Fang's Bites

Opening Day Links

It may be early for baseball to open the season, but there’s always something special about Opening Day. For Red Sox fans, it means hope springs eternal, but having won two Championships over the last four years, it’s a different feeling. I would have liked to have a quickie review of what ESPN2 and NESN were doing for the Red Sox-A’s early morning broadcast, but DirecTV had an system outage and both channels were out. I could get ESPN, ESPNews, ESPN Classic, but not ESPN2. I could get FSN Bay Area which did not pick up the game as the A’s rightsholder, but I could not get NESN, YES, MSG Network. I called DirecTV for an explanation and got a recorded message about an overnight system outage and the channels would return shortly, but when I left my house at 7:30 a.m. ET, the channels were still out. I’ll send an e-mail to DirecTV to ask what happened.

Let’s get to your links.

Brandie Jefferson of the Providence Journal says Red Sox fans flocked to a popular sports tavern this morning for Baseball and Breakfast.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a story on what will be an underlying theme for NBC Sports throughout the year, having to deal with an authoritarian, oppressive, Communist regime in China, while trying to televise the Olympics. Sandomir mentions in his story that while the situation in Tibet has worsened, NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol has refused to criticize China even though the Commnist government has already begun to censor the network from showing shots of Tienanmien Square during the Games. This is a story Fang’s Bites will be watching. With a situation that could get worse as the year progresses, we’ll see how he handles the broadcasts if things get out of hand in Tibet and protests increase in Beijing.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News feels CBS’ Billy Packer does not go far enough in criticizing coaching decisions, in fact, Raissman feels Packer covers for them.

Newsday’s Neil Best who is supposed to be on vacation is blogging on his days off. He looks over the latest figures from ESPN.com’s Tournament Bracket challenge. And Neil says the former Program Director of 1050 ESPN Radio in New York has a new gig in the Steel City. Neil says using split screens to show two games during the NCAA Tournament is not what CBS has in mind.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says all three games in the NCAA Men’s Hockey Tournament to be played in Albany will be shown on ESPNU. Pete also has some thoughts from ESPN2′s telecast of the Red Sox-A’s this morning.

Dave Del Grande of the Oakland Tribune reports that FSN Bay Area will be undergoing a name change as Comcast takes over officially on March 31. Del Grande talks with FSN Bay Area GM Ted Griggs about the transition to Comcast SportsNet.

We’re in Day 12 of Darren Rovell’s Minor League Baseball Logo Contest.

Kevin Cary of the Charlotte Observer says after Sunday’s upset of Georgetown in the NCAA Men’s Tournament, Davidson has become media darlings.

Broadcast Engineering reports that Verizon FiOS TV customers will have access to CBS Sports Video on Demand for NCAA Tournament highlights.

From the Akron Beacon Journal, George M. Thomas says CBS announcing crews did a good job during the NCAA Tournament.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks with CBS’ Dan Bonner about the Wisconsin Badgers.

The Lansing (MI) State Journal has an editorial saying while a deal is close, the Big Ten Network and Comcast have squandered a lot in the interim.

Mike DiMauro of The Day of New London, CT says ESPN explored two stale subjects in regards to women’s college basketball.

Kathy Orton of the Washington Post says the University of Maryland wanted the early slot today in the NCAA Women’s Tournament, but ESPN thought otherwise.

The Charleston (WV) Daily News says the Cincinnati Reds will be seen on local cable systems.

Jeff Richgels of the Capital (WI) Times says Charter Communications will pick up the Milwaukee Brewers HD telecasts this summer.

Keith Groller of the Allentown Morning Call says a new local minor leauge baseball team will get a lot of coverage on TV.

Clarence Hill, Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes that Michael Irvin will have Pacman Jones as his guest on his radio show.

Good story from the Arizona Daily Wildcat, the student newspaper of the University of Arizona. Mark Roy writes that ESPN’s Mark Schlereth is documenting his son’s exploits for the Arizona baseball team for ESPN.com.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that actor Tony Hoty has died. You don’t know that name? Old school NFL fans may remember him from CBS promos in which he would always end with “I’m a biiigg fan!”

The International Fight League will have a weekly Saturday at midnight show on FSN starting next month.

Robin Erb of the Detroit Free Press writes about a Wayne State University science professor who’s a big part of FSN’s Sport Science show and is up for several Sports Emmys.

That’s it for now.

Yo! It’s Friday and the Megalinks are Here

Time to do the megalinks. Before I get started, I want to announce that Fang’s Bites and Boston Sports Media Watch will be teaming up. Every Friday, I’ll be doing a similar service for BSMW. I’ll do the links here first and then I’ll be sending them over to BSMW. Bruce Allen has been doing a great job at his blog and has been providing links on the Boston media since 2002. It’s one of the most established blogs around and I want to thank him for the work he’s done and will continue to do. So you can visit both sites and find the links.

Let’s start with Michael Hiestand of USA Today. He has an interesting story about the staffers who update ESPN’s Bottom Line, the scroll you see at the bottom on all of its family of networks. Hiestand also touches on ESPN’s and CBS’ plans for the upcoming plethora of college basketball games as well as Major League Baseball putting restrictions on websites that publish pictures of in-game action.

Now let’s go East to West with the media links.

East and Mid-Atlantic

David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch writes about ESPN 890 General Manager Jessamy Tang misuing tickets originally donated for a charity event.

From the Boston Globe, Nancy Marrapese-Burrell talks about CBS entering the Mixed Martial Arts fray.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says YES analyst Bobby Murcer and International Fight League President Jay Larkin have something in common, even though they’ve never met.

The perpetually angry Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News goes after the Mets for entering the spin cycle as injuries continue to ravage the team in Spring Training.

The IFL at Mohegan Sun

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend the International Fight League 2007 World Grand Prix Finals at Mohegan Sun. Thanks to Joe Favorito, the Vice President of Communications for the IFL, I was able to get a ringside seat for the action.

I won’t go into the details, the entire recap of the evening can be found here. I will go into my experience there which was quite positive.

I arrived at Mohegan Sun and had the opportunity to talk to Bas Rutten, IFL host and color analyst. He was very open and honest about the future of Mixed Martial Arts and told me he expects to see the sport in the 2012 Olympics in London. He also said the talk of Floyd Mayweather going into MMA was just that, talk. And he said wrestlers like Kurt Angle who has trained with Bas learn how tough MMA truly is. As far UFC and IFL, he says both organizations can compliment one another and says they are both good for the sport.

Even though the Patriots-Giants were playing at the same time as the IFL, some 5,900 people came and it was a sell out at the Mohegan Sun Arena. And there were some worries that UConn playing earlier in the day in the Meineke Car Care Bowl would keep people away, but that was not the case. The arena was very packed.

I also noticed Randy “The Natural” Couture there as he was coaching several fighters. Two hot chicks were with him as he went into the locker room. And he signed autographs and took pictures with fans as well.

The card started right on time at 7:30 and we saw four fights right off the bat. All went rather quickly and ended before 8:30 p.m. HD Net was going to join the event live at 9:30 p.m. so there was a lot of time to fill.

The ring girls handed out t-shirts and DVD’s to the crowd. And we also got updates on the Pats-Giants game. The crowd was getting impatient, so a video was shown on the big screen to help pass the time.

When HD Net joined, the fights quickly got underway. Here are the highlights of the broadcast:

And here’s the entire fight between Ryan Schultz and Chris Horodecki.

Overall, it was an enjoyable night. Thanks to the people at IFL for allowing me to attend.