.m.
BTN Football Pregame — Big Ten Network, 7:30 p.m.
The Final Drive — Big Ten Network, 11 p.m.
College Football Final — ESPN2, 1:30 a.m. (Saturday)

noon
Purdue at Ohio State — ABC/ESPN2 (Beth Mowins/Joey Galloway/Lewis Johnson)
Virginia Tech at Clemson — ABC/ESPN2 (Mike Patrick/Ed Cunningham/Jeannine Edwards)

Rutgers at Temple — Big East Network (Eamon McAnaney/David Diaz-Infante/Paul Carcaterra)

New Hampshire at Maine — Comcast SportsNet (Bay Area/Mid-Atlantic/New England/Philadelphia)

LSU at Texas A&M — ESPN/ESPN 3D (Dave Pasch/Brian Griese/Jenn Brown)
Minnesota at Wisconsin — ESPNU (Tom Hart/John Congemi)
Northern Arizona at Akron — ESPN Plus (Michael Reghi/Doug Graber)

Iowa State at Oklahoma State — FX (Justin Kutcher/Eric Crouch/Darius Walker)
Tennessee State at Jacksonville State — Fox College Sports Pacific (Bob Belvin/Kevin Ingram)

Penn at Yale — NBC Sports Network (Randy Moss/Ross Tucker/Kelli Johnson)

Auburn at Vanderbilt — SEC Network, 12:21 p.m. kickoff (Dave Neal/Andre Ware/Cara Capuano)

12:30 p.m.
Wake Forest at Virginia — ACC Network

3 p.m.
Stanford at Cal — Fox (Craig Bolerjack/Joel Klatt/Petros Papadakis)
Boston College at Georgia Tech — Fox Sports Net (regional) (Paul Kennedy/Keith Jones/Jenn Hildreth)

3:30 p.m.
Nebraska at Northwestern — ABC/ESPN2 (Bob Wischusen/Danny Kanell/Maria Taylor)
South Florida at Louisville — ABC (Mark Neely/Ray Bentley)
Texas Tech at TCU — ABC/ESPN2 (Dave Lamont/Kelly Stouffer)

Michigan State at Michigan — Big Ten Network (Matt Devlin/Glen Mason/J Leman)

South Carolina at Florida — CBS (Verne Lundquist/Gary Danielson/Tracy Wolfson)
Indiana at Navy — CBS Sports Network (Grant Boone/Todd Christensen/Sheehan Stanwick Burch)

James Madison at Richmond — Comcast SportsNet (Chicago/Mid-Atlantic/Philadelphia)

NC State at Maryland — ESPNU (Anish Shroff/Dan Hawkins)
Pittsburgh at Buffalo — ESPN Plus (Bob Picozzi/Chris Doering)

Rice at Tulsa — Fox Sports Net (national)/Fox College Sports Central/WDCA/KICU (Mike Morgan/JC Pearson/Laura McKeenan)

BYU at Notre Dame — NBC (Tom Hammond/Mike Mayock/Alex Flanagan)
UNLV at Boise State — NBC Sports Network (Paul Burmeister/Rod Woodson/Anthony Herron)

Montana at North Dakota — Audience Network (DirecTV)/Root Sports (Northwest/Rocky Mountain)

6 p.m.
Colorado at USC — Pac-12 Network (Kevin Calabro/Adam Archuleta/Yogi Roth)

7 p.m.
Marshall at Southern Mississippi — CBS Sports Network (Dave Ryan/Steve Beuerlein/Evan Washburn)

Alabama at Tennessee — ESPN (Brad Nessler/Todd Blackledge/Holly Rowe)
Middle Tennessee at Mississippi State — ESPN2 (Mark Jones/Brock Huard/Jessica Mendoza)
North Carolina at Duke — ESPNU (Clay Matvick/Matt Stinchcomb/Allison Williams)
Idaho at Louisiana Tech — ESPN Plus (Trey Bender/Jay Taylor)

Kansas State at West Virginia — Fox/Fox Deportes (Gus Johnson/Charles Davis/Julie Alexandria)
Kansas at Oklahoma — Fox Sports Net (national)/Fox College Sports Central (Joel Myers/Brian Baldinger/Jim Knox)
Georgia at Kentucky — Fox Sports Net (regional) (Bob Rathbun/Tim Couch/Elizabeth Moreau)
East Carolina at UAB — Fox College Sports Atlantic (Steve Physioc/Ben Leber/Lesley McCann)

New Mexico at Air Force — Root Sports Rocky Mountain

8 p.m.
Baylor at Texas — ABC (Sean McDonough/Chris Spielman/Quint Kessenich)
Florida State at Miami — ABC (Brent Musburger/Kirk Herbstreit/Heather Cox)

Penn State at Iowa — Big Ten Network (Eric Collins/Derek Rackley/Jon Jansen)

Central Florida at Memphis — CSS

10 p.m.
Washington at Arizona — Pac-12 Network (Ted Robinson/Glenn Parker/Ryan Nece)

10:30 p.m.
San Diego State at Nevada — CBS Sports Network (James Bates/Aaron Taylor/Lauren Gardner)

Utah at Oregon State — ESPN2 (Joe Tessitore/Matt Millen/Shannon Spake)
South Carolina State at Florida A&M — ESPNU (Joe Davis/Jay Walker) (same day coverage)

Wyoming at Fresno State — Time Warner SportsNet/Root Sports (Northwest/Rocky Mountain)/Comcast SportsNet Bay Area)

Bringing Out Your Monday Linkage

Ok, time for some links on this Columbus Day holiday for some of you.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today has a bunch of news and notes in his Monday sports media column including a recap of the NFL Today interview with scab NFL referee Lance Easley.

Tim Baysinger of Broadcasting & Cable says the first-ever MLB Wild Card Games did well for TBS last Friday.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says Time Warner Cable SportsNet has signed its first affiliate for its Los Angeles Lakers-centric regional sports network.

Over to Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report. He talks with Steve Madden, the man in charge of Sports on Earth, the joint venture between USA Today and MLB Advanced Media. Disclaimer: Fang’s Bites is an independently-owned blog affiliated with USA Today Media Group.

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid has video of San Diego Super Chargers safety Atari Bigby’s creative introduction on Sunday Night Football.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing notes that NBC’s Cris Collinsworth called New Orleans’ game-ending strip sack of San Diego Chargers QB Philip Rivers just before it occurred.

Brandon Costa at Sports Video Group says MLB Network prepared to air its first postseason games not knowing where they would be.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell tells us that MLB teams don’t keep any of the playoff ticket money the games generate.

Jim Romenesko notes how ESPN edited a blogger’s KKK-Rod headline.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says the Mets are looking for ways to refinance its huge debts through its regional sports network, SNY.

As usual, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post hates everything on television.

Jerry Barmash of FishbowlNY notes that long-time New York Knicks analyst John Andariese is retiring.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun says TBS stepped up to the task for the New York Yankees-Orioles game on Sunday.

David says CBS’ Ian Eagle got the job done during yesterday’s Baltimore Ravens-Kansas City Chiefs game while his partner, Dan Fouts did not.

Tom Jones from the Tampa Bay Times reviews the weekend in sports television.

Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Fox Sports Florida will air all 81 Magic games this season instead of splitting them between FS Florida and Sun Sports.

David Barron at the Houston Chronicle says the Astros are considering replacements to its radio team of Dave Raymond and Brett Dolan who were let go last week.

David says ESPN’s Jon Gruden brings his enthusiasm for the NFL to Monday Night Football.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviews the CBS NFL Today interview of former scab referee Lance Easley.

Missouri Sports Magazine notes that the Kansas City Royals have set a ratings record for the 2012 season.

Dusty Saunders from the Denver Post says Sunday gave sports fans plenty of action to watch.

Paola Boivin of the Arizona Republic says there are a number of candidates to replace the Diamondbacks TV team of Daron Sutton and Mark Grace who were let go by the team after the season.

Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times says the Lakers have become the least-viewed team in the NBA thanks to its deal with Time Warner Cable Sports.

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

Tom has the five things he learned from watching sports over the weekend.

Jon Wilner at the San Jose Mercury News updates us on the Pac-12 Network and its dispute with DirecTV.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says fans are split over which side to support in the NHL lockout.

Ryan Lambert at Yahoo’s Puck Daddy looks at ESPN picking up KHL games in the wake of the NHL lockout.

Ty Duffy at the Big Lead says MLS is doing well at the gate, but not on TV.

Media Rantz informs us that former NFL Network original Kara Henderson left broadcasting to get married. Congrats to Kara.

That’s going to do it.

Quick Tuesday Linkage

Let’s do a few links on this Tuesday.

Edmund Lee of Bloomberg analyzes the new MLB TV deals with Fox and Turner.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says with some playoff spots decided, ESPN has dropped plans for a duel MLB doubleheaders on Wednesday.

Jacqueline Palank of the Wall Street Journal reviews ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary, “Broke” which premieres tonight.

Nat Ives from Advertising Age writes that one unexpected beneficiary of the NFL referees lockout was Buffalo Wild Wings.

At Forbes, the great Maury Brown writes about Time Warner Cable launching not one, but two regional sports networks in Southern California.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine says NBC’s Sunday Night Football is expected to dominate the night, but media buyers say ABC’s lineup is a good alternative.

Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report looks at tonight’s 30 for 30 premiere.

Jordan Rabinowitz of SportsGrid has a sneak peek of tonight’s 30 for 30 doc.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says two regional sports networks made their debuts Monday with lots of fanfare, but a low viewership.

Tim Baysinger of Broadcasting & Cable notes that NBC Sports Network has signed its second NCAA Division I Conference to air its basketball games.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell wonders what’s keeping Mark Sanchez from losing his job as New York Jets starting quarterback.

Tim Burke at Deadspin has video of an ESPN raw feed of a motorsports event that really has to be seen to be believed.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that ESPN will focus on the American League East in its final day of MLB regular season coverage.

Ken McMillan of the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says Army makes a couple of appearances on CBS Sports Network’s college hockey coverage.

Kevin Cooney of the Bucks County (PA) Courier Times notes a milestone for Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia.

Bob Smizik of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes about CBS Sports Network making a new hire.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says MASN and a local radio station are bolstering their baseball coverage for the postseason.

Dan notes that ESPN The Magazine devoting an entire issue to DC sports.

The Tampa Bay Business Journal says two central Florida radio stations have switched to NBC Sports Radio.

The Orlando Sentinel looks at one sports radio station flipping to NBC Sports Radio from ESPN Radio.

Chip Towers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that Georgia football coach Mark Richt makes an appearance in a College GameDay promo.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says Fox Sports Ohio will air Xavier basketball games this season.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch recaps yesterday’s Bulls Media Day.

The Kansas City Star explains why it doesn’t put the DC NFL team’s name in its copy.

Joe Flint from the Los Angeles Times says MLB hit a home run by more than doubling its rights fees from Fox and Turner.

James Mirtle of the Toronto Globe and Mail talks about ESPN getting the rights to the Russian KHL featuring locked out NHL players.

Matt Yoder from Awful Announcing notes former New York Knicks GM Isiah Thomas could be coming to ESPN.

Sports Media Watch says Bears-Cowboys gave ESPN some big overnight numbers for Monday Night Football.

That’s going to do it for today.

Some Monday Linkage

I’ll do some quick linkage on this Monday.

In USA Today, Michael Hiestand talks with NFL on Fox rules analyst Mike Pereira.

In his extensive Monday Morning Quarterback column, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King remembers NFL Films’ Steve Sabol.

John Ourand at Sports Business Journal notes that MLB will be increasing its haul from ESPN, Fox and Turner in the latest TV contract.

Rick Porter at zap2it says NBC’s Sunday Night Football and CBS beat the Emmys on ABC like a drum on Sunday.

Anthony Crupi of AdWeek writes that the NHL lockout is putting NBC Sports Network in a huge bind.

Toni Fitzgerald at Media Life says NBC’s Sunday Night Football scored an overnight ratings win over the network competition.

Ed Sherman at The Sherman Report talks with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen.

ESPN.com’s Darren Rovell says the next big thing is putting team logos on food.

Mike McCarthy at Sports Biz USA tells us that the Brooklyn Nets cheerleaders will stress more of the sizzle in their uniforms.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes that not every Time Warner Cable customer had access to NFL Network and NFL RedZone yesterday.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is the reason why Americans can’t have nice things.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says Notre Dame’s resurgence has NBC executives doing backflips at its headquarters.

David Zurawik in the Baltimore Sun says NBC’s Hines Ward still doesn’t feel the love from Ravens fans.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle writes that Sunday’s Texans-Broncos game received a big rating in H-Town.

David says former Red Sox and Astros voice Jerry Trupiano called two recent games for MLB.com.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer has the channel numbers for NFL Network and NFL RedZone for Insight customers.

Bob Wolfley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tells us that Texans-Broncos did really well locally.

Paul M. Banks at the Chicago Sports Media Watch reports that Comcast SportsNet has replaced the popular Sarah Kustok with a new reporter.

The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth has five things he learned from the weekend.

Tom has the SoCal sports calendar for this week.

Bruce Dowbiggin in the Toronto Globe and Mail notes that Blue Jays analyst Greg Zaun may be facing some disciplinary action after criticizing the team culture following Yunel Escobar’s homophobic incident.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing looks at how a DirecTV error made Lions fans miss a key touchdown during Sunday’s game against Tennessee.

Sports Media Watch notes the overnight ratings for Sunday Night Football.

SMW says IndyCar finished its worst rated season ever.

That’s all.

Time Warner Channel Locations For NFL Network & NFL RedZone

This comes from Time Warner Cable. These are the channel locations for NFL Network and NFL RedZone in both standard and high definition for its systems across the country.

NFL Network has been added this weekend after it came to an agreement with Time Warner on Friday. A full launch will come before Thursday Night Football next week.

The chart has been pasted below.

That will do it. We’re back in the morning. Been a busy night on the site.

Your Week 3 NFL Viewing Guide

Let’s give you a few things to watch for in Week 3 in The League Where They Play for Play.

Why are Time Warner Cable and Bright House subscribers a happy lot today? – That’s a silly question, chickie. If you really need to know, just ask one. Seriously, NFL Network and Time Warner came to a surprise agreement on Friday in time for Sunday’s games. So NFL Network and RedZone get access to 12 million customers across the country and in 11 team markets: Buffalo, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Cleveland, Dallas, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New York, San Diego and Tampa-St. Petersburg. This also affects Los Angeles, a secondary market to San Diego, the Capital Region of New York, Milwaukee and several other areas. Time Warner had been the last holdout of the major cable and satellite providers and it appeared that an agreement was nowhere in sight, but instead of going another year without NFL Network, the two sides finally came together. So Time Warner and Bright House customers will be able to see NFL Network on digital basic and NFL RedZone on a sports tier.

Who has the doubleheader this week? – CBS once again. The main game at 4:25 p.m. ET will be Denver at Houston (Jim Nantz/Phil Simms).

What’s Fox showing on Sunday afternoon when it’s not airing the NFL? – Depending on the game in your area, it will show Liverpool vs. Manchester United on tape delay either at 2:30 p.m. ET or 4:30 p.m. The game will be shown live on Fox Soccer at 8:25 if you wish to get up that early.

Any blackouts? – I’m glad you asked. Just one, in San Diego where local fans will not see the Falcons and Chargers on Fox. Miami avoided a blackout after getting an extension to sell tickets for the Jets-Dolphins game. Raider Nation is happy after the blackout was lifted so fans can see Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh.

What are your games of the day? – For CBS, I’ll go with the two late games, Denver at Houston (Jim Nantz/Phil Simms) and Pittsburgh at Oakland (Ian Eagle/Dan Fouts).

On Fox, I’ll choose San Francisco at Minnesota (Kenny Albert/Daryl Johnston/Tony Siragusa) as the 49ers go for 3-0 and the 4:05 game between two 2-0 teams, Philadelphia at Arizona (Thom Brennaman/Brian Billick/Laura Okmin).

And yes, there’s the primetime matchup on Sunday night, New England at Baltimore on NBC (Al Michaels/Cris Collinsworth/Michele Tafoya). That should be quite interesting.

Any trends I should know about after the first two weeks of action? – There are three of interesting notes from the first two weeks. One, the 4:25 national window has garnered lower ratings than Sunday Night Football. Usually, Fox’s late game outrates NBC, but that hasn’t been the case so far this season. And CBS’ ratings for the New York Jets-Pittsburgh Steelers game received the lowest ratings for the late game on any network since 2009.

CBS’ ratings are down from last year in both Week 1 and Week 2.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football is also down after two weeks.

Anything else? – No. Just watch the games and enjoy your Sunday.

It’s Official! NFL Network is Now on Bright House & Time Warner Cable Sytems

It took seven years, but finally, NFL Network and its companion channel, NFL RedZone will make their debuts on Bright House and Time Warner Cable in time for Sunday’s games.

Officials for Bright House/Time Warner say that both channels will be on this weekend with full debuts made before Thursday Night Football’s Week 4 game on September 27.

Time Warner had been the lone holdout of the major cable and satellite providers and hope seemed bleak for an agreement this season before Bloomberg News broke the agreement this morning.

This allows fans in 12 NFL markets including New York, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Kansas City, Dallas, Green Bay-Mikwaukee among others to gain access to NFL Network.

Time Warner says NFL Network will be on digital basic while RedZone will be placed on a sports tier.

Here’s the announcement.

TIME WARNER CABLE & BRIGHT HOUSE NETWORKS SIGN MULTI-YEAR DEALS TO CARRY NFL NETWORK & NFL REDZONE

NFL Network reached multi-year agreements with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, the country’s respective second- and sixth-largest cable providers, for carriage of NFL Network and the NFL RedZone channel, it was announced today.

NFL Network and NFL RedZone will debut in Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks homes beginning this Sunday September 23, with full launch before Thursday, September 27.

“We’re delighted to have reached an agreement for NFL Network and NFL RedZone that provides a good value to our customers,” said Melinda Witmer, Executive Vice President and Chief Video and Content Officer for Time Warner Cable. “The additional games this year and the proven appeal of NFL RedZone will certainly prove to be a draw for our customers. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with the NFL.”

“We thank our customers for their patience while a fair deal was reached for all involved,” said Steve Miron, CEO, Bright House Networks. “It is especially rewarding to say yes to our customers who have requested NFL Network’s award-winning coverage.”

“We are excited to work with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks to bring fans football 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” said NFL Network President and CEO Steve Bornstein. “Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks subscribers will be able to enjoy our weekly Thursday Night Football schedule, our award-winning Sunday NFL GameDay shows, NFL Total Access, NFL Films programming and much more. In addition, the NFL RedZone channel is a truly exciting way to enhance your Sunday football viewing experience each and every week.”

Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are major cable providers in the home markets for 12 NFL teams (Buffalo, Carolina, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Green Bay, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New York Giants, New York Jets, San Diego and Tampa Bay). For Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, NFL Network will be available on the Digital Basic and Sports Pass tiers, and NFL RedZone will be available to Sports Pass customers.

NFL Network is the home of Thursday Night Football — 13 primetime NFL regular season games from September through December — and is the destination for all that happens around the sport of football. NFL Network airs seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and provides viewers with more than 2,500 hours per year of original programming, including: NFL Total Access, NFL GameDay, the new four-hour NFL AM weekday morning show, Top 10, Playbook, NFL Replay, NFL Classic Games plus the Emmy award-winning Sound FX and America’s Game.

NFL Network also features every NFL preseason game, the Senior Bowl, plus more coverage of the NFL Draft, Pro Football Hall of Fame ceremony, NFL Scouting Combine and Super Bowl than anyone else.

The extraordinarily popular NFL RedZone, produced by NFL Network, whips around every NFL game on Sunday afternoons, delivering the touchdowns and most exciting moments as they happen and in high definition. When a team goes inside the 20-yard line, fans see the crucial plays live. The channel keeps fans up-to-date in real time, switching from game to game with live look-ins, highlights and a chance to see every important play. For more information on NFL RedZone, visit www.nfl.com/redzonetv.

That will do it.

REPORT: NFL Network & Time Warner Cable Reach Agreement In Time For This Sunday’s Games

Well, this is certainly a surprise. After hearing the two sides had not been talking, Bloomberg’s Scott Soshnick breaks the news that NFL Network has reached a carriage agreement with the last holdout of the major cable and satellite providers, Time Warner.

Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand says the deal was reached in time for this weekend’s games meaning NFL Network and NFL RedZone will be made available to subscribers as soon as the agreement is finalized.

Time Warner Cable and NFL sources confirm the deal. NFL RedZone will be up and running this Sunday.

— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) September 21, 2012

Time Warner had remained steadfast in refusing to add NFL Network keeping its 12 million subscribers across the country from accessing the channel’s Thursday Night Football games and other programming. However, it appears the two sides have reached a harmonic convergence.

The agreement could be formally announced as early as today. If it is, you’ll see the press release here.

Picking Out Some Sunday Links For You

Let’s do some Sunday linkage on this first NFL regular season Sunday of 2012.

We’ll begin with Pat Eaton-Robb of the Associated Press with an interesting story on how Connecticut is fast becoming home of major sports media companies.

Candace Jackson of the Wall Street talks about her visit to Rich Eisen and his wife, Suzy Shuster’s home in beautiful Beverly Hills.

Jon Gold from CBSSports.com has statements from Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott on getting the conference’s networks on Dish Network.

Also from CBSSports.com, Dennis Dodd says the SEC expects to have new TV deals in place including the super secret SEC Network, not the one run by ESPN.

Media Rantz solves the mystery of what happened to NFL Network’s Kara Henderson.

Liana Baker of Reuters reports that an NHL lockout could hurt ratings momentum for NBC Sports Network.

John Gaudiosi of Forbes.com tells us that Sony Playstation 3 gamers get a discounted price for  DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel says Dish Network has beaten DirecTV to the punch and made a deal with Pac 12 Networks in time for yesterday’s college football games.

Georg Szalai of the Hollywood Reporter writes that movie director James Cameron will be assisting UK’s Sky Sports in producing a 3-D production of this month’s Ryder Cup.

Tim Nudd of Adweek looks at ESPN’s very funny SportsCenter promo featuring John Clayton that has already gone viral.

Anthony Crupi from Adweek notes that NBC broke even on the 2012 Olympics.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch has your NFL Broadcasting Guide for the 2012 season.

Eric Deggans of the Tampa Bay Times, writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center has a theory as to why some NFL teams fail to sell out their games.

Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report has former ESPN’er Charley Steiner recalling two of the funniest “This is SportsCenter” ads ever.

Ed also has some videos from the early days of Monday Night Football. Make that very early days.

ESPN’s Darren Rovell wonders if CBS is selling Super Bowl ads on the cheap.

Evan Weiner of Examiner.com says the late Art Modell deserves better from Cleveland fans. I hate to tell you, Evan, but as a Browns fan, Modell made his bed and has to lie in it.

On the other hand, Newsday’s Bob Glauber says he can’t reconcile Modell’s pulling the Browns from Cleveland with the other parts of his legacy.

Rachel Margolis at ESPN’s Front Row PR blog says College GameDay heads to Tennessee for Week 3.

Drew Drawbaugh of Engadget reports that Google Fiber subscribers will get access to NFL Network and NFL RedZone starting tomorrow.

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe says former Celtic and Chicago Bull Brian Scalabrine will join Comcast SportsNet New England as an analyst.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says two former American Basketball Association team owners who get to collect part of the NBA’s TV revenue in perpetuity, want even more and are suing to get it.

Tanzina Vega of the Times says ESPN Deportes Radio NY will be broadcasting Jets games in Spanish this season.

The Albany Times Union’s Pete Dougherty has NFL Commish Roger Goodell disappointed that the league doesn’t have a deal with Time Warner Cable to carry NFL Network.

David Zurawik from the Baltimore Sun says ratings for the Grand Prix of Baltimore fell by almost 60% from the year before. However, last year’s race was on ABC while this year’s edition was on NBC Sports Network.

David speaks with Amber Theoharis who has left MASN for NFL Network and will replace the aforementioned Kara Henderson.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with Fox Sports college football analyst Charles Davis.

Coley Harvey at the Orlando Sentinel asks if ESPN’s College GameDay will pay a visit to Tallahassee later this month.

Jimmy Burch in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes that the new Big 12 deal with ESPN and Fox will allow for more national broadcasts.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle has the college football media guide for this season.

Mel Bracht in The Oklahoman says yesterday’s PPV production of the Florida A&M-Oklahoma game was network quality.

Tim Feran of the Columbus (OH) Dispatch says NFL Network and Time Warner Cable are no closer to an agreement than when the channel debuted.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News wonders how long DirecTV can hold out not carrying the Pac 12 Networks.

Tom says Fox tapped the right man to lead its World Cup coverage.

Sports Media Watch notes that last week’s PGA Deutsche Bank Championship hit a five year ratings high.

Dann Stupp and John Morgan of MMA Junkie write that NBC Sports Network will hire some familiar names for an upcoming World Series of Fighting telecast.

And that will do it. The NFL pregame show quotage is coming up next.

NFL Online and Tablet Streaming For 2012

As we approach the 2012 NFL regular season, let’s take a look at the online streaming plans for the League’s TV partners. Believe it or not, online real-time streaming of games began back in 2007 when DirecTV released its Supercast app for computers (for Internet Explorer only!) and allowed subscribers to its NFL Sunday Ticket service to watch the Sunday afternoon games online. At that time, streaming to mobiles was just in its infancy and the quality on a 3G network was horrible.

The following year, NBC announced it would stream its entire Sunday Night Football schedule online.

Since then, the NFL has taken baby steps in streaming. DirecTV’s Sunday NFL Ticket has expanded to mobiles and tablets as well as a gaming platforms. ESPN’s Monday Night Football now streams on the WatchESPN service, but only for authenticated subscribers of Bright House, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon Fios systems. And the NFL has provided mobile streaming rights to Verizon meaning only customers of the cell phone provider can watch Sunday, Monday and Thursday Night Football on their devices.

With the new TV contracts signed at the end of last year, the NFL’s broadcast and cable partners have limited streaming rights. I’ve asked several networks about their streaming plans and I’ll provide answers, where applicable, on how this season shapes up online, on mobiles and on tablets.

• CBS — No streaming plans.
• DirecTV — NFL Sunday Ticket streamed online, mobiles and on tablets. Also on participating gaming consoles.
• ESPN — Monday Night Football streamed online and on tablets at WatchESPN only for authenticated cable customers (Bright House, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon Fios)
• Fox — No streaming plans.
• NBC — Sunday Night Football streamed online at NBCSports.com also available on tablets through browsers. Not available through the NBC Sports Live Extra app.
• NFL Network — Thursday Night Football streamed on mobiles through NFL Live on Verizon devices only. Awaiting word if there will be streaming on tablets this season.

Sunday and Monday Night Football are streamed on mobiles through NFL Live on Verizon devices only.

While Super Bowl XLVI was streamed through NBCSports.com only on computers, there’s no word yet whether CBS will receive permission to stream Super Bowl XLVII. It had sought to stream Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, but was turned down by the league. We’ll see if the NFL decides to allow CBS to show the Super Bowl online in 2013.

A Few Wednesday Sports Media Thoughts

I’ll provide a few thoughts as we hit midweek. They’ll be in bullet form, of course.

• First, here’s hoping the people of New Orleans will be ok in the midst of Hurricane Isaac. They’ve put up with way too much from Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Gustav and the BP oil spill, I pray they endure this without major damage.
• I’m going to be interested to see how Fox Sports’ new primetime college football package is going to fare against ESPN’s venerable lineup. Fox will focus on the Big 12 and Pac-12. ESPN/ABC can tap plenty of major conferences from the Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and place any big game it wants on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. We’ll see if Fox can hold its own.
• As both CBS and NBC attempt to get their sports radio networks off the ground, both are hoping to get that big name to anchor their lineup. CBS has Doug Gottlieb thus far. The rest of the dayparts have to be filled. NBC has Erik Kuselias plus a few other hires including Rodney Harrison for a weekend show. One of the X Factors for NBC is if it can land Dan Patrick and lure him away from DirecTV/Fox Sports Radio and get him for the 9 a.m. – noon ET slot. That would give NBC some credibility, stations and a big hole filled.
• Original MLB Network reporter Trenni Kusnierek, who’s been co-hosting an afternoon drive radio show in Milwaukee, is shipping up to  Boston where she will become an anchor/reporter for Comcast SportsNet New England. In effect, she replaces Nicole Zaloumis who is at NFL Network.
• While the Pac-12 Networks have launched up and down the West Coast, it has yet to sign satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network. Issues include the high price per subscriber and the seven networks under the Pac-12 umbrella. DirecTV just wants to carry the national network, but the league wants it to pick up everything. No sign of an agreement with either provider in the near future.
• And speaking of disputes, Time Warner Cable continues its holdout of NFL Network. While the network was able to pick up Cablevision this month, it still can’t get Time Warner in the fold. And it appears that there isn’t an agreement in sight. Time Warner can create its own Southern California regional sports network and attempt to get the Dodgers, but it remains steadfast in its refusal to provide NFL Network and also continues to be stubborn in not picking up MASN in North Carolina. It’s all about power and money in these disputes and who will blink first. Right now, neither Time Warner nor NFL Network are willing to talk. That’s too bad for the consumer.
• It’s unfortunate that none of NBCUniversal’s networks will carry the Paralympics live which begin this week in London. NBC Sports Network will air taped specials in September. Not good enough. Many of these athletes are quite courageous and it would be nice to get some live coverage to learn their stories. It’s not necessary for NBC to pick it up, but how about NBC Sports Network or Universal Sports? They need the inventory. C’mon, NBC.

And we’re done.

Doing Our Friday Megalinks

Haven’t been able to provide the Friday megalinks in a while. Let’s do an edition today.

Normally I include a link to the Weekend Viewing Picks, but I’ll be doing that tonight so you can find it on my site when it’s posted. If you follow me on Twitter or have an RSS feed, you’ll be updated as soon as it posts. If not, you can find it later.

Let’s do the links.

National

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand wonders what effect the gold medal win by the US Women’s Soccer National Team will have on the sport in the long run.

Michael also live blogged Thursday’s Olympic Primetime on NBC.

Jeffrey Martin of USA Today looks at the grand experiment that’s known as the Pac-12 Networks.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch talks with NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus about the NBCUniversal’s handling of the 2012 Olympics.

At the Sports on Earth blog, Joe Posnanski chronicles his day in covering the Olympics.

Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily says with NFL preseason games airing in many local markets on Thursday, NBC Olympic overnight ratings took a hit.

Bill King of SBD says CBS Sports is forging ahead with a show featuring the professional debut of several US Olympic boxers despite their poor performance in London.

Ryan Baucom of SBD writes that several Olympic athletes are getting a boost in Twitter followers after their success in the London Games.

Tripp Mickle of SBD says Universal Sports broke out an ad on NBC Thursday trying to promote its Olympic sports programming. Good luck with that.

Eric Fisher of SBD says Yahoo is declaring victory over NBCOlympics.com for unique pageviews.

Sohrab Amari of the Wall Street Journal reviews an NBC News documentary fronted by Tom Brokaw which will air on NBC’s Olympic coverage on Saturday.

Sarah Kwak of Sports Illustrated talks with Lolo Jones about the media firestorm that swelled just before she ran her 100 meters hurdles race.

In the Sherman Report, Ed Sherman talks with outgoing Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan about his first job. Ryan will be missed in the pages of the Globe.

Sports Media Journal’s Keith Thibault and I have an Olympic-themed podcast with Richard Sandomir of the New York Times and Bruce Beck of WNBC-TV.

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Today Show host Matt Lauer had an icy reunion with former co-host Ann Curry on NBC’s London Olympics set.

John Eggerton at Broadcasting & Cable writes that the FCC has already denied a Comcast request to stay its decision requiring the cable provider to give space to the Tennis Channel.

Christopher Heine of Adweek says Olympic marketers have failed to medal in their social media campaigns.

But Simon Dumenco of Advertising Age looks at the Olympic sponsors that managed to get a boost through social media.

Michael Learmonth of Advertising Age says NBC and the International Olympic Committee have to fix the Olympic business model before it breaks down.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life notes that NBC’s ratings for Wednesday Olympic Primetime show drew better viewership numbers than Atlanta in 1996.

Brandon Costa of Sports Video Group says CBS Sports is preparing for all type of weather conditions for this weekend’s PGA Championship.

Karen Hogan of SVG looks at NBC New York Olympic operations.

Ken Kerschbaumer at SVG says Denmark TV has a floating barge studio for the London Olympics. Now that’s pretty cool.

And Birgit Heidsiek of SVG says Eurosport TV is producing the Olympics in 3-D.

Jason Fry of the Poynter Institute and writing as the ESPN Ombudsman investigates a plagiarism incident at the Alleged Worldwide Leader.

Ronnie Ramos at the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center writes that the Pac-12 Conference is readying an aggressive digital strategy that will go along with its television distribution.

Ty Duffy at The Big Lead goes after former NBC Sports Emperor Dick Ebersol for being out of touch in defending the tape delayed Olympics.

The Big Lead looks at the Pac-12 being in the forefront of digital distribution after being marred for years of being behind the curve.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk says the Miami Dolphins will take advantage of the NFL’s relaxed TV blackout policy this weekend.

Emmett Jones of Sports Business Digest notes that Buffalo Wild Wings has purchased naming rights for a college bowl game. Looks like it will be going to overtime every year.

Sports Media Watch says with NBC committed to the Olympics this year, the NFL Hall of Fame preseason game was aired on NFL Network and naturally suffered a big viewer dropoff.

SMW reports that NBC got another ratings increase for the Olympics.

TVNewsCheck says Gannett is declaring victory saying three of its stations are the top-rated local NBC affiliates in key demographics.

Alex Weprin of TVNewser looks at NBC’s Today Show operations in London.

At TVSpy, Alex tours NBC’s operation center for its local affiliates in London.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe talks with Celtics TV voice Mike Gorman who’s been calling Olympic handball off a monitor for NBC.

At SB Nation Boston, Bruce Allen discusses Golf Channel’s meteoric rise and its plans to cover the PGA Championship this weekend.

Jane L. Levere of the New York Times writes about ESPN’s new ad campaign for Monday Night Football.

Verne Gay at Newsday notes that a long-time NBC Sports director is retiring after the Olympics.

Newsday’s Chris Serico wonders if NBC’s Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera will be a bit more subdued during the Olympic Closing Ceremony on Sunday than their talkative performance during the Opening Ceremony two Fridays ago.

Neil Best of Newsday catches up with ESPN’s Ron Jaworski who’s filling a new role at the network after being in the Monday Night Football both.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is in another one of his moods today.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes a local radio station’s high school football schedule.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says Pac-12 Networks will be seen on Time Warner Cable locally.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call says despite a lost season, the Philadelphia Phillies TV crew still has plenty to talk about during games.

Tim Richardson in Press Box looks at the business of fantasy football as leagues get ready to hold their drafts soon, if not already.

Sarah Kogod of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog notes that more people were watching the DC NFL Team in area sports bars last night as compared to the Nationals.

Dan Steinberg of the DC Sports Bog says the Nationals radio team tried to explain the term “ball bag”.

South

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald reviews HBO’s Hard Knocks on the Dolphins.

Craig Davis of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel says the Dolphins have announced their TV blackout policy today.

Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman says a local high school sports TV show expands to a new market.

Midwest

The Cincinnati Enquirer says ESPN’s College GameDay could be visiting the Queen City in February.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looks at Dick Ebersol’s latest comments on tape delaying Olympic events.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks with a local sports radio host who’s perturbed at a former employer.

Dan notes that the Olympics and the St. Louis Cardinals ratings have been hurt by each other.

West

Patrick Finley of the Arizona Daily Star says the Pac-12 Networks are ready to launch next week, but without a few major cable and satellite providers.

John Maffei of the North County Times talks with a former NBC Olympics analyst who was fired on the spot after calling a race.

To the Ventura County Star where Jim Carlisle talks about the increased spotlight on the Pac-12 through its new TV networks.

Jim says Twitter has become an Olympic event.

Lisa Dillman of the Los Angeles Times has the Irish radio call of boxer Katie Taylor’s victory giving the country its first gold medal of the Olympics.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says this is a critical time for beach volleyball as the sport is in transition now.

Tom has some Olympic TV notes in his blog.

And those are your supersized megalinks for today.

Let’s Do The Friday Megalinks

Time for Friday linkage.

The Weekend Viewing Picks have your sports and entertainment suggestions. Let’s get cracking.

National

Michael Hiestand from USA Today looks at TNT’s plans to go mostly split-screen during breaks for Saturday’s NASCAR race.

Tom Perrotta of the Wall Street Journal reports that the one Wimbledon souvenir the players want is the towel.

Alex Sherman at Bloomberg Businessweek talks with NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus about the Olympics.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk says enhancing the NFL fan experience might bring more people to games.

Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report is happy to learn that Jeremy Schaap’s ESPN Radio show is now available as a podcast.

Bob Pockrass at The Sporting News says NASCAR hopes that NBC Sports will be a bidder for the sport’s TV rights.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says ESPN Deportes scored with the EURO 2012 Final last Sunday.

Mike says Golf Channel has selected the venue for the next season of “Big Break”.

Christopher Heine of Adweek says MLB’s allowing Twitter votes for the All-Star Game for the first time may have had a hand in deciding which league hosts the World Series.

Jason Del Ray of Advertising Age says the impending Turner Sports purchase of Bleacher Report makes sense.

Wayne Friedman at MediaPost says the NFL easing requirements on local TV blackouts shows the league wants to reach the casual fan.

Dan Daley at Sports Video Group says ESPN will be utilizing plenty of microphones at the MLB Home Run Derby.

Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder has a screengrab of a Canadian TV station messing up the Steve Nash trade to the Lakers.

And Matt has found an episode of Judge Sapp. Yes, that’s Warren Sapp.

The Big Lead soaked up the latest Twitter battle between ESPN’s Darren Rovell and Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch.

MediaRantz looks at the top 5 ESPN plagiarism scandals.

Nick Bromberg of Yahoo’s From the Marbles blog wonders what is the big deal with the TNT/truTV simulcast of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup race on Saturday.

Joe Favorito likes how MLS has adopted “Food Week” to get fans to explore its markets’ restaurants.

East and Mid-Atlantic

At SB Nation Boston, Bruce Allen says it was time for Erin Andrews to leave the ESPN Mothership.

Jerry Barmsah of Fishbowl NY says CBS Radio’s WFAN could be headed to FM and could take the Yankees with it.

Yes, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post, we know you hate ESPN.

Justin Terranova of the Post has five questions for ESPN tennis analyst Brad Gilbert.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says the MLB Extra Innings pay per view package will be free next week.

Don Laible of the Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch talks with the NHL on NBC’s Dave Strader about calling Olympic basketball.

Ken says a local minor league baseball team has found a new radio home.

Dave Sottile of the Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News says there are no plans to bring Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic to the local area.

Tim Richardson in Press Box looks at the differences between the Washington Nationals and MASN over the team’s TV rights fee.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with MLB Network’s Chris Rose.

South

Kyle Veazey of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal says a popular local sports radio host is changing stations.

At the Houston Chronicle, David Barron writes that the new Comcast SportsNet Houston will air Conference USA football featuring the University of Houston.

Midwest

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says MLB feels it has restored integrity to the All-Star Game. It’s an exhibition game!

Paul M. Banks of the Chicago Sports Media Watch wonders who had the best mock NBA Draft?

Paul Christian at the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin says the new TV voice of the Minnesota Wild will have an exciting team to call this season.

Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks about Erin Andrews making her Fox debut next week.

Dan writes that Blues analyst Darren Pang turned down a full-time offer from TSN and will remain in St. Louis.

West

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has this harsh takedown of Erin Andrews.

Here’s Tom’s column which has a little more on the last post.

Tom also links to reaction to his Erin Andrews column.

Matt Rudnitsky of SportsGrid replies point-by-point to Hoffarth.

John Maffei of the North County Times writes about Erin Andrews joining Fox.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star talks with Fox’s Joe Buck on the challenges of calling the MLB All-Star Game.

Jim has his Weekend Viewing Picks.

Matthew T. Hall at the San Diego Union-Tribune wonders where’s the fan outrage in the Fox Sports San Diego-Time Warner Cable dispute leaving Padres games off TV.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News tries to clear up some confusion over the Pac-12 Network.

And that will conclude our links for today.

Our Monday Linkage

Let’s do some links on a rainy Monday in Southern New England.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today looks at NFL Network’s new morning show.

Michael says ESPN has not confirmed whether Chris Berman will call a Monday Night Football game on the opening weekend of the season.

John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that CBS is about 80% sold for the Super Bowl.

Terry Lefton of Sports Business Journal says Pepsi has signed a deal to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show.

Mike Ozanian of Forbes notes that the Miami Heat is on the verge of getting a huge deal with Fox Sports Florida.

Former ESPN First Take co-host Dana Jacobsen writes in her blog that she was molested as a child. Courageous for her to speak publicly about this.

Scott Roxborough and Stuart Kemp of the Hollywood Reporter note that yesterday’s Italy-England EURO 2012 Quarterfinal game became the highest-rated and most watched game of the tournament in Europe.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News looks at ESPN going all in at Wimbledon.

Rich Thomaselli of Advertising Age wonders now that LeBron James has won a championship, will he reach Michael Jordan levels in marketing?

Staci D. Kramer of paidContent says ESPN’s streaming of the NBA Finals drew a decent audience.

Ed Sherman from the Sherman Report writes that sportswriter Frank Deford will appear on tonight’s Colbert Report.

The Big Lead looks at alleged bias by the HBO Boxing crew from the Manny Pacquaio-Timothy Bradley fight.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing reviews the train wreck that was Charlie Sheen’s guest appearance on Fox Saturday.

Matt analyzes the moves by CBS and NBC to create their own sports radio networks.

Dylan Murphy at SportsGrid says a French soccer player cursed out a reporter after the team’s loss at EURO 2012 last week.

Also from SportsGrid, Dan Fogarty notes that Oprah Winfrey will interview LeBron James and the Miami Heat this weekend which has train wreck potential written all over it.

Evan Weiner at Examiner.com writes that the NFL has a long way to go to get a foothold in Europe.

Newsday’s Neil Best talks with some of the people who have worked at WFAN during its past 25 years.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick says college presidents’ pleas to pray for the Jerry Sandusky abuse victims ring hollow. Did Phil want them to go to Jerry Sandusky’s jail cell and shoot him dead?

And Phil goes after his favorite target, WFAN’s Mike Francesa.

Jerry Barmash at Fishbowl NY talks with WFAN Operations Manager Mark Chernoff about the nation’s oldest radio station turning 25.

Jerry says a 1010 WINS sports anchor wants to go after those who mispronounce “Wimbledon”.

Bob’s Blitz has the WFAN 25th Anniversary lineup for this Sunday.

Ken McMillan of the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says a New York-Penn League minor league baseball team won’t have a radio partner this year.

Greg Connors of the Buffalo News talks with Jim Rome about his CBS Sports Network show.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner notes that ESPN will be providing a lot of tennis action over the next fortnight.

At Chicago Sports Media Watch, Paul M. Banks talks with Danica Patrick about her transition from IndyCar to NASCAR.

Dusty Saunders at the Denver Post writes about ESPN’s extensive Wimbledon coverage.

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

Brent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune says all of San Diego State’s football games will be seen on TV, the question is where?

Bruce Dowbiggin at the Toronto Globe and Mail suggests that the NHL expand Hockey Night in Canada to Sundays.

Raju Mudhar with the Toronto Star writes about technology and sports melding together.

At Frontstretch, Amy Henderson writes that TV is actually hurting NASCAR and turning fans off.

Back to Paul M. Banks at the Sports Bank and he has video of ESPN’s Jenn Brown taking batting practice at the College World Series.

MediaRantz reviews WFAN at 25.

MediaRantz says noted Florida sports radio bad boy Dan Sileo could be headed to the new CBS Sports Radio.

Steve Lepore of Puck The Media says NBC’s shuffle of the NHL Draft wasn’t great, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

Sports Media Watch says the NBA Finals’ ratings were down from last year.

SMW writes that MLB on Fox took a hit opposite the U.S. Open.

But SMW says this past weekend, MLB on Fox did significantly better.

Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo’s The Dagger blog writes that ESPN expects to replace analyst Hubert Davis with Jalen Rose on College GameDay.

Paul Magno at Yahoo says boxing may return to network TV as Oscar de la Hoya tries to bring a fight to CBS.

Kris Hughes at Rant Sports asks if Time Warner Cable could purchase the Longhorn Network from ESPN?

Gaslamp Ball talks with the head of Fox Sports San Diego.

And that will do us for today.

Cranking Out Some Friday Megalinks

Ok, linkage has been really scarce over the last month and a half and I apologize for that. My schedules have been quite busy and it’s been tough to sit down for the time it takes to gather the links. I hope that changes over the next month or so.

I have some National links for you right now. I’ll follow up with more stuff later.

Here are the Weekend Viewing Picks for you.

National

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch speaks with the people at the Poynter Institute who are the ESPN Ombudsman.

Nate Davis at USA Today’s The Huddle has the Miami Dolphins not so enthusiastic about being on Hard Knocks this season.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today talks with ESPN’s Sean McDonough who will undergo brain surgery later this year.

Ira Boudwell of Bloomberg Businessweek says ESPN is getting out of the high school sports business saying it’s not broad enough.

Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski says this week’s blowout between David Stern and Jim Rome proves that the NBA Commissioner needs to go.

John Ourand of Sports Business Daily says Fox Sports San Diego is launching an ad campaign against Time Warner Cable which has still not picked up the regional sports network.

Good Morning America’s and former ESPN SportsCenter host Robin Roberts says she will beat the rare blood disorder that will require a bone marrow transplant.

Michael O’Connell of the Hollywood Reporter notes that the NBA Finals are pacing ABC to good ratings this week.

At Broadcasting & Cable, Tim Baysinger writes that this week’s Dream Team documentary gave NBA TV its best viewership ever.

Mike Reynolds at Multichannel News says GolTV scored with this week’s soccer international friendly match between Brazil and Argentina.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life reports that NBC will debut two new sitcoms right smack dab in the middle of the Olympics.

Ed Sherman at the Sherman Report looks at the geriatric broadcasting team calling the NBA Finals for ESPN Radio.

Glenn Davis at SportsGrid notes that even after the winning the Stanley Cup this week, the Los Angeles Kings still aren’t getting respect from the local media.

Former Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio returns to his former stomping grounds to do a massive takedown of Jay “The Rat” Mariotti.

Also from Deadspin, John Koblin writes that there doesn’t seem to be a clamoring for Erin Andrews beyond ESPN.

Jason Dachman of Sports Video Group says NBA TV and NBA Entertainment are appealing to the hardcore basketball fan for their Finals coverage.

Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead says Sports Illustrated could be laying off part of its staff.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing has tweets from people who hated Chris Berman on the U.S. Open yesterday.

Sports Media Watch notes that this year’s Stanley Cup Final did not resonate with viewers.

SMW also has some various ratings news and notes.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell writes that Brooklyn Nets gear is selling very well.

MediaRantz tells us that Sean Salisbury will be getting a new internet radio gig.

UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: Time for more linkage here.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe reports that May was a very good month for sports radio station WEEI as it finished ahead of 98.5 The Sports Hub.

At SB Nation, Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch writes about golfer David Duval taking a turn in the broadcast tower at the U.S. Open.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette discusses Johnny Miller holding court for NBC at the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco this week.

Newsday’s Neil Best talks with ESPN college baseball analyst Kyle Petersen who will be introducing many Long Islanders to the College World Series today.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post goes after the Yankees for pricing out fans from the “Beautiful People” seats at Yankee Stadium.

Jerry Barmash at Fishbowl NY notes that SNY will unveil the all-time Mets team at a gala event on Sunday.

Ken McMillan of the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says the US Women’s National Soccer Team will be on TV and the web this weekend.

Ken says local Time Warner Cable subscribers will have access to the new Pac-12 Networks this summer.

Ken Schott at the Schenectady Gazette says NBC Sports Group has announced the 2012 Summer at Saratoga schedule.

Pete Dougherty at the Albany Times Union talks with Jim Rome who marks his 16th year in New York’s Capital Region.

Pete says one of harness racing’s famous races changes networks this year.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call profiles a local cable TV sports reporter who is filling a double role this summer.

Keith has more on her in his blog.

In Press Box, Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com writes that a decision on the Washington Nationals TV rights has been delayed.

South

Barry Jackson from the Miami Herald has some NBA Finals Game 2 postgame reaction as well as Jon Barry saying he’s not a Miami Heat Hater.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says Fox Sports Houston was well-prepared and staffed for Wednesday’s perfect game thrown against the Astros by Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants.

Mel Bracht at The Oklahoman writes that ESPN on ABC was all over the non-foul call against the Thunder’s Kevin Durant during Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

The Oklahoman rounds up what sports reporters are saying on Twitter about the NBA Finals.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter at the Cincinnati Enquirer says an all-star high school football game will be shown locally this weekend.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that ESPN is dropping its high school sports operation.

Bob criticizes Jim Rome for his questioning of NBA Communist China Sympathizer David Stern.

Paul M. Banks at Chicago Sports Media Watch says Cubs announcers Len Kasper and Bob Brenly were silent when comedian Jeff Garlin brought up trading Alfonso Soriano.

Paul Christian of the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin notes the rare occurrence of the U.S. Open and the NBA Finals going head-to-head on TV this Father’s Day.

Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that viewers of Fox Sports Midwest may need a scorecard to tell who’s in the Cardinals TV booth over the next few days.

Dan notes that next week will mark a decade since the passing of Jack Buck and Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile.

West

Chadd Cripe of the Idaho Statesman says this fall’s Boise State-Southern Mississippi game will get the Fox treatment.

Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune says Utahans are nervous about getting the Pac-12 Networkcomparing it to their experience with the ill-fated the mtn.

John Maffei of the North County Times writes that Fox Sports San Diego has set its sights squarely on Time Warner Cable.

Jim Carlisle at the Ventura County Star says ESPN’s NBA Countdown show seems to work fine without a host.

Jim talks with NBC’s Johnny Miller about the U.S. Open.

Jim has his weekend viewing picks.

Melissa Rohlin of the Los Angeles Times says Game 2 of the NBA Finals drew a good overnight number for ABC.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News talks with former Kings voices about the Stanley Cup victory.

Tom has some more in his blog.

Canada

The Toronto Globe and Mail’s Bruce Dowbiggin blames both Jim Rome and David Stern for their ugly exchange this week.

The Toronto Sports Media Blog says the NBA and NHL Commissioners are taking it on their chins this week.

And that’s going to do it.

Guest Column: The Sports Pay TV Model Needs Fixing

Thanks for continuing to read the guest columns. Today, Jason Chalifour writes about the cable TV networks gouging viewers with their subscriber fees and how we need to take back control of the set.