Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media….

NFL Today: Jason McIntyre at Big Lead writes CBS could make some changes to its pregame show, which trails Fox in the ratings.

Bringing in recently-retired tight end Tony Gonzalez to replace Shannon Sharpe. Gonzalez and CBS have been in talks about joining the show, but he’s West Coast-based, and the show is out of New York. Gonzalez is wrestling with the idea of weekly travel during the season. FOX’s show is based in LA and appears to be an ideal fit, but it can’t offer him a spot because it isn’t going to tinker with the show’s chemistry. Given the option of Fox Sports 1 or NFL Today on CBS, what would you do? The other issue is that Gonzalez and Sharpe or apparently close friends. Another option: Simply adding Gonzalez. But is six people on the set too many?

Younger announcers: Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing says in the wake of Kevin Burkhardt doing a playoff game for Fox, he would like to see other younger announcers get the opportunity to work big games.

Announcing jobs in sports is one of the few professions in society that isn’t continually based on merit.  Imagine if your productivity or quality of work dropped at your day job.  You would be demoted or even fired if your work suffered a great deal.  What about the sports that these networks cover?  The Super Bowl and World Series aren’t contested between the same two teams every year, so why should networks assign the same announcers week after week, year after year to their biggest sporting events?  Fans should ask themselves – is it really the birthright of Jim Nantz, Phil Simms, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Al Michaels, Bob Costas, Chris Berman and others to be in their positions as lifetime appointments?  Instead of a merit based system, once announcers climb the ladder to the top they stay there until they decide to walk away no matter how much criticism or praise their work may receive.

Baseball’s TV money imbalance: Jack Moore of Sports on Earth writes about how the big money going to some teams for local TV rights will throw competitive balance further out of whack in baseball.

The past three years have been the perfect time to strike and renegotiate a huge windfall for a franchise. The multi-billion dollar deals negotiated by the Dodgers, Angels, Rangers and now Phillies have all occured since 2010. The big question, though — one examined in great detail by Patrick Hruby on this site
last year — is when this bubble will burst. If teams like the Astros and Padres are already having issues getting cable providers to pay carriage fees, what will the market look like in five years when the Brewers, Royals, Pirates and Cardinals (all earning under $30 million in rights fees without an equity stake in the network) can finally renegotiate their TV deals?

This sounds like a question the fan who only cares about results on the field can ignore, but massive competitive balance implications rest on its answer. In leagues like MLB where players have free agency, studies have shown nothing — not a salary cap , not player drafts — leads to more competitive balance than more revenue sharing. And although MLB’s revenue sharing program will throw some of the new TV money down to the smaller market, late-negotiating clubs, it might not be enough to offset the growing gap in gross rights fee revenue and the non-shared money coming from club-owned equity stakes (like the one in Philadelphia).

SEC Network: John Ourand and Michael Smith of Sports Business Journal write about the subscriber fees for the new network: $1.30 per month within the SEC footprint.

Cable operators are certain to blanche at the network’s price tag, which is more expensive than other college conference channels like Big Ten Network and Pac-12 Networks.

Ian Eagle and Dan Fouts: Richard Deitsch of SI.com says they should become CBS’ No. 2 team on the NFL.

“I happen to agree with you,” said an executive at a competing network who works on the NFL. “Ian Eagle is a true pro, calls a great game and has more personality than he’s given credit for. Dan Fouts has always been underrated. But I bet they pursue someone new and pair them with [Greg] Gumbel as No. 2 team.”

Sports books: Seth Davis selects his top eight basketball books of all time for Men’s Journal. And No. 1 is…?

Davis’s favorite book is not a controversial choice. ‘A Season on the Brink‘ is John Feinstein’s magnum opus about the Indiana University basketball program’s 1985–86 season and a psychological profile of controversial coach Bobby Knight. The book created a new genre: fly-on-the-wall descriptions of a single team’s campaigns.

“He had the foresight and the ability to recognize that he had unique access to a unique human being,” Davis says. “To me, that book is a textbook on the power of access, which you don’t always get.”

Journ school: Michael Bradley, writing for the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana, says even with everything changing in the media world, the same fundamentals still apply.

It’s an exciting time to be studying – and teaching – journalism, because of the constant advancements and changes designed to keep up with improved technology and societal tastes. What can’t be ignored amidst the wave of the new is the enduring need for journalists to do their jobs properly, delivery methods be damned. If you can’t report, interview, cultivate sources, organize facts, and yes write, it doesn’t matter how many Twitter followers you have. You won’t be relevant or reliable.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…

Dan LeBatard 1: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News calls LeBatard’s stunt “highly questionable.”

Last November, Deadspin said it was looking for someone who’d give up their Hall vote, even if they were willing to sell it. LeBatard took the bait, although there was reported to be no money exchanged.

Doesn’t really matter. LeBatard sold his soul on this one. Payback could be worse.

As if he could not have just handed in a blank ballot, explaining he did not believe the process was just, and then used his ESPN and Herald platforms to get the same message across?

Instead, like a kid throwing a smoke bomb into a movie theatre, the issue becomes more clouded.

Dan LeBatard II: Tony Copobianco of the Tucson Citizen praised LeBatard for his decision.

In an act of protest — something that most snobby sports writers are used to doing in the same arena — LeBatard allowed the readers of Deadspin, an underground sports media website who’s writers and editors best resemble a group a rebels fighting this form of class warfare — to vote for him. Contrary to the apocalyptic scenario that is LeBatard voting for former Florida Marlins Paul LoDuca, Todd Jones, Jacque Jones and Armando Benitez; his ballot was filled with legit candidates Greg Maddux, Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine, Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio, Edgar Martinez, Jeff Bagwell, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Curt Schilling. Knowing LeBatard, he would’ve voted for those guys anyway.

Among the selected players on LeBatard’s Deadspin ballot: Maddux, Thomas and Glavine were elected into the Hall of Fame. Not to bad for a bunch of commoners.

The voting process: Dave Zirin in The Nation slams the entire thing.

What gets lost, however, in the slings and arrows we gleefully toss at the BBWAA is why so many in the organization have taken this position to leave out the players with even a hint of PED scandal attached to their names. Having interviewed more than a few of these voters, it should be noted that they vote the way they do because they feel like they don’t have a choice. They believe that Major League Baseball and Bud Selig dropped the ball so egregiously in the 1990s, creating a hypocritical moral swamp, that they are the last group of people who can do anything to provide some kind of clarity to the era. I disagree with their reasoning, but it is a rationale that actually is rational. It is certainly more rational than finding a place in Cooperstown for Tony LaRussa, while his own players like McGwire need a ticket to get inside. I wish people taking their potshots at the BBWAA would reserve 99 percent of their ire for Bud Selig. For that matter, I wish members of the BBWAA were more public with their disgust for Selig and everything he has done to create this collateral damage across baseball’s history. That would be a profoundly more principled and more honest take.

Spirits of St. Louis. Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a terrific story on settlement talks concerning the outrageous NBA TV money still going to the owners of the ABA’s Spirit of St. Louis.

On Tuesday, the Silnas, the league and the four former A.B.A. teams will announce a conditional deal that will end the Silnas’ golden annuity. Almost.

The Silnas are to receive a $500 million upfront payment, financed through a private placement of notes by JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch, according to three people with direct knowledge of the agreement. The deal would end the enormous perpetual payments and settle a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Silnas that demanded additional compensation from sources of television revenue that did not exist in 1976, including NBA TV, foreign broadcasting of games and League Pass, the service that lets fans watch out-of-market games.

2014 sports media forecast: Matt Yoder and the crew of Awful Announcing look at the possible big stories for this year.

6) Fox Sports will have to get creative to increase its live sports rights 

Fox Sports will come up empty handed in landing Big Ten rights (to the delight of Clay Travis) and will find itself with a marginal NBA package, if any at all. With not much in the pipeline in terms of sports sports rights, Fox will look to either buyout the UFC or take a stake in the Pac 12 Network depending on who is more motivated for a liquidity event.  

– Ben Koo, @bkoo

NFL Ratings: Richard Deitsch and MMQB with the numbers on another big year for the NFL.

While the football-airing networks strive for production excellence and quality broadcasting each week, the ultimate scoreboard is ratings. For television executives, your best opportunity for that winter house in Vail is when viewership numbers are rolling, and the opening week of the playoffs could not have gone better for the networks thanks to a combination of frigid weather across the United States and matchups decided in the final minutes. Last weekend NFL games averaged 34.7 million viewers, the most-watched wild-card weekend ever.

ESPN Megacast: Joe Favorito gives his assessment of ESPN’s coverage of the BCS title game, and how it likely portends to what we’ll see in the future.

Nothing breaks Tebow’s outward obsession with preparation and routine. That is, nothing except his desire for a Diet Coke, which is a near-constant state. No vending machine goes by without Tebow stopping for his favored corn-based sugar-water and looking down upon the aluminum vessel with honest appreciation. As he navigates a fraught transition from one public career to another, his moments with a frosty Diet Coke are about all the time he has to escape inside his own unknowable, internal expanse.

Two Diet Cokes later, Tebow glides through his ESPN debut, because of course he does. The man charmed his way into confidential materials and spent months studying them, for no reason other than to know his way around. That’s past neurotic and on the way to borderline psychotic, but it’s a reliable standard for success as long as no one’s asking you to throw a tight spiral.

Bob Costas: Steve Lepore of Awful Announcing talks to Costas about the upcoming Olympics and voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Steve Lepore: What do you think about what’s happened to the Hall of Fame ballot. Obviously, there’s the controversy of Deadspin buying a ballot, and writers becoming more transparent with their ballots, what should be done? 

Bob Costas: Tyler Kepner wrote something very interesting [Monday] in the New York Times. He said that we need to expand the diversity of the electorate, but contract the size of it. You need more people from the sabermetric community, you need more bloggers — not just random bloggers, but people who’ve been vetted and cover baseball over a long period of time and have credibility —  perhaps it should include people who aren’t just traditional members of the BBWAA.

But at the same time, he thought that with nearly 600 voters, inevitably some percentage of them aren’t taking it as seriously or following it as closely as some others. Maybe they’d do better to have a smaller number but draw that number from a wider pool of possibility.

Jimmy Roberts: Pat Donahue of the Povich Center for Sports Journalism does a profile of ’79 Maryland grad, Jimmy Roberts.

In his early years with ABC Sports, Roberts had the opportunity to work closely with Howard Cosell, writing and producing features for SportsBeat, an Emmy award-winning show. He then transitioned into news and from 1985-87 worked as an assignment editor and producer for ABC News, before returning as a writer and producer of features for ABC Sports.

Roberts credits his years with ABC and being around journalism icons like Cosell for teaching him how to be a professional journalist, especially when it came to interviewing.

“[Cosell] had the ability to interview people, ask the difficult questions, and not lose them,” Roberts said. “Television is filled with people who don’t want to ask difficult questions because they don’t want to upset the person they are interviewing. But you’re the viewers’ surrogate and you have to ask the questions that people at home want to know, and if you’re doing any less then you’re not doing you’re job.

“The years that I spent at ABC really did a lot to influence me. I met a lot of incredibly talented people and I kept my eyes open…I’ve always thought I’ve had a bit of a hybrid style, and it’s because of the time I spent around these people and the influence they had on me.”

Marty Schotennheimer book: Sports Book Review Center reviews the coach’s new autobiography, Martyball.

The book, then, becomes something of a hymnal of praise for Schottenheimer and his career as a coach. Sometimes it’s others doing the singing, and sometimes it’s Flanagan himself. But it’s relentlessly positive, to the point that the reader knows pretty quickly what’s going to be coming for the 300-plus pages.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media….

RedZone: Neil Best of Newsday talks to Scott Hanson, my hero, about last Sunday’s terrific day for viewing on RedZone.

It still was early afternoon in Southern California, but it already had been a full day at NFL RedZone headquarters, what with snow falling in several stadiums, touchdowns coming at a record pace and a series of frantic finishes.

“When those games ended, when the dust settled, we looked around at each other in the studio and were like, ‘Did that all really just happen?’ ” host Scott Hanson recalled three days later. “It was like watching a movie where you think you hit the crescendo and now a new thing makes your jaw drop. It seemed like whenever one finished, the next one outdid itself.”

NFL beat writers: Richard Deitsch at MMQQ does a roundtable on issues and obstacles in covering the NFL.

HOW DO YOU IMAGINE YOU WILL DEFINE THIS JOB FIVE YEARS FROM NOW? 

Keim: I don’t know that it would change a whole lot from now as much as it will just continue to evolve, but I do think the way social media is going and with more teams enhancing game-day experiences, that the ability to go beyond what is seen will be more important. Some teams already have apps that allow fans at a game to watch replays from various angles. In five years, I’d imagine everyone will have that ability, and I think that makes fans smarter. That means writers have to keep pace and provide their unique perspective and work even harder to not tell you what happened but why. I also think the need to be multidimensional will increase with the rise in videos in particular.

Dickie V: Richard Deitsch at SI.com talks to Dick Vitale, who at 74 wants to keep broadcasting forever.

Dick Vitale is crying. This is not uncommon for the 74-year-old ESPN broadcaster. Vitale readily admits he is an emotional man, especially on the subject of his professional mortality. While there is always a lot of performance with Vitale, this moment during a 45-minute phone conversation appears genuine. The question was a simple one: How often do you think about when your broadcasting career will come to an end?

“I want to do it forever, obviously,” said Vitale. “We all do. I see Vin Scully and I get excited. It gets me emotional, really. Thinking about the day it is over, I know it is going to tear my heart apart. I love it, man. I love it. …

He is choked up. He puts down the phone. He needs to gain his composure.

“But I do think about it, man,” he continued. “You can’t hide the number (his age). I can’t hide the number. I told my wife when I came back from doing the [Duke-Michigan] game last Tuesday that I walk into the arena and the kids chant “Dickie V, Dickie V.” I go over to them, give them high fives and I can’t tell you the rush it gives me. I get emotional about this a lot. I have shed some tears about it.”

Dickie V 2: Michael Bradley also writes about Vitale for the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana.

Except for Chris Berman, there is no one who symbolizes ESPN more than Vitale. And since Berman generates far more animus – at least if you read the media reviews of his work – than does Vitale, Dickie V may actually be a more accurate personification of the entertainment and sports giant. Some people love him. Others can’t stand him. And that’s the way it is with ESPN. There is no middle ground.

Curt Schilling: Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News talks to Schilling about his new role as an analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

“(As a player) I remember saying this is something I would never do,” Schilling said. “At one point there was animosity on my end to the people doing this. I felt there was a lack of accountability at times. I didn’t like to hear things from people who I would never see. So, going into the clubhouse and being around the managers and players is something that will be part of my job.”

Wilson is a smooth and polished speaker, eager to please with his effusiveness and politeness. He is “a human Hallmark card,” as the Seattle columnist Art Thiel called him.

Kaepernick behaves like a schoolboy banished to the principal’s office. His microphone is where well-intended questions go to die.

“Stop acting like a jerk,” one San Francisco columnist wrote this season.

John Ourand: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing does a podcast with the media writer for Sports Business Daily, reviewing the year in sports media.

Joe Tessitore: The ESPN announcer talks about his upcoming role with the SEC Network in a podcast with Ken and Keith at Sports Media Weekly.

Ted Leonsis: Alex Silverman of the Povich Center for Sports Journalism writes about Leonsis’ view of media in the ever-changing climate.

The former AOL executive who boasts he “sent the first AIM instant message,” advised aspiring journalists and media executives to find companies with “green arrows,” those that create value and have multiple revenue streams. The traditional media industry is shrinking and is not helping young people develop their skills they way it once did.

For this reason, Leonsis believes it is imperative for students to find companies that see the value in a “double bottom line,” one that is not only about profit but also about contributing to the greater community. To Leonsis, sports is the ultimate double bottom line business. He knows if the Wizards start winning, “the community will go crazy,” and added he does not let business decisions get in the way of trying to win. Community conscious businesses grow the fastest and have the happiest employees, according to the Georgetown graduate.

Snowed out: Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that viewers in Milwaukee missed an important part of Sunday’s Packers game because of extended weather coverage during a break.

We all understand TV is obsessed with weather coverage. But to the point it actually trumps a Packers’ game telecast? That’s insane.

There are some other words that come to mind about the decision to pre-empt live Packers game coverage to give us traffic and weather news.

Incompetent is one. 

Shameful is another.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…

Tim Tebow: Jason McIntyre of Big Lead says the quarterback is being pursued by the networks as an analyst for next year. That’s assuming he isn’t playing next year.

Tim Tebow, the telegenic former QB, will almost certainly be a college football TV analyst next year, either for ESPN’s SEC Network, CBS Sports, or Fox Sports, multiple sources tell The Big Lead.

College GameDay: Ty Duffy of Big Lead does a nice behind-the-scenes piece from last week’s Auburn-Alabama game.

6:15 AM…Samantha Ponder arrives quietly and ready for air. She does her own makeup. She’s wearing the jeans, motorcycle jacket, and scarf she will appear in on TV. She’s back on the show after an absence due to illness, just in time to be photographed for an August spread in Southern Living.

David Pollack, still with the restless energy of an athlete, is a work in progress. He’s soon shirtless in the middle of the conference room, struggling his way into a dress shirt. Ponder makes an inaudible comment to him. Pollack laughs about her saying the word “nipple.”

Pollack loops his belt over the visible cardboard tag on a brand new pair of pants. He forgot to pack his original pair, and intends to return this one after the show. Handlers help him knot his tie and fold his collar correctly. Finally, he’s ready to go on air.

Verne Lundquist: Neil Best of Newsday writes the veteran CBS announcer thought he had seen it all. Then came the finish of the Auburn-Alabama game.

“For 27 years, having experienced [Jack] Nicklaus winning at Augusta in ’86, I have been consistent and I’ve always said that that was the single greatest sporting event I’ve ever seen,” the CBS play-by-play man said yesterday, not quite 48 hours after conveying Auburn’s last-second upset of Alabama to a stunned nation.

“This one is right up there equal to it. And that takes into consideration a lot of different events that I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of. From start to finish, especially the finish, this was an extraordinary afternoon and evening.”

Auburn announcer: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times talks to Rod Bramblett about the home-team radio call.

On Nov. 16, Auburn’s Ricardo Louis scored a deflected 73-yard touchdown pass against Georgia with 25 seconds left, and the Tigers hung on for the 43-38 win. Bramblett proclaimed it “a miracle at Jordan-Hare,” the stadium where Auburn plays. Then, last Saturday, in the Iron Bowl against Alabama, Chris Davis returned a missed field goal more than 100 yards to give the Tigers a 34-28 victory. Bramblett invoked the almighty’s name to describe a moment that, for its ramifications, was more meaningful than miracle.

“These are my top two calls,” Bramblett said Monday from Ames, Iowa, where he was to call an Auburn-Iowa State basketball game that night. “I’ve had some exciting ones and dramatic finishes, but nothing like the miracle of a couple of weeks ago and the unbelievable play the other night.”

Auburn-Alabama: Richard Deitsch of SI.com writes about how CBS covered the big play.

Silver said the first rule for all end-of-the-game situations is to let game director Steve Milton show the scene, which the director did with a series of quick cuts that documented the amazing images being played out around Jordan-Hare. Viewers saw CBS’s cameras travel from Auburn’s end zone celebration to a shot of Alabama coach Nick Saban walking toward midfield, to more Auburn players celebrating, to Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron hugging friends and family, to a shot from above the field, to Saban walking off the field, to shots of stunned Alabama fans.

“Steve did a phenomenal job and then it was how long do you go before you start with the replays,” Silver said. “My inclination was to let him keep going until it felt right. What I did consciously think about was not only did I want to show all the replay angles, but I wanted to try to show the best angles in the proper order.”

Media rising stars: Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing looks at up-and-coming media personalities in 2013. Among them was Pedro Martinez.

When Martinez was announced as a Postseason analyst for TBS, many people were horrified and expecting the worst. After the Postseason was over, that opinion had done a complete 180. Martinez proved himself to be honest, intelligent, and quite humorous as part of a shockingly good TBS Postseason studio show. Once Martinez’s shakiness in front of the cameras disappeared and he got comfortable, he was fantastic. If Martinez continues along in the broadcasting world, he could be a superstar.

Future of NFL on TV: Awful Announcing does a panel discussion of how we will view the game in 2030.

Have traditional networks been replaced by Google, Netflix, or other online/mobile platforms?

Deitsch: I don’t think traditional networks will be replaced, though I do believe that a non-tradtional platform such as Google, Netflix or some yet-to-be-named online/mobile platform will have a set of games. In 2030, ESPN will still have a contract. So will CBS and NBC and Fox.

Freeman: Google, Turner (homer alert) and the Facebook Channel. Tons of people will be watching regular season games on their phones but I still think the NFL will be mostly watched, even in 2030, on traditional television sets. Football is still a big party. People get together at homes and bars. It’s a social experience. That will still be the case. People get together, hang out, eat food, watch football on big screen TV.

Gagnon: Google, Yahoo! and other major online players air live NFL games. Networks are still involved, but they’re airing games online on their websites. Verizon or one of its competitors has full mobile rights to all games. You can watch any game from anywhere, any time, on any device. NBC has been ahead of the game here, and ESPN knows the score. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if FOX and/or CBS bowed out by this point. I expect some major joint agreements between networks, online juggernauts and mobile companies.

Koo: Google became an augmenting partner for the NFL in 2021 to help distribute games ala carte via the web and on television. After a full decade of Google Plus being relegated to Friendster status, acquiring one off NFL rights to out of market games utilizing the Google Plus platform was deemed a smart investment to keep the fledgling social network relevant.

Future of college football: Crystal Ball Run does a panel discussion on what the game will look like in 2030.

Does the NCAA still exist as it does now? How/when did it change? Is it regarded any better than it is now by the public?

Feldman: I think the NCAA will exist but it’ll be more controlling of non-revenue sports and smaller schools.

Nasrallah: We’ll still be cracking jokes about how inconsistent, inept and corrupt the NCAA is in 2030, and those jokes will still be funny, maddening and true.

Duffy: The NCAA still exists but with a much smaller mandate. The end of amateurism renders its enforcement arm redundant. 

Fischer: It does in some form or fashion, especially at the lower levels. It changes structurally but not fundamentally and, once they outsource various functions like enforcement, they’ll be better received by the public.

DiNardo: It does still exist with the biggest change being the answer to number one.  It changed the most in 2014 – 15.  The public perception changed with a change in leadership that did the best job in the NCAA history of communicating.  The narrative changed with the new leadership and it was a narrative that did a better job than in the past of explaining the issues.

Rick Allen: NASCAR.com reports that Allen will be NBC’s lead announcer for race coverage, beginning in 2015.

NBC Sports announced another key component to its NASCAR Sprint Cup Series coverage team Wednesday, signing longtime play-by-play man Rick Allen to a multiyear agreement as the lead announcer for its talent lineup in 2015.
 
The news was the latest in a series of moves announced in Las Vegas as part of Champion’s Week festivities. Tuesday, the network revealed that Sprint Cup veteran Jeff Burton would work as an analyst in the NBC Sports booth. NBC announced the first part of its team Monday, naming Jeff Behnke as the organization’s vice president of NASCAR production, overseeing day-to-day operations.

NHL book: Sports Book Review Center looks at a new book on the history of the NHL.

Here’s an interesting idea about writing a history book about professional hockey: Take out practically everything that happens on the ice.

That’s what D’Arcy Jenish essentially does with his book, “The NHL – A Centennial History.” Yes, he’s a little early, since we are about four years away from the actual 100th birthday party for the league.

But there’s no reason to complain. No matter when it comes out or when it is read, Jenish’s book is a valuable addition to the story of professional hockey in North America.

The author concentrates on the off-ice action here, and when reviewed in this context it’s easy to see that hockey has had a rough go of it at times over the years. Any business is going to have troubles at the start-up, but the NHL has faced all sorts of issues in nearly a century of duty. As the author says, the story is all about trying to survive and grow.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media….

Women in sports media: Richard Deitsch of SI.com does a comprehensive Q/A with prominent women in sports media (includes Andrea Kremer and Michelle Beadle) on issues and obstacles they face.

Kremer:The definition of sexism is: “discrimination or devaluation based on a person’s sex, as in restricted job opportunities.” I believe that in the sports media, it’s still “easiest” to be a white male. Sadly, I think there continues to be a high percentage of viewers, listeners and readers who want their sports news and information delivered solely from men. The double standard still exists. If a man makes a mistake, he misspoke. If a woman errs, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Thankfully, there are more women employed in the sports media than ever. I don’t think they’re viewed as such an anomaly anymore, but there are times it feels like women are token hires and not there based on knowledge and ability.

Bleacher Report: Andrew Bucholz of Awful Announcing looks at the changing direction of Bleacher Report under Turner.

Through numerous e-mail and phone interviews over the last month, Awful Announcing has compiled a variety of perspectives on Bleacher Report’s past, present and future; in total, they seem to indicate a dramatic shift from where the company was pre-Turner, with a new focus on big-name hires and professional writing and a substantial increase in the advancement curve. Whether that’s for the better, for the worse or somewhere in between likely depends on your perspective.

John Clayton: Dave Boling of the Tacoma News Tribune tells us what it is like to be John Clayton.

One of his ESPN colleagues tells what it’s like to go into a restaurant with John Clayton, media rock star.

They hadn’t even gotten to their table when a gentleman approached and apologized for the interruption. He asked if Clayton wouldn’t mind being introduced to his friend, who was a great admirer.

The bashful fan turned out to be former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield.

Reminded of the episode, Clayton squinted and sheepishly nodded. “Yeah, really weird, huh?”

Weird, perhaps, but not unusual these days.

Tracy Wolfson: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing has a podcast with the CBS sideline reporter.

ARod, Incognito: Michael Bradley, writing at the National Sports Journalism Center site at Indiana, looks at how Alex Rodriguez and Richie Incognito sought familiar ground for interviews.

The Rodriguez camp was counting on the fact that Francesa, a long-time critic of Selig, would use a softer interviewing touch than would someone else. It was a good move. Despite Francesa’s long career as one of the top voices in sports talk radio, he was not interested in fricasseeing Rodriguez on this occasion. Instead, he asked a series of questions – some pointed, most not – during a 40-minute live interview that allowed Rodriguez to talk about his innocence and how the accusations are tainting his legacy.

Kevin Burkhardt: Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes about Burkhardt’s road that eventually led to him calling NFL games for Fox.

Burkhardt, 39, worked a long time at being an overnight success.

He started out working at a 1,000-watt daytime-only radio station in New Jersey calling high school football games. Like everyone else starting out, he took “every freelance job for horrendous pay” because that’s what you do. 

He didn’t get noticed for years but then WCBS-AM radio in New York gave him part-time work.

“It’s a field where everyone questions themselves because the competition is so hard,” Burkhardt said. “Besides the competition, it’s hard for anyone to even give you a look.”

Rob Stone: Mike Cardillo of Big Lead about how Stone versatility has worked for him at Fox Sports 1.

It was a risk, make no doubt about it, but it was a risk worth taking. In January 2012 Rob Stone left ESPN — his employer for nearly two decades — and took the plunge, leaving the Worldwide Leader for the relative unknown of Fox Sports to anchor its soccer coverage on the now defunct Fox Soccer Channel.

Nearly two years later, the move appears to have paid off for Stone in spades. In that time Fox launched its own 24-hour network, Fox Sports 1, and Stone’s versatility has him in the middle of the coverage, hosting soccer, college football and now college basketball programming on the network.

TV training: Reeves Wiedeman in the New Yorker writes about ESPN’s program to train analysts to talk in front of the camera.

ESPN, the Megalodon of sports broadcasting, has no shortage of retired millionaires sending job applications: both the N.F.L. and the N.B.A. host annual seminars for players interested in broadcasting, and a current Pittsburgh Steeler recently asked if he could work as an unpaid intern. But finding linebackers who understand the difference between B-roll and a boom mike can be difficult. “They go from a job where you’re trained to say as little as possible to a job where you need to say as much as possible,” Gerry Matalon, a senior producer who helps run ESPN’s on-air talent development, said recently.

Sports TV: Jack Godfrey of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland reports on a panel discussion about the future of sports on television.

Partnerships between sports journalism and business outlets—and the power they have in the industry—fueled the discussion Wednesday night.

“Sports journalism is more and more sports business,” said The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi. The rest of the panel agreed that the concern is with how the business allegiances are taking precedent over journalistic relationships.

Ken Dryden: Stu Hackel of Sports on Earth about the Hall of Famer updating his iconic book, The Game.

Most notably, the 30th anniversary of the greatest hockey book ever written — one of the best sports books ever written — is celebrated with a new, updated edition. The Game, by Ken Dryden, has never gone out of print for good reason. It connects the reader with professional hockey players as few books have ever done by revealing that which is universally human in them, showing their strengths alongside their vulnerabilities and placing them within the context of a superior but sputtering team striving in a common effort to maximize their potential.

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ARod: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes about Alex Rodriguez’s media strategy.

Rodriguez’s publicist, Ron Berkowitz, said Thursday that there was no campaign plan, no scripted rollout of television interviews that would reinforce the dual messages of his 40-minute Francesa interview: first, that Bud Selig is the cowardly commissioner of baseball for not testifying at the arbitration hearing over the 211-game suspension that Selig has imposed on him, and second, that he is not guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs (in the particular case Major League Baseball is waging against him), obstructing justice or intimidating witnesses.

“Yesterday was a spur-of-the-moment event,” Berkowitz said of Rodriguez’s appearance on WFAN (and consequently the YES Network). “We gave Mike a ring about 20 minutes before, to tell him we were coming over.”

Kennedy assassination: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News speculates on how sports leagues would react today.

Red Smith, writing for the New York Herald Tribune, also railed against the New York Giants’ game to be played at Yankee Stadium:

 “In the civilized world, it was a day of mourning. In the National Football League, it was the 11th Sunday of the business year, a quarter-million day in Yankee Stadium, a day for selling to television a show which that medium not always celebrated for sensitive taste — couldn’t stomach.”

Dan Dierdorf: The veteran analyst tells Richard Deitsch at SI.com why he is retiring after the season.

“The reality is, from a physical standpoint, it’s too much for me, especially the travel,” Dierdorf told SI.com from his home in St. Louis. “I have two artificial knees, two artificial hips, nerve damage in my legs, and it’s a struggle for me to walk. That’s the reality of it. Ask anyone who has seen me go through a press box.”

Fox golf: Geoff Shackelford is pleased that Mark Loomis looks to be in line to oversee Fox Sports’ coverage of golf. Jason McIntyre of Big Lead broke the news via his Twitter feed.

Loomis helmed ABC’s golf coverage during the Tirico-Azinger-Faldo years and more recently started ESPN’s coverage of The Open Championship. A single-handicap golfer who grew up playing Winged Foot, Loomis widely respected in the television industry with both on and off-camera people. Considering Fox’s inexperience in televising golf, and the pressure to be “fresh and innovative,” a Loomis hire would provide a much-needed credibility injection for both Fox and their new partners in Far Hills.

Mike Tirico: Brad Gagnon at Awful Announcing praises Tirico for his candid call of the controversial finish to Monday’s game.

Monday night in Carolina, we had the most controversial finish of the 2013 NFL season. If that holds up, it’ll be the second consecutive year in which ESPN’s Monday Night Football will broadcast the season’s most controversial game, because Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden were also in the booth when Seattle beat Green Bay on the now-infamous “Fail Mary” last September. 

Tirico and Gruden handled both moments extremely well, and it only reinforced for me how much better ESPN’s national NFL product has become than most if not all of its competitors.

Peyton-Brady: Richard Deitsch of SI.com has a preview of NBC’s coverage of the 14th meeting between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

NBC is billing it with a title befitting a Super Bowl:

Manning-Brady XIV.

Next week’s Sunday Night Football telecast will be the 14th time Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning meet on a football field as pros. It is one of the signature games on the 2013 NFL schedule, and given the historical significance of the game, the core staff of SNF held a three-hour meeting last June 20 at NBC Sports Network’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn. specifically to discuss ideas on how they could make next Sunday night’s production special for viewers.

“I think what makes these games special is they play the position with an acumen not seen by many players,” said SNF producer Fred Gaudelli. “Yes, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers fit there, too, but the command of everything around Manning and Brady is uncanny. We will have some nice, historical material, but I’m also looking for things in the game to showcase why these guys are two of the greatest to have ever plated this game.”

Bad sports talk radio: Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing says it has been a year filled with many not-so-great moments for the sports talkers.

There are many great sports talk radio hosts throughout the country that don’t need to rely on shock jock antics to draw an audience.  They should be applauded for not taking the easy way out and diving into the gutter.  Nevertheless, there is a pervasive attitude that exists in the industry that produces the likes of Damon Bruce.  He is far from alone.  Here is a list of the notable controversies, suspensions, and firings to emerge from sports talk radio in the last 13 months…

Heidi Game: Neil Best of Newsday reflects on the 45th anniversary of when NBC switched from a football game to a movie about a young girl.

Forty-five years ago (last) Sunday I was worried some silly football game would delay the beginning of “Heidi,’’ which I and many of my fellow 8-year-olds were very much looking forward to watching.

Happily, NBC executives left the Jets-Raiders game right at 7 p.m., and all was well! Kind of.

College hoops TV first: Classic Sports Media and TV has a look at who was on the crew for networks’ first college games.

first on ABC 
    Sat 12/15/1973, UCLA vs NC State (at St Louis), 5 pm, Keith Jackson, Bill Russell 
        (Note: not part of a package, but a single-game deal arranged by ABC after losing NBA rights)

first on NBC as part of the national package it began in the 1980s
    Sat 11/29/1975, Indiana vs UCLA (at St Louis), 11:30 pm, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer
        (Note: this was a live telecast – the game started at 10:30 local time)

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Richie Incognito: Dave Zirin in The Nation writes a follow-up column to his initial harsh critique Monday of Jay Glazer’s interview.

But I also now realize I did not in fact see the whole interview, which aired Monday in its entirety.Having now spoken with Jay Glazer and others involved in this story, I want to be honest and straight up about both.

First and most obviously, I was wrong in thinking that what was shown on Fox Sports NFL Sunday pregame show was the entire interview. The heart of my critique involved all the questions that I believed went unasked, as well as the choppy editing and quick cuts that made it appear as if the interview was sculpted to put Incognito in the best possible light. In fact many of the questions I took Jay Glazer to task for not asking, he did in fact ask.

Glazer, when you see the full interview, asked in a tougher tone about Incognito’s racism, asked more about the bullying and how far it extended, and asked whether the coaches “ordered the code red”. These questions are important. They also ended up on the initial cutting room floor, as I saw last night on Fox Sports. I maintain, given the importance of this story, that Fox did us all a disservice by not being brave and just saying “heck with the pre-game show. Let’s show this interview to the widest possible audience.” But they didn’t and that is not on Jay Glazer. (Glazer it is worth noting, disagrees with me about this, saying that they have “a responsibility to all the NFL fans who don’t care about this story.” I think the story is big enough that they should have just gone for it.)

Richie Incognito 2: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana writes about the media’s role in the controversy.

Because the NFL’s culture and traditions are so alien to the rest of us, it makes sense that the most effective commentary emerging from the Miami Dolphins imbroglio has come from former players. Unfortunately, a large swath of the media community has decided to weigh in on the situation, including many who have never stepped into a locker room in their lives, much less donned a helmet and shoulder pads at the highest level.

Since my football career ended in the sixth grade, I am not qualified to pass judgment on whether Richie Incognito’s treatment of fellow offensive lineman Jonathan Martin was over the line. Further, since so many of the facts about the controversy remain unrevealed, it’s even more difficult to form a responsible opinion about what happened and what it all means.

Richie Incognito 3: In his NPR commentary, Frank Deford gives his view.

Not surprisingly, in the explosive revelations about the Miami Dolphins team turmoil, most attention has been paid to the fact that, in the midst of a locker room predominately composed of African-American players, a white, Richie Incognito, slurred a black teammate, Jonathan Martin, with the ugliest racial epithet –– and was actually publicly supported by some blacks on the team. Incognito’s sadistic employment of the word has not only sickened but also astounded most of us.

However, I would submit that once we accept the inherent racism in this one dismal affair, the greater lasting impression will be to damage the sport of football itself, for the broader implications illustrate again how brutish our most popular American game has become.

SportsCenter: Richard Deitsch at SI.com examines SportsCenter using celebrity anchors from time to time.

Rare is the first-time SportsCenter anchor who can produce a 25.5 percent ratings increase from the previous week, but that’s what happened on Friday, Nov. 1 when the 6 p.m. edition of SportsCenter — co-hosted by a scrappy 44-year-old SportsCenter rookie — drew 813,000 viewers, up from 648,000 viewers for the previous Friday show.

The name of this incredible sports broadcasting prospect?

Ken Jeong.

Yes, the dude from The Hangover.

The talented actor/comedian appeared on SportsCenter 10 days ago amid much public relations fanfare and rewarded ESPN with a huge ratings bump for an edition of SportsCenter that struggles compared to its morning and late-night counterparts. So, was this a ratings ploy?

“One-hundred percent it was,” said Steve Bunin, the former SportsCenter and Outside The Lines staffer who now works in Houston as an anchor for Comcast SportsNet Houston. “My first thought was: That already is a give-up show. I don’t think there’s much shame in it. It’s fun. It’s a clear ratings ploy. If something heavy breaks, they’d sideline the celeb. It mostly sucks for the anchors desperately fighting for a chance to do that show, and yes, it’s another chip in the wall of pure journalism. But no more to me than so many other things they do. I saw a SportsCenter segment recently where they had Tim Legler speak for three straight minutes on one topic so that viewers could vote their opinion on the SportsCenter Facebook page. That to me is a clear example of time that could have been spent far better asking him about any other NBA topic.”

Leigh Montville: After a 24-year break, Leigh Montville returns to the Boston Globe.

When the Globe called and asked if I might want to write a weekly column again, picture at the top of the page, I didn’t have to think long. Why not? So here I am.

I tell people that I am Red Sox owner John Henry’s first free agent in his new journalistic enterprise. I am a Mike Napoli type of free agent, a veteran catcher/first baseman with possibly bad hips who might be able to help a little bit. I will do what I can do. I might even grow a beard, add some tattoos, maybe take off my shirt and go for a midnight stroll down Boylston Street if everything works out.

I am a team player, here to win a championship.

I also can use the money.

I am saving to buy a duck boat.

Jay Bilas: Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder has a podcast with the ESPN college basketball analyst.

Ian Eagle: Featured guest on the latest Sports Media Weekly podcast.

Artie Lange: The Sports-Casters has a podcast with Lange.

Lange explains his feelings about becoming a New York Times best-selling author for the second time and how the success of his book has validated his honesty. Also, Lange recalls some of his favorite moments as a co-host on the Howard Stern Show, talks about transitioning to host of his own show, and learning about interviewing from a legend.

Boxing on networks: Steve Kim of Sports on Earth writes about boxing migrating back to the networks. NBC is airing a heavyweight fight Saturday.

The bottom line is simple: while it’s the premium cable operators like HBO and Showtime that feature the sport’s biggest stars and write the biggest checks, it’s major networks like NBC that still have the largest stage for boxers.

“Look, it’s 100 percent of the country that can receive it, it’s 120 million homes versus 25 or 35 million, whatever the numbers are on HBO and Showtime,” said Kathy Duva, the head of Main Events, which is promoting the Adamek-Glazkov event and has an exclusive deal to provide content on both the NBC Sports Network and NBC. “No matter how you slice that, there [are] a lot of people who don’t have premium cable.”

Journalism 101: Jeff Pearlman on his site offers sage advice to students on what is required of them in a journalism class. Definitely will sharing with my students.

1. Ask questions. Ask 10 questions. Ask 100 questions. There’s nothing more off-putting for a teacher than the students who sit in the back, minding their own business. You probably don’t think we notice. Believe me, we do. Almost always.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media….

Adam Schefter: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing does a podcast with Schefter about his coverage of the Richie Incognito story.

In this interview, we not only chat with Schefter about his reporting about the Dolphins, but how NFL reporting has evolved and the amount of interest in the league’s news cycle.

-The timeline of his reporting and how it came together for him and Chris Mortensen, including his knowledge of the explosive voicemail. And, why this may just be the beginning of the story.
-The current power of reporting in the NFL and how this story has moved so quickly.
-How NFL reporting is like trying to stop the waves in the ocean.
-Juggling several stories at once including what’s happening in Miami, Aaron Rodgers’ injury, and health scares with head coaches.
-Why the hazing and bullying aspect of the Dolphins story resonates with the greater public.

Sports Illustrated cover: Nina Mandell of USA Today writes about the SI cover featuring David Ortiz and three First Responders from the Boston Marathon tragedy.

The magazine’s creative director, Chris Hercik, then came up with an idea: Sports Illustrated would find the police officers from the iconic picture of the aftermath of the bombing, a photo that appeared on the magazine’s cover, and they would then ask those officers to pose with Ortiz at Fenway.

It seemed like the perfect idea, said SI managing editor Chris Stone.

“What it came down to in the end was was this story really about David Ortiz or is it a bigger story in general?” Hercik said. “I think it’s more about the comeback or revitalization of Boston.”

Mark Fainaru-Wada: The co-author of League of Denial recently spoke to graduate students at the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana about his new book. Manny Randhawa reports.

“The most valid criticism I think we got is that we really didn’t take a hard look at the NFLPA. And I think there are a couple of reasons for that. One is time; we had a limited amount of time to do the reporting and deliver the book. And we had to make choices as we went through that process. … We tried to deal with it some in the book, but we just ultimately decided, the NFL created this research arm, the NFL was driving the research, and the NFL was sending the message through its research that this is not a problem. At the same time it was attacking independent researchers and I think we just thought that was the way to tell the story in that moment.”

Bill Raftery: The veteran basketball analyst tells Richard Deitsch of SI.com why he left ESPN to call Big East games on Fox Sports 1.

“The Big East was a pretty good connection for me philopshically,” Raftery said. “I love the people at ESPN but I just thought it would be a naturally conclusion for me to go full circle with the Big East.”

Fantasy football: Richard Deitsch at MMQB praises ESPN2’s Fantasy Football Now on Sunday mornings.

“Our host Robert Flores says it at the top of every show—we are here to get you a win,” says FFN coordinating producer Scott Clark, who has worked on the show for the past two years and has worked at ESPN since 1999. “Everything is geared toward fantasy football and helping people with their lineups. We also try to be entertaining doing it. The questions we ask our reporters in the field are very different than the ones reporters are asked on Sunday NFL Countdown or SportsCenter because our questions are geared toward individual players. We will hit on players that will not be discussed on other shows because we will discuss the Top 50 wide receivers or running backs each week.”

Verne Lundquist: Jon Solomon of the al.com does an interview on Lundquist’s 50 years in broadcasting.

“I’ll know (when it’s time to retire),” Lundquist said in a recent interview, noting that Craig Silver, CBS’ longtime coordinating producer for college football, will know as well. “I don’t want to stay too long. We all know guys who did. I don’t want that happening. I don’t want the mistakes multiplying. I’m conscious, we all are. If I misidentify a guy, I feel really bad about it. You don’t get to come back the next day to correct it.”

Phil Simms: Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News likes what the analyst is doing on his various studio shows.

With the studio stuff, he can freelance. Like on the most recent episode of “Monday QB.” Reporter Jason La Canfora went into an all-too-serious soliloquy about the NFL trade deadline and who might be available and where they could be headed. This cat made it seem like NFL GM’s were deciphering ObamaCare.

The normal response would have had Simms chiming in, saying: “Jason, in conversations I’ve had around the league …” Instead, Simms went against the grain, casting aspersions on the report.

“I love hearing this trade rumor stuff. I do love rumors, but most of the stuff is just media created,” Simms said. “If there are two (trades) I will be shocked.”

Jewish sportscasters: ChicagoJewishNews.com talks to several Jewish sportscasters in Chicago about their religion and sports.

(Jordan) Bernfield, who says he has a strong Jewish identity and continues to enjoy celebrating Jewish holidays with his large family, thinks it’s more than coincidence that there are so many Jewish sportscasters in Chicago.

“I think often the Jewish values of striving to be the best, striving to be successful are values that coincide with trying to work in a business as competitive as this,” he says. “It’s because in many Jewish families success is valued, and there are so many Jews who strive to be at the top of a competitive field.”

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NFL Network: James Miller and Richard Sandomir of the New York Times write about the 10-year anniversary of the network, and how it almost was bought by ESPN.

Different as they are, ESPN and the NFL Network nearly became partners. In 2009, the league courted ESPN in a series of exhaustive negotiations that the league hoped would conclude with ESPN acquiring 50 percent of the NFL Network for $2 billion, according to league and network executives.

To help entice ESPN, the N.F.L. offered to reduce the price of “Monday Night Football.” The new “Monday Night” contract, which starts next season, will have ESPN paying an average of $1.9 billion a season, plus $100 million annually for a wild-card playoff game. The executives involved in the talks said the N.F.L. offered to cut the fee to $1.5 billion a year, with the playoff game tossed in as a signing bonus.

ESPN ratings: John Ourand and Austin Karp in Sports Business Daily have an interesting story about the drop in ratings for PTI and Around the Horn. There’s more to it.

ESPN executives acknowledge the drop from 2010, when both shows set viewership records. But they say the focus solely on TV viewership misses a bigger picture. They say more people than ever are watching these shows on DVR or WatchESPN — and roll out the numbers to back up their point. “PTI” has logged 1.3 million minutes viewed on WatchESPN, up 270 percent; “ATH” has logged 1.2 million minutes, up 335 percent. Overall, WatchESPN streams are up 77 percent over last year.

DVR usage is up on both shows. “PTI’s” 18 percent DVR rate (live plus seven days) is one of ESPN’s highest time-shifting rates. “ATH’s” time-shifting rate is 12 percent. And the “PTI” podcast is the top download in ESPN’s Podcenter so far this year; “ATH” is in the top 10.

It’s impossible to quantify that usage and its impact on overall viewership, but ESPN officials clearly believe both shows are drawing an all-time high audience.

“More people are watching than ever before,” Rydholm said. “They just aren’t watching in the same way as they did before.”

Calls of the month: Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing compiles his favorites for October.

Ohio State pulled off one of the most dramatic, unconventional covers in college football thanks to a wonky last second touchdown.  Only Brent Musburger could truly understand the gravity of the situation and just how much money was changing hands.

John Wooden: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News reports more books are being written about John Wooden.

Goodness gracious, sakes alive: Another book we’ve just got to read about John Wooden has landed on the shelves. With one more looming in the near future. And a third just aching for some outside forces to stop breaking bad.

Any more? Any reason why not?

Keith Olbermann: Michael Hainey of GQ has an interview on his return to ESPN and other subjects. Great headline on story: “The 4,567th and Final Comeback of Keith Olbermann.”

GQ: Do you believe in redemption?
Keith Olbermann: Yeah. I wound up working for ESPN again because I believe in it and because I was pursuing it. I’ve made no secret of this, and I believe it sincerely. As I said several times, if there’s anybody who bothers to write an obit for me, it will include something in the first paragraph about contentious exits. And I’d like to change that. So yeah, I kind of believe in redemption. This is my third tour at ESPN. I’ve had two at NBC, an eight-year run. We retire our presidents at eight years; I think we should retire our political commentators at something less than that. So I believe in it, and it’s not necessarily a permanent thing, but in this case I want to try to make it as permanent as circumstances will allow.

Michele Tafoya: Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel talks to Tafoya about the value of the sideline reporter.

“I can tell you that (Gaudelli) makes the most of the role,” Tafoya said during a telephone interview. “He sees the big picture. He never tries to jam something in that isn’t important. He doesn’t feel beholden to me. He and I work very hard together during the week. He and I have a conference call in the middle of the week. We have our own separate meeting alone, away from the crew, on the weekend heading into the game. It’s a completely different experience than I have had at any other place.”

Sage Steele: Richard Deitsch of SI.com talks to Steele about her new role as a host on ESPN’s NBA Countdown.

“Countdown had not had a host for a long time and they seemed pretty set on keeping it that way,” Steele said in a phone interview last week. “I had asked about the role in the past and I had always had interest in it but I was surprised. I’ve been in the business for 18 years and I have loved every moment but I’ve never been able to focus on one sport and really own one. It eventually was a no-brainer for me.”

Adrian Wojnarowski: Jason McIntyre of Big Lead has a podcast with the NBA writer for Yahoo! Sports.

Wojnarowski, along with a couple other writers, has been at the forefront of the modern sports column: Less navel-gazing pontificating – I think this, I think that – and more reporting/informed opinion. I worked with Wojnarowski a little over a decade ago at the Bergen Record, back when he was a general sports columnist, and twitter/sports blogs barely existed.

ESPN Ombudsman: In his latest column, Robert Lipsyte weighs in about David Pollack’s comments about Condoleezza Rice serving on the new BCS panel.

The ESPN female audience has risen to about 45 percent, according to last year’s figures, and the network has been making an effort to showcase female talent. The promotion of Doris Burke this month to studio analyst on “NBA Countdown” was a dramatic example.

But ESPN also has to do a better job of identifying those “good ol’ boy” comments and turning them into teachable moments for the guys who haven’t quite gotten their heads out of their lockers.

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Johnny Weir: Juliet Macur of the New York Times reports Weir, who is gay, won’t press Russia’s controversial laws in Sochi, where he will be working as an Olympics analyst for NBC.

Now, Weir, not for the first time, may surprise everyone. Despite his sexual orientation, despite his marriage to a man in 2011, despite his long track record of (not always wisely) saying what is on his mind, Weir said Wednesday that he planned to hold his tongue in Sochi, at least when it comes to speaking out against the Russian law.

“I risk jail time just going there, but the Olympics are not the place to make a political statement,” he said. “I’m not a politician and I don’t really talk about politics. You don’t have to agree with the politics, but you have to respect the culture of a country you are visiting.”

World Series: Keith Olbermann pulls out some interesting numbers and offers his views of why World Series ratings have sagged dramatically since the 1970s. As usual, he does it in his own unique way.

Tim McCarver: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times gets perspective from his many broadcast partners during his long career.

Al Michaels (ABC): “He never thought he was in the ex-jock business — where a lot of guys come off the field and get the job and they theoretically understand things the average person does not. But Tim thought of himself as a broadcaster.”

Two weeks before the 1985 World Series, McCarver replaced Howard Cosell at ABC, joining Michaels and Jim Palmer.

Michaels: “Howard was sour and dour and took all the joy away from everybody on the crew. He had an ‘I-don’t-want-to-be-here’ attitude. When Roone Arledge made the switch, I said, ‘I’ve got McCarver?’ This was the greatest trade of all time.”

Concussions: Richard Deitsch at MMQB discusses how the networks are handling the concussion issue.

“I know three hours for a broadcast seems like a long time, but I really think the topic is so deep that it would take 10 minutes of a broadcast while a football game is going on to try and give that topic any depth whatsoever,” says NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth. “It is something I really care about. I have kids who play the game, and I’ve done a lot of studying and discussing the issue with a lot of people. But I think in my case, the [Showtime] ‘Inside The NFL‘ show is a better format for discussion.”

Scott Van Pelt: Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun writes about Van Pelt being a proud Maryland alum.

But nobody really expects that to happen. Not to Van Pelt, who is treated on campus as Terrapins royalty. Students often greet the instantly recognizable, bald, 6-foot-6 broadcaster by standing and applauding, chanting “SVP” and asking to pose with him for pictures. He’s their link to the national spotlight, a celebrity they love to call their own.

“The reception I have gotten when I go back there is one of the more remarkable things I have ever experienced,” Van Pelt, 47, says. “It might sound corny, but it’s the truth. It’s an emotional thing to be welcomed back so enthusiastically by them. They know I am one of them and they know I won’t hide from that.”

Thursday night football: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center looks at the possibility of the league adding another game to that night.

With the league locked into its current TV deals, there is no forthcoming increase in revenues. The opportunity to offer some games to another network (Turner? NBC Sports? Fox Sports 1?) is almost too much to resist. With broadcast rights fees’ soaring, the NFL would like to ride the wave, especially since no one can predict when prices may moderate. The only certainty in all of this is that NFL programming is hugely popular, and any rumor or comment about expansion triggers significant interest.

Jimmy Traina: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing does a podcast with Traina on moving to Fox Sports.

In this week’s podcast, we invite one of the sports blogosphere’s favs, Jimmy Traina, who is on the move from Sports Illustrated to Fox Sports. In the last several years, Jimmy has taken Hot Clicks at SI to one of the most popular features not just at the magazine, but across the web in sports. In this podcast, AA chats with Jimmy about the move, the evolution of Hot Clicks, and the media, and an assortment of topics.

Pat Summerall: Classic Sports TV and Media provides a timeline of legendary announcer’s career.

Summerall had a unique career in the NFL TV booth, beginning as an analyst in 1962 on CBS where he eventually ascended to the lead analyst position alongside the likes of Ray Scott and Jack Buck. Midway through the 1974 season, he shifted to play-by-play and formed a memorable tandem with Tom Brookshier as they called 108 games together over 6.5 seasons. In 1981, he started a 22-year run with John Madden including a move to Fox in 1994. Altogether, Summerall worked 400 games with Madden as his lead analyst with 171 of these coming at Fox. In 2004, Summerall filled in for 4 weeks on ESPN Sunday Night Football as Mike Patrick was recovering from a heart attack.