Another choice on SiriusXM for sport talk radio fans. Bleacher Report is expanding its reach.

The official release:

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SiriusXM and Bleacher Report today announced the upcoming launch of SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio, a new satellite radio channel debuting September 2 that will deliver engaging content from one of the leading digital sports destinations to a nationwide audience of listeners.

Airing on Sirius channel 93 and XM channel 208, the exclusive new channel will showcase a variety of Bleacher Report voices and give sports fans from coast to coast a live, interactive forum to discuss their teams, topics and events with experts from every major sport.  SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio will also be available to subscribers via the SiriusXM Internet Radio App.

Bleacher Report, a division of Turner Broadcasting, is the leading digital destination for team-specific sports content and real-time event coverage and is one of the fastest-growing digital properties in the U.S.  SiriusXM began airing a daily Bleacher Report-branded show in 2013.  The programming now expands to a full channel that will reach more than 26 million SiriusXM subscribers nationwide.

The SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio channel will feature a daily lineup of shows hosted by some of Bleacher Report’s most prominent voices, including Will Carroll, King Kaufman, Dan Levy and Josh Zerkle, as well as daily contributions from B/R’s deep roster of writers and contributors.  Featured hosts will also include former NFL linebacker Kirk Morrison, broadcaster Nicole Zaloumis and others.

“Bleacher Report has had extraordinary success engaging fans with their unique way of covering sports. The launch of theSiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio channel opens up a whole new level of communication for SiriusXM subscribers who are fans of the popular site,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer.  “This new forum gives Bleacher Report an expanded platform to showcase many of the best sportswriters in the business, and gives SiriusXM listeners the ability to call in and talk directly with the experts about their favorite team.”

“Our partnership with SiriusXM is a great opportunity to extend our brand and provide a unique new voice to the sports radio landscape,” said Dave Finocchio, Founder and General Manager of Bleacher Report. “SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio will provide fans with an opportunity to engage with our deep roster of analysts, reporters and columnists surrounding all of the top news stories each day.”

Weekday broadcasts will cover the national sports landscape from Bleacher Report’s unique, fan-focused perspective, kicking off at 7:00 am ET with The Morning B/Reakaway, hosted by Dan Levy and Josh Zerkle.  They will be followed by Nicole Zaloumis hosting B/R Spotlight from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm ET.  Will Carroll and Jason Goff will host B/R Afternoon Drive from3:00 to 6:00 pm ET daily.  At 6:00 pm ET each day King Kaufman, manager of Bleacher Report’s writer program, will hostContent Is King, an hour-long look at sports and sports media with top Bleacher Report talent.

Kirk Morrison, who played linebacker for the Oakland Raiders, Jacksonville Jaguars and Buffalo Bills from 2005 through 2012, will host a weekly pro football preview show that will debut prior to the season opening games.  The channel will also broadcast live news updates on the hour, weekend talk programming, including a fantasy football show, and live games on nights and weekends from the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and more.

For more information on programming, special guests and updates, follow SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio on Twitter at@BR_Radio.

Keith Olbermann broke the news last night (below) that Olbermann will be shifting to 5 p.m. ET beginning on Sept. 8.

While I will miss his show in the evenings, when I tend to watch most of my TV, the shift makes sense. Too often Olbermann has been plagued by inconsistent start times due to various live events running long on ESPN2. Now he will be in a regular slot.

The show also will go from an hour to 30 minutes. Again, another good move. He won’t have as many highlights with the show airing in the afternoon. Also, I believe all sports studio programs work better in a condensed format.

Also as part of this shift, Outside The Lines will air after Olbermann at 5:30 ET. The combination of Olbermann and Bob Ley gives ESPN2 a pretty formidable 1-2 punch during that hour.

And finally, the move frees up Olbermann to return to his old stomping grounds on SportsCenter. The network said he will have occasional host duties around major news and events throughout the year.

All in all, Olbermann proves you can go home again.

Not sure that this will find an audience, but I give CBS Sports Network credit for trying something different.

The show has some of the best in the business, male or female, on the panel. And as someone who teaches sports journalism to many women students at DePaul, I know this kind of show will serve as an inspiration to them.

Here are the details from the release:

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CBS Sports will launch WE NEED TO TALK, the first-ever nationally-televised all-female weekly, hour-long sports show, airing in prime time beginning Tuesday, Sept. 30 (10:00 PM, ET) on CBS Sports Network. The announcement was made today by Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports, and David Berson, President, CBS Sports.

Featuring CBS Sports’ deep roster of talented female journalists, including those who serve in various high profile roles at the CBS Corporation such as THE NFL ON CBS lead reporter, pregame analyst, SEC ON CBS lead reporter and radio host, WE NEED TO TALK brings together these most accomplished women to share their knowledge and opinions by offering a unique perspective of the sports landscape.  The CBS crew will be joined by other prominent women from the sports world including former and current athletes, television and radio personalities, league and team executives and top news and sports journalists from around the country.

“This is a very proud moment for all of us at CBS Sports,” said McManus. “A sports show featuring all women is long overdue and we are thrilled to be able to make television history this fall with the national launch of WE NEED TO TALK.”

“From the moment news of the show spread, the reaction we’ve received has been nothing short of amazing,” said Berson. “We’ve been inundated with notes from women across the industry requesting to join the extraordinary women at CBS Sports to create a fun, unique and informative show for all sports fans.”

Each week, the WE NEED TO TALK panel will feature a core of CBS Sports announcers including Lesley Visser, the highly acclaimed Pro Football Hall of Fame sportscaster in her 40th year covering sports and a trailblazer for women in the industry; Amy Trask, the first female CEO in the National Football League and a contributor for CBS Sports Network’s THAT OTHER PREGAME SHOW; Tracy Wolfson, lead reporter for CBS’s NFL and NCAA Tournament coverage; CBS Sports Radio host and veteran television broadcaster Dana Jacobson; and Allie LaForce, lead reporter for the SEC ON CBS.

WE NEED TO TALK also will include multi-Emmy award-winning journalist Andrea Kremer, Chief Correspondent for NFL Network and Correspondent for HBO Sports; Laila Ali, four-time boxing World Champion and daughter of legend Muhammad Ali; four-time Olympic Gold Medalist and two-time WNBA Champion Lisa Leslie; 12-time Olympic medalist Dara Torres; two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and three-time WNBA Champion Swin Cash; four-time Olympic medalist and veteran sports reporter Summer Sanders; and former professional tennis player and First Vice President of the USTA Katrina Adams.

The show will feature high-profile men and women from the Sports, News and Entertainment worlds. CBS THIS MORNING Co-Hosts Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King‎ will appear as guests. Additional guests will be announced as the season progresses.

WE NEED TO TALK will be led by Emmy Award-winning Coordinating Producers Emilie Deutsch and Suzanne Smith, the only woman currently producing or directing NFL games. Amy Salmanson and Julie Keryc will produce with Smith directing.

“This is nothing less than a cultural pivot point,” said Visser. “There are many shows have a woman on, but not one that has a table filled with women. “When I started covering sports in 1974, the credentials often said, ‘No Women or Children in the Press Box.’ Forty years later we are accepted as members of the media, assistant coaches (San Antonio Spurs) college officials and executives.  We have learned to love sports the same way boys and men do – not all of them played the game either. I’m proud to play for CBS.”

“With so many women already working in prominent roles across CBS Sports, it’s a privilege to be a part of this unique project, bringing all their talents and experiences together under one show,” said Smith. “We have an opportunity here to have some of the most knowledgeable and passionate people in our business talk sports, offer opinions and have some fun.”

Each week the show will feature a rotating group of female panelists from within the CBS Corporation and beyond, discussing all the hot topics and the latest news from across the sports landscape including the NFL, MLB, college football and basketball, NBA, NHL, golf, tennis, auto racing and much more.

Yesterday, I lauded ESPN for going “old school” with their new promos for Monday Night Football.

Then I saw this new ad for the NFL on Fox. Fox executives must have told the ad agency to come up with something as bizarre as possible, and then take it 10 levels beyond that.

I have been assured that this is a coincidence. So let’s just call this a case of interesting timing.

At the 6:08 mark of his opening commentary about the Washington nickname controversy on Friday night, Olbermann directed his comments at ESPN. It concluded with this:

“It is time for us here officially, or just like Gumbel, Simms and Dungy, to stop using the name.”

The next day, ESPN, hoping to fly under the radar on a Saturday afternoon, issued the following statement:

“Our consistent company policy will continue: using official names and marks as presented by the teams, leagues and conferences we cover. We do, however, recognize the debate over the use of ‘Washington Redskins’ and have afforded individuals the opportunity to decide how they will use those words when reporting on the team.”

Now the network isn’t banning the nickname. It wouldn’t go that far. And to be fair, ESPN is in the same company with the New York Times and Washington Post in still using the nickname in its reporting.

But it is giving its announcers and analysts the choice.

Even if the timing is a coincidence, you would have to think Olbermann’s repeated commentaries on the issue had to carry some considerable weight within Bristol.

As Olbermann notes, “momentum is building” to eliminate the nickname.

ESPN is going old school with its promos for Monday Night Football this year.

Since I’m an old school guy, I like what I see.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on how one sportswriter made it to Hollywood.

From the column:

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Sportswriters usually don’t get any closer to Hollywood than paying $9 to see a movie.

So for Neil Hayes, a former sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times, being part of a movie premiere was remarkable in its own right. However, how he got there is a story straight out of Hollywood — as in so implausible that it only have been concocted by a movie script writer.

“When The Game Stands Tall” hits the theaters Friday. Starring Jim Caviezel, Michael Chiklis and Laura Dern, the movie is based on Hayes’ book about the historic 151-game football winning streak by De La Salle, a high school in Concord, Calif.

Hayes, while working for the Contra Costa Times, wrote the book about that great program in 2003. Then he filed an epilogue for the paperback version when the streak got broken in 2004 following the tragic murder of a star player and the coach suffering a heart attack.

The book was the subject of an ESPN documentary. Hayes tried to shop it around as a movie, but the project didn’t go anywhere with an independent producer.

Here’s where the Hollywood part comes in.

In 2009, David Zelon, the head of production for Mandalay, was serving as a voluntary strength-and-conditioning coach for his son’s high school football team. Zelon was involved in cleaning up the office of the coach who was recently fired. He found a gift that hadn’t been opened under the file cabinet. It was Hayes’ book, which had been a gift from the booster club.

Zelon tore off the wrapping paper and read the book in one night. He called Hayes the next day, inviting him to California for a meeting.
“He said, ‘I love the book, but how do you compress (the streak) into a movie?’” Hayes said.

Hayes asked him which version Zelon read, hardback or paperback? Zelon replied hardback, which didn’t include the dramatic events of tragedy and redemption in 2004. When Hayes informed Zelon of those elements, they said, “There’s the movie.”

If Zelon never finds that unopened gift, the movie never happens. Looking back, Hayes says the whole thing is surreal.

“When people ask how do you get a book made into a movie, I say, ‘You’ve got to get extremely lucky,” Hayes said.

The experience of being involved in the movie also was surreal for Hayes. He recalls Zelon told him, “Don’t count on a movie (happening) until you see people unloading cameras.”

Last year, when Hayes and his son went to New Orleans for the filming, they drove up to signs that read “WGST,” short for the title, in a compound. “That’s when it hit us this is happening,” he said.

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And the link to the rest of the column.