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

Weekday playoff games: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News looks at it from the perspective of fans being able to go to the game.

Again, how is a 1 p.m. Dodgers-Cardinals game in L.A. optimizing exposure for the sport? Fifteen minutes before first pitch, the stadium was barely half full, and those baking in the sun weren’t all that inspired by scoreboard prompting to get up, wave a towel or “make noise” as they had the two previous nights.

As Zack Greinke squirmed out of a first-inning jam, there might have been more sounds, but the sight of rows of empty seats, especially in the shady upper reserved levels, had to be obvious.

End of the second inning: Plenty of spots available. Too late to start giving away bobbleheads?

Kenny Mayne: Tony Maglio of The Wrap talks to Mayne about his return to SportsCenter. Not necessarily his choice.

“Well it was [ESPN’s] choice,” Mayne told TheWrap. “In this case it was kind of like, ‘Here’s what we want from you,’ and the other stuff was off the table. So it was either quit or do this, and doing ‘SportsCenter’ is not the worst thing in the world.”

TBS and playoffs: Ken Fang of Fang’s Bites writes an extensive piece on the good and bad of TBS postseason baseball coverage through the years.

Any studio show Turner Sports produces is directly compared to the great Inside the NBA and while the MLB studio has paled, this year with Olbermann as host has been a huge success. Yes, the team of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal is leap years ahead of other studio shows, but Turner has to be given credit for blowing up its studio from past years and retooling in 2013. It’s unfortunate that Olbermann may just be a one-year rental for TBS as Keith does have his nightly ESPN2 duties, but if Turner and ESPN can come to an agreement for next year as there is an option for him to return in 2014, it would be beneficial to the viewers.

 

Pat Summerall: Mr. Fang also writes about the upcoming documentary on NFL Network.

It’s amazing to think that Summerall was part of four of the best-ever NFL broadcast teams first as an analyst with Ray Scott and then Jack Buck, and as a play-by-play man first with Tom Brookshier and then with John Madden. And not only was Summerall good in calling the NFL, he could also call boxing, basketball, golf and tennis also.

Howard Beck: On the APSE site, Daniel Paulling talks to Howard Beck about his decision to leave the New York Times for Bleacher Report.

“I kept waiting for someone to tell me, ‘You are crazy. Don’t leave the Times,’” Beck said. “No one ever said that. Everyone had a sense that it was a great situation no matter what. You’re at the greatest newspaper on Earth, but this is a great opportunity. These are both great places to be.”

Replacing McCarver: Mike Cardillo of Big Lead writes it will be difficult for Fox Sports to hire a new No. 1 baseball analyst that will please everyone.

Ideally, FOX will find a somebody with ties to the current players, who can also be conversational in the booth and also, perhaps, use more advanced metrics to help make his points, engaging the younger audience in the process. This version of an ideal baseball color commentator might not, however, exist. Strike that, it doesn’t exist.

Ortiz-cop photo: Stan Grossfeld of the Boston Globe discusses how he got the great photo of the cop raising his arms behind Tori Hunter’s legs going over the wall Sunday.

Grossfeld was one of several photographers at Fenway Park who captured Tigers outfielder Torii Hunter’s plunge over the outfield wall as he tried to track down David Ortiz’s grand slam in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the ALCS. The photo of Hunter’s legs sticking straight up while a police officer stationed in the bullpen raised his arms to cheer the home run has been widely shared across social media and has been the subject of much praise.

“I knew he was going over,” Grossfeld said. “It happened so quick, I was praying the focus was sharp.”

Bobby Orr: Sports Book Review Center examines the legend’s new autobiography.

Orr resisted opportunities to write a book for decades. He’s finally done it now. Basically, it’s a thank-you letter to everyone that helped along the way. Parents, relatives, coaches, teammates – you’d think Orr was the luckiest guy on the face of the earth to be associated with such good people, although the truth just might be the other way around. That includes people he’s encountered along the way, including Don Cherry – who gets his own chapter and an endorsement for the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Ron Darling: Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News writes about how the former Mets pitcher didn’t wait for a call from Fox. Instead, he re-upped with Turner.

Darling’s and McCarver’s paths have crossed often. It seemed they were destined for a marquee crossing — McCarver walking out of the Fox booth and Darling walking in. It never even got to the talking stages. What happened?

“Turner was aggressive in coming and saying, ‘Hey, let’s continue this relationship.’ They didn’t have to do that,” Darling told me over the telephone. “That said a lot about my work with them and it says a lot about them as a company.”

Ryder Cup: Ron Sirak assesses the PGA of America’s decision to stay with the NBC for the Ryder Cup.

There cannot be two entities whose constituencies overlap as perfectly. Both Golf Channel and PGA of America members live and breathe the game of golf. If the 27,000 PGA of America professionals are the boots on the ground for the game, bringing golf to passionate players at both public and private facilities, Golf Channel gives that passion a voice.

And, in a new deal, that marriage is not just set through 2030, but it moves forward with a re-energized commitment to use Golf Channel, NBC and the entire Comcast family to not just televise the game, but to celebrate it, analyze it and, ultimately, grow it.

“Golf Channel is truly the daily broadcast voice of golf,” PGA of America CEO Pete Bevacqua told GolfDigest.com in discussing the arrangement that keeps the Ryder Cup on NBC through 2030.

Camera angles: Michael Clair of Sports on Earth has some fun with his vision of alternative camera angles for baseball’s postseason.

Heat vision: Wondering if your favorite player is truly on a ‘hot’ streak? Now you’ll know for sure with special heat vision cameras. The orange-red blobs that streak across your screen will let you access information that you’ve never had before like, “Does Prince Fielder become molten hot lava when running around the bases?” and “Is our starting pitcher really suffering from a fever or did he just have too much to drink last night?”

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League of Denial 1: Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru did a live chat at PBS.org Wednesday. It was moderated by Richard Deitsch of SI.com.

Mark Fainaru-Wada:
First and foremost, we were absolutely not out to get people to boycott football. Steve and I are both huge football fans — he has season tix to the 49ers — and we love the sport. I think our goal was simply to trace what the league knew, when it knew it and to what extent it sought to tamp down the emerging science. There’s no question the league has made strides on this issue since it was hauled before Congress in 2009, and we note that to some degree in the film, although the commissioner is still not openly acknowledging a link. I think our hope is that through the book and the film people will be more informed about the challenges the game faces and how it might deal with that. Again, though, it’s a violent, brutal sport, which is one of the things many of us love about it, and not sure that can/should be changed.

League of Denial 2: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes ESPN helped boost ratings and attention for the documentary.

ESPN’s pullout was a boon for “Frontline.” The attention paid to ESPN’s hasty decision made a lot of people aware of “League of Denial.” Had ESPN quietly accepted the collaboration ground rules with “Frontline” and told the N.F.L. that it would be a public relations error to pull out, many people might not have been alerted to the documentary.

League of Denial 3: Ken Fang at Awful Announcing has 9 most powerful moments from the PBS documentary.

Dr. Omalu publishes his findings in a medical journal. However, the league goes on the offensive to have the journal retract the article. The publication refuses. But the NFL continues to go after Omalu attacking his credentials and his research this despite having several noted neurologists co-author his paper. Dr. Omalu eventually finds evidence of CTE in a second ex-Steeler, Terry Long, and again publishes his findings. Just as it did before, the NFL attacks Omalu’s credibility. 

He eventually meets with an NFL doctor in private who tells him the implications of his reports could result in the end of football. During this time, the league denies any connection to brain injuries from playing football and publishes its own papers dispting Omalu’s claims saying the sport is safe. Disappointed, Dr. Omalu leaves Pittsburgh and moves to Lodi, California saying, “I wish I never met Mike Webster. You can’t go against the NFL. They’ll squash you.”

League of Denial 4: Patrick Hruby has five takeaways from the film:

2. The Big Tobacco analogy is apt: During a 2009 Congressional hearing on brain damage and football that’s referenced in the film, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) likened the NFL to the tobacco industry. It’s hard to argue the point. Confronted with a growing body of evidence indicating that their product was a public health risk — in a nutshell: Smoking cigarettes causes cancer — companies such as Phillip Morris did not move to self-regulate, warn consumers or otherwise act for the common good. Instead, they launched legal and public relations offensives designed to limit liability while muddling and obscuring the problem — or, as ESPN the Magazine writer Peter Keating puts it in “League of Denial,” to put off their “day of reckoning.”

On course golf reporters: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing spent time with NBC’s walkers during last week’s Presidents Cup.

Maltbie reflected, “There’s been so many. Which one would I single out? I remember telling Tiger once you’re going to get me fired. And he said, how’s that? And I said, you’re going to hit one of those shots that only you can hit and I’m going to go ‘holy sh*t’ when the ball’s in the air and those will be my last two words on the air.”

Cal Ripken Jr.: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News talked to Ripken about whether he will manage next year.

“Now Jim Bowden (the former Nationals general manager working for ESPN) is tweeting out that the Nationals are interested in me (to replace the retiring Davey Johnson), so this seems to have picked up some momentum,” Ripken said.

“I guess it is what it is. I’ve been pretty consistent with what I’ve said all along. In the past, talking to general managers from time to time, I get asked about it, and before, I wasn’t interested so it wasn’t proper to go through the process. Now that one kid is out of college and another is in college, I’m asked if I have the itch to get back, and working for TBS the last couple of years, getting back around the ballpark again in that environment, sure, I’d listen. But it’s just been a general statement.

 “My immediate focus is – I’m an inexperienced broadcaster who is cramming and reading and listening and watching, and I don’t have time to look up from that right now. That’s a lot to deal with.”

Fox Sports 1 guys: Richard Deitsch of SI.com does a Q/A with Fox Sports Live anchors Jay Onrait and Dan O’Toole.

SI.com: How do you view ESPN? Are they head-to-head competition or do you view them through another prism?

Jay Onrait: What’s funny for us is we went through this experience in Canada but exactly in opposite. We were working for the ESPN of Canada, and then 15 years ago a couple of new networks launched to challenge TSN. It was exactly the same thing. It’s like we are going through what those networks did, and it’s funny to be on the other side. This is obviously much more of a challenge, but, of course, they are our competition. It would do us no good to try to emulate anything they did. We have to do it our way and offer an alterative. We’ve been surprised how well it has gone over, at least in terms of the reaction on Twitter. We live in a day and age where people can tell you — good or bad — exactly what they think of you with one click of the button. You better have a strong sense of self to deal with it. We expected much more of a mixed reaction, but so far it has been really positive.

TBS praise: Will Leitch of Sports on Earth likes TBS’ pregame show for the playoffs.

But it isn’t. Most pregame and postgame shows play it safe, mostly because they’re staffed by former athletes who would rather remain friends with their former colleagues than enlighten or entertain the viewing audience. They say nothing by design. This is why most studio shows primarily consist of retired athletes pretending to laugh at each other’s jokes. There is nothing else they can do. Anything else they might say, they can’t.

Which is why this year’s TBS studio crew has been so refreshing, and so fun. I think it’s pretty obvious already that this is the best baseball studio crew in recent memory. They’re funny, they’re sharp, they’re happy to be critical, they’re even a little weird. While the actual telecasts of the games remain the disasters they’ve always been during TBS live broadcasts — TBS games apparently have only three cameras, and they’re operated by people who have a scorpion in their boots — the studio show has been an instant highlight. If all pregame and postgame shows were like this, we’d have a lot more annoyed athletes … and we’d have a lot more satisfied viewers.

Paul Finebaum: Bob Gillespie of The State does a profile of ESPN’s new hire.

Ask what he most eagerly anticipates, and a smile crosses Finebaum’s face. What, he asked back, is not to like?

“I’m 57, and at this point in life, it’s not like (another deal such as) this will come around again,” he said. “I was content to ride out (his career) where I was, but this is like opening a curtain: ‘Hey, would you like to work for the best sports network, covering the best (college) sports league?’ And I said, ‘Yes, when do I start?’ ”

Tyler Kepner: JeffPearlman.com does a Q/A with the New York Times baseball writer.

J.P.: I’ve known you for a long time now, and I’ve known of your, eh, feelings toward Alex Rodriguez for a long time now. It seems, however, of late you’ve been more willing to call him out as a fraud in print. Your language has grown stronger, your statements more pointed. Why? Is this age and experience? Is it the medium? And why do you have such strong feelings toward him?

T.K.: I really do my best to give people the benefit of the doubt. I try be very conscious of every word I write—no cheap shots, no reason to unintentionally offend someone. I always want to be able to defend what I write, if the subject ever has a problem with it. And in Alex’s case, everything I’ve written is defensible. I’ve known him since we were both 23, in Seattle. And the things I’ve seen directly, and the stories I’ve heard from people in the game I deeply respect, allow me to write honestly about him, without holding back. A tough part about being a columnist, I’ve found, is that need to have an opinion when you see both sides of a story. But when you feel strongly about something, and you have lots of material to back it up, you owe it to your readers to be honest with them.

I also think I’ve built a reputation as a writer who is eminently fair and measured. I don’t go looking for a fight, and I like almost everyone I meet. I do enjoy watching Alex play, for the most part—his arm, his power—and he actually has a brilliant mind for the game. But what’s especially galling to me about him is that he has consistently tried to present himself as superior to everyone else, bigger than the game. It probably stems from insecurity, but it’s no excuse, and it’s nauseating. Also, he lies all the time—All. The. Time.—and I really think not enough people call him out on it.

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

Vin Scully 1: Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times has Scully clarifying his statements on plans beyond 2014.

Slow breaths now, find you inner calm, think gentle breezes through the pines.

Vin Scully has not announced next season will be his last.

Which doesn’t mean it might not be, but that’s the same as it’s been for several years now.  Scully, 85, said he will do his annual evaluation next summer and determine if he wants to come back for another year.

“I look at each year as possibly my last,” Scully said. “Next year will be no different. It all boils down to come July or August, how I feel physically. I’ll look at how many mistakes I’ve made and if they’re coming for me yet, and how I feel.”

The legendary broadcaster has already agreed to return for a record 65th season next spring, but in a recent interview with KPCC he sounded like next year could be his last.

“I wasn’t making a declaration,” Scully said. “I guess it was misconstrued. Each year is my last, until the next one. I never say yes or no.”

Vin Scully 2: Tom Hoffarth in the Los Angeles Daily has a Q/A with the legend.

Q: You’ve talked about the many reasons for wanting to come back for your 65^th season next year, feeding off that energy and enthusiasm that you’ve seen on the field. You pick up on all that?
A: Yeah, I really do. I’ve really enjoyed the games at home, with the crowds so enthusiastic and high strung. So marvelously excited. I’ve always loved the roar of the crowd, I’ve said that my entire life. And this year, the crowds at Dodger Stadium have been making the kind of noise they made there when the team won the World Series in 1988. And then you look in the dugout, and these guys are just having fun. It’s really a wonderful experience. I don’t anything but sit there and absorb it.

Vin Scully, 3: Can’t get enough Vin, right? Chuck Culpepper in Sports on Earth writes it’s still all about preparation for Scully.

He will turn 86 in November. He will start his 65th season as the voice of the Dodgers next April. He lives with the abiding love of a sprawling metropolis. He has gone from Gil Hodges and Duke Snider and Roy Campanella all the way to Yasiel Puig, whom he can cite as “a study all by himself,” comparable to none, with “his unbridled joy of playing, his enthusiasm, his recklessness.” Yet as another season depletes toward Game 162 and, in this Dodger year, beyond, Vin Scully still totes around a healthy fear of unpreparedness.

“Well, you can see what I’m doing and you can see all these notes, and this is a highlight pencil,” he says. “And it’s one of the things you have to do, because you’re overwhelmed with minutiae, and so I go through all this and I highlight a few things that I want to use on the air. So that at a glance, I will see, ‘Oh, I thought I would use this, so I highlighted this.’ But the problem with this is you start looking and you’re liable to miss a play on the field, and that of course is a killer, so in a sense you’re being lured onto the rocks by the Lorelei, you know, so you try not to do that.”

GameDay: Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing says GameDay needs to go to more new locations, such as it is doing by going to Northwestern Saturday for the first time since 1995.

GameDay going to larger sites is really more of a statement about the current landscape of college football. Over the last season and a half, GameDay has gone to SEC schools seven times. Three of those games have involved Florida, and two each have involved Texas A&M, LSU, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia. Overkill much? Well, those are all perennial powers that are ranked in the top ten, so it makes sense for GameDay to go to those sites.

But last year, things just got to be too much. Florida was featured (albeit on the road both times) in back to back weeks, and three times over a seven week period. South Carolina appeared twice in three weeks. Notre Dame appeared twice in three weeks, and three times over a seven week span. USC and Oregon have hosted a combined eight GameDays since 2008, while the rest of the Pac-12 has hosted a total of four – and one of those game when Utah was in the Mountain West. In case you’re curious, Oregon was the road team in all three of those Pac-12 conference games.

Blown coverage: Amanda Rykoff of Awful Announcing says TBS dropped the ball by failing to show the dramatic pregame festivities at Pittsburgh Tuesday night.

TBS, one of MLB’s three broadcast partners for the postseason, did not show the traditional pre-game player introductions, National Anthem or ceremonial first pitch before Pittsburgh’s 6-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds. Let that wash over you again: there was no television coverage of what should have been — and was — some of the most compelling drama of the evening.

This was the best story in baseball and I, along with most interested observers, could not wait to see how the Pirates and their fans celebrated the return of postseason baseball. As 8 o’clock on the east coast approached, I kept waiting for TBS to leave the pre-game studio show with Keith Olbermann, Mark DeRosa, Pedro Martinez and Dirk Hayhurst to bring us the on-field player introductions, National Anthem and ceremonial first pitch. It never happened.

Amy Trask: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says Trask is shining in her new role as studio analyst for CBS Sports Network’s NFL pregame show.

In the TV business, she may call herself “an undrafted rookie free agent.” But having her on the CBS roster should already make other networks wonder why their scouting departments didn’t pluck her up first.

“It’s very liberating after all these years with a team to now speak on things where I’m accountable to me,” Trask said from her San Francisco home office Wednesday. “I’m also coming to the realization that sometimes I’m not necessarily best at following direction. But it’s also nice to work as a group of very collaborative individuals.”

Pedro: Richard Deitsch at SI.com talks to Pedro Martinez about working as a studio analyst for TBS during the playoffs.

Martinez said he auditioned on Aug. 17 at Turner’s studios in Atlanta on a panel with Olbermann, Gary Sheffield and Bobby Valentine, with Turner production executives putting the three potential studio analysts through different game situations over a 120-minute tryout. Turner Sports executives liked what they heard from Martinez and let his agent know he had landed the job. What does he want baseball viewers to come away with after watching him?

“First the right facts, and then hopefully a lesson on some of the things that players go through during a season,” said Martinez, 41. “Hopefully, this will be teaching moment for the fans and kids who are watching. I want to educate you on the different aspects of the game.”

“He has the great knowledge how to pitch, but unlike me, he pitched at the highest, highest level anyone has ever pitched,” said Turner Sports MLB analyst Ron Darling. “He also has such a great personality. He has such a love for the game. He’s an interesting person and I think he will bring all of that to the booth.”

Premier League: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times reports that the Premier League is paying off for NBC.

So far, the formula is working. NBCSN’s 22 telecasts have been seen by an average of 391,000 viewers, 70 percent better than the average game last season on Fox Soccer, which carried most of the games, and ESPN and ESPN2, which broadcast about one game a week in a licensing deal. NBCSN, however, has about twice as many subscribers as Fox Soccer. More important, at least to NBC, is that NBCSN’s daily viewership from Aug. 17 to Sept. 22 swelled 67 percent, to 77,000 viewers.

That is still a fraction of ESPN’s 1.2 million in that period and fewer than the month-old Fox Sports 1’s 121,000. But the highs are getting higher. Last Sunday afternoon, 852,000 viewers watched Manchester City trounce Manchester United, 4-1, in one of the Premier League’s marquee early-season matches. That was the biggest audience so far on NBCSN.

John Guppy, a veteran soccer executive who founded Gilt Edge Soccer Marketing, said, “What they’ve done — and it’s not that Fox didn’t do it, but maybe it comes across more directly to consumers — is they’ve made the Premier League feel special and important.”

ESPN 3D: Fang’s Bites notes that ESPN 3D, which started with much fanfare, went dark on Monday.

The viewership for 3-D was so small, only an estimated 115,000 people were watching 3-D programming at one time, that it didn’t register with Nielsen for significant ratings data. By the time of this year’s Consumer Electronic Show, it was apparent that 3-D TV was on its deathbed. Television manufacturers were now pointing to the “next big thing” in the industry, 4K high definition which is even sharper than the current high definition displays.

However, as 3-D TV cost an average $1,500 extra for consumers, in hard economic times, it was difficult to convince buyers to shell out the extra cash to go to the third dimension.

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Not playing favorites: Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times writes the Oklahoma State series shows reporters can’t be fans.

I’m also here to tell you that this is a good example of why sportswriters shouldn’t root for teams, even teams they don’t cover. That will sound unfair, if not draconian, to my sportswriter friends who enjoy cheering for something. It’s not. It’s a way to wall yourself off from people looking for a reason to doubt your fairness.

Months before the Oklahoma State scandal broke, I had a discussion with a sportswriter who, like me, had attended Northwestern. He is a big Wildcats football fan and a big supporter of golfer Luke Donald, who also went to NU. He covers neither of those sports, though I suppose there’s a chance he might down the road. He said if he were assigned to cover Northwestern, he could put aside his loyalties.

He probably could. But as the Oklahoma State scandal has shown, it doesn’t matter what the writer thinks. The public’s perception, given whatever a sportswriter has said in the past on TV shows, written on message boards or put on Twitter as a fan of his favorite school, is that his underwear matches the school colors.

Michelle Beadle: Steve Lepore at SB Nation examines why The Crossover failed.

Here’s where my point comes in: The show didn’t work for a couple of reasons. The first was the lack of chemistry between the hosts, or that Beadle was even forced to have a co-host at all. In my opinion, that was a show that seemed to value having a format more than using the talent available to it. From what I’ve seen Beadle do (and given what NBC is reportedly paying her), it stands to reason that you should find a way to just make “The Michelle Beadle Show.” Just Michelle Beadle talks sports/whatever. Wouldn’t that be better than promising the show will be where sports and pop culture mix?

Value of sideline reporters: Richard Deitsch of SI.com raises the question of whether they are needed.

I’ve thought a lot about sideline reporters this week because it’s one of the questions I asked of our sports media panel below. While the quality of sideline reporting talent is wildly uneven (CBS has gone as far as eliminating the position during the NFL regular season), I support, as a philosophy, the more reporters on the field, the better.

“If I was a network president I would assign a reporter to every game because the ‘high profile-ness’ of a game has nothing to do with what happens during the game,” Kremer said, in an email Sunday. “The fifth best game on a network can still have a catastrophic injury or a blackout or a weather delay.”

John Lynch: Brad Gagnon of Awful Announcing talks to Lynch about his interview with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Awful Announcing: Fox Sports has some experienced people on staff. You’re a bit of a fresher face, having entered the media world in the last half-decade or so. How did you end up landing this interview with the commissioner?

John Lynch: I’ve done features for Fox throughout the years. It’s one thing they’ve had me do in the postseason, for instance. And I think they’ve turned out well. And it’s something I enjoy doing, and so when they started this Fox Sports 1, one of the shows that they were launching was this one-on-one concept. And they came to me, like they did a lot of talent, and said, essentially, we want you guys to think who you would most enjoy talking to, kind of your bucket list. And I thought it would be fascinating to talk to Roger Goodell. And so I’ve had a relationship with Roger over the years, sometimes getting called into the principal’s office when I was a player, but I’ve always — haven’t agreed with him on everything — but I’ve always had a respect. I picked up the phone and called Roger and told him what I wanted to do and he said, “Sure, love to do it.” That’s not something that he does a lot of, so it was very humbling that he said yes. He was more than gracious with his time. It looks like an interview that all happened on one day [but] we were in there and then two days after we filmed, they settled [the lawsuits]. And so we called back to Greg Aiello and everybody at the league and they were very accommodating, allowing us to come back in so we could update it after the settlement.

Frank Deford: Speaking of the settlement, Deford weighs in on the issue in this week’s NPR commentary.

Football is unique in that most players participate in only half the game — offense or defense.

Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, plays a more conventional defense in protecting the league from charges that it is dangerous to your head. Effectively, he stands on the Fifth Amendment. The settlement with the former players who were suing the NFL for not caring for them, for not bearing responsibility for the damage done by concussions, included the vital provision that the NFL would ante up the blood money but not have to own up to any responsibility or reveal its files that studied traumatic brain injury.

Woman director: At MMQB, Deitsch profiles CBS’ Suzanne Smith, the only female director for NFL games.

During her 30-year broadcasting career, CBS Sports director Suzanne Smith says she often has been asked the following question: What will happen first—a woman elected U.S. president or assigned to direct a Super Bowl?

Last week she flipped the script and asked the question of a reporter, who answered a female president.

“I think you are right,” says Smith. “A woman in the White House will come first.”

James Lofton: Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel talks to the former receiver about joining SiriusXM NFL Radio.

James Lofton has joined SiriusXM NFL Radio and will co-host a daily weekday show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. He begins his new role on Friday.

“Looking at the entire NFL and fielding calls will be a little different,” Lofton said during a telephone interview on Wednesday, when his new role was announced. “But I’m looking forward to it. It should be fun. “You are always thinking about the league, what is going on in the league,” Lofton said. “Four hours will whip by. There’s always a lot to talk about.”

Low moment: Jeff Pearlman writes about a Sports Illustrated editor who wasn’t enamored with a Barry Bonds story he wrote in 2000.

I was half asleep in the back seat when my cell phone rang. The number was 212-522-1212—Sports Illustrated. Surely, I assumed, they were calling to congratulate me on snagging an interview with the elusive superstar.

“Hello.”

“Pearlman!”

It was Bevans.

“Uh, yes?”

“Pearlman, are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”

“What do you mean?”

“If we wanted to give Barry Bonds a blowjob, we could have just brought him to the streets of New York.”

Click.

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Oklahoma State: Gina Minzell of NewsOk.com has the transcript of the live chat Sports Illustrated editors Chris Stone and Jon Wertheim conducted on Deadspin about their Oklahoma State series.

Question: If your goal was to expose college athletics, why did you feel the need to sacrifice Oklahoma State at the altar of the NCAA in the process? Why not pick five or 10 different schools to highlight

Chris Stone: The goal of the series was not to sacrifice OSU, but present what happens at OSU as the symptom of much greater systemic problem. The investigation was not about rules violations or sanctions or NCAA Bylaw 12.5.2.1 It wasn’t about OSU players smoking pot; it was about the institutional sham of treatment programs that aren’t interested in treatment or counseling. It wasn’t about OSU recruits getting laid. It was about raising the question of whether a hostess program is intended as a sorority in service to the football program. It wasn’t about players as the sole agents of corruption. It was about asking whether college football programs are set up to develop any other future skills than being a football player.

CBS Sports Network: John Ourand of Sports Business Daily talked to CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus about the state of the network:

This year, CBS opted not even to kick the tires when Fox Sports and NBC Sports Group agreed to pay NASCAR a combined $8.2 billion for rights through 2024. It remained on the sideline as Fox outbid NBC for the rights to golf’s U.S. Open. Its executive team also opted not to match ESPN’s $75 million-a-year bid to swipe U.S. Open tennis rights, an event that CBS has produced since 1968.
These moves — or, rather, the lack of them — have caused some industry observers to scratch their heads, wondering why a broadcast network that runs an all-sports cable channel wouldn’t be more involved.
“We’ve said all along that we’re not currently in the marketplace for hundred-million-dollar deals,” said CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus. “But we’re trying to improve our programming, which I think we’ve done dramatically by doing smart deals.”

GameDay: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes about ESPN’s GameDay going on location.

Some colleges are veteran hosts. Some have never done it and might get about barely a week’s warning that “GameDay” wants to visit. For all, the national exposure to about two million viewers on Saturdays, augmented by reports from the set on Friday, is irresistible. Because of the interest in the Alabama-Texas A&M game, those reports began Thursday from College Station.

“It’s one of the things you can’t say no to,” said Van Hilderbrand, an associate athletic director at Clemson, the “GameDay” host on Aug. 31, the first Saturday of the season. In 2006, Clemson received the standard five-day notice that ESPN wanted to take “GameDay” to its campus. But this year, it was told of its selection on Aug. 1. Both times, the show emanated from the university’s front lawn.

Nickname controversy: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center lauds columnists who no longer will use the nickname for the Washington football team.

Those who have taken a public stand against the use of a racist slur are helping a relatively disenfranchised section of the American population gain dignity. By setting a standard that excludes the use of hateful words in their work, these media members are encouraging their peers to do likewise. It’s no different than a newspaper’s calling out a slumlord who refuses to provide safe shelter for his tenants. Or a TV station’s launching a news series directed at a corrupt official. In all cases, the goal is to help the people without power gain some influence over those who have it. That it is done in a very public way makes it highly effective.

Dick Vitale:The New York Post has a nice story on how Vitale helped assist a player in getting a transfer.

Okoro, a 6-foot-5 Bronx product and St. Raymond graduate, credited ESPN announcer Dick Vitale for a huge assist.

“I’d also like to give a shout out to the great @DickieV for his voice on my waiver!” Okoro tweeted. “Truly honored and it is heavily appreciated!”

Okoro’s 72-year-old father, Stanislaus, died last December of a stroke. Then two months later, his 28-year-old brother, Idiongo, died of colon cancer. Okoro came home to be closer to his mother, Eno, and older brother Freddie, 26.

When hearing Okoro’s story, Vitale took to Twitter in support, calling on NCAA president Mark Emmert to change the ruling.

“I’m thrilled, excited, I just [sent] a tweet congratulating the kid,” Vitale told The Post in a phone interview. “It was common sense. I’m so happy the NCAA saw that. It was a no-brainer.”

NFL Roundtable: Richard Deitsch of SI.com asked various media writers to weigh in on the current state of NFL broadcasters. Typically, Deadspin’s John Koblin was bright and cheery.

A. Which NFL pregame show is the most effective and why?

Koblin: I really think they’re all terrible. Points to [ESPN’s Sunday] NFL Countdown for being on a couple of hours earlier, and for having Sal Pal [reporter Sal Paolantonio], Suzy Kolber and Ed Werder, and notable/reliable faces at the stadiums (Stadium reports are fun!). But, I suppose, given the ridiculousness of the format, Fox remains the most tolerable. I’m still confused how CBS’s crew remains intact.

ESPN vs. Fox Sports 1: Steve Lepore of the Puck the Media writes about ESPN touting a ratings increase since Aug. 17, the date Fox Sports 1 debuted.

The network sent out a pointedly-addressed press release citing their ratings as being “up 13 percent since August 17.” That would be the exact day that Fox Sports 1 debuted, and NBC premiered it’s EPL coverage. ESPN is saying that its full-day average (1.21 million viewers) is up 13 percent “compared to the same four weeks a year ago (1.07 million).” Meanwhile, in primetime, the network is averaging 2.89 million, up 20 percent from that time period in 2012 (2.41 million).

Podcasts:

Jason McIntyre Show: Greg Bedard of MMQB.

Awful Announcing: Bruce Feldman of CBSSports.com

Sports Media Weekly: Michelle Beadle.

Sports-Casters: Dan Wolken, USA Today, and Michael Woods, thesweetscience.com/ESPN Magazine.

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

Keith Jackson: Dan Levy of the Bleacher Report ranked the top 25 voices of college football. He asked me and others for some input. You could debate some of his choices (Jesse Palmer at 23, but no Bill Flemming?), but there’s no doubt about No. 1.

Jackson was bigger than the game itself in many ways, helping to introduce the sport of amateur football to millions and millions of fans across two or three generations. 

If the history of college football were a storybook, Keith Jackson would be its narrator.

Just to prod your memory, here’s Jackson’s open to the 2006 BCS title game.

Johnny Manziel: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center sees media hypocrisy in its coverage of the quarterback.

The mere idea of “Johnny Cam” demonstrates to what lengths networks will go to capitalize on Manziel’s allure. Chronicling a player’s every movement proves definitively that the game is less important than any potential drama Manziel can provide. If we need any further evidence that companies and individuals are making enormous sums of money by exploiting college athletes’ exploits, then we aren’t paying attention. Manziel is powerless to tell CBS that he is not interested in 360-degree coverage, and A&M is not about to turn down an opportunity to feature its most marketable asset.

ESPN’s competition: It’s not Fox Sport 1. Dave Warner at Awful Announcing writes that it is a la carte cable.

As one cable industry lobbyist told the Times, “On à la carte, there was no stronger opponent than Disney and ESPN.” Indeed, à la carte cable just might be ESPN’s biggest competition — certainly far bigger than Fox Sports 1. That’s because, thanks to the bundle, the 90 million or so customers who get Fox Sports 1 with their TV subscriptions still pay for ESPN, and at a rate of $5.54/month, according to the latest data from SNL Kagan, which far outpaces the $0.23/month that carriers forced Fox to accept last month.

Monday night doubleheader: Brad Gagnon at Awful Announcing enjoyed seeing two games on Monday night. He wishes it was a regular occurrence.

And every year in Week 1, we get an extra serving of prime-time, nationally-televised football when ESPN turns Monday Night Football into a doubleheader. Football from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m. ET is just glorious, which has me wondering why that hasn’t become a weekly staple yet. 

It makes sense for everyone. You’d only be stealing a total of a handful of games away from CBS and FOX, but another permanent prime-time national spot would give teams and players more exposure while giving fans more football to watch and adding to the league’s profit margin. Because I can guarantee ESPN (or anyone) would be willing to pay big bucks for the extra 15 games (they’d be much more valuable Monday night than Sunday afternoon).

Randy Moss: Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is not a big fan of Fox Sports hiring the ex-receiver.

Even by current, sorrowfully diminished TV standards — the hideously thoughtless identification, rewarding and marketing of sports’ worst acts as the most preferred — FOX’s hiring of Moss as a studio analyst is extraordinary, a sick, twisted parody come real.

There was a reason, after all, that Moss, an enormously talented wide receiver, was treated as an expendable by six different teams until kaput. So antisocial, selfish and dismissive of the most rudimentary sense of right from wrong was Moss that even after the Vikings assigned him his personal baby-sitter, fellow WR Cris Carter, he was unable to lift himself from his own, self-brewed extract.

That FOX even considered Moss for any kind of on-air gig, let alone handed him a pen to sign on, is a kick in the groin to all of us who still hope that some sport — any sport — might one day be returned to our sports.

Brian Urlacher: Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune talks to the former Bears LB about making the transition to TV.

Gradually, Urlacher has adjusted to his new occupation as an analyst for Fox Sports 1. He will be a part of the “Fox NFL Kickoff” crew Sunday morning.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do TV because the media side gets a little tricky,” he said. “But I wanted to try it out. And I’ve actually enjoyed myself a whole bunch.”

Marty Glickman: This ran a few weeks ago, but wanted to note Phil Mushnick of the New York Post on what made Glickman so great.

Glickman worked — and worked hard — to provide radio, TV and even newsreel calls that were rich in practical descriptions and phrases. His “style” — what still distinguishes him in the minds of those who used manhole covers for second base or swapped NYC bus transfers to save 15 cents — was that he simultaneously could inform, hold and enthrall an audience with brevity and accuracy.

His “shtick,” you should excuse the term, was that he worked shtickless — unless one counts phrases that he alone developed for only their immediate clarity and usefulness.

Thus, while calling Giants’ games on WNEW-AM, Alex Webster, Ernie Wheelwright and Ernie Koy would “take the handoff and go off left tackle for a couple-or-three yards.” We could “see” Phil King and Steve Thurlow straining, falling forward for those last three feet.

Bev Norwood: Joe Logan of MyPhillygolf.com remembers the long-time golf PR man for IMG, who was quite a character.

He was diminutive man, wiry and wry, with a drawl from having grown up in North Carolina. He was also the source of a constant stream of commentary and wisecracks on golf and golfers, life in general and anybody who happened to wander into his field of vision. At tournaments, in the media center, Bev wouldn’t so much hold court as he would walk from one writer of cluster of writers to another, confirming or debunking rumors, or delivering the latest Tiger news that was suitable for public consumption, or just catching up on gossip.

One of his best friends was the legendary Dan Jenkins and the two of them (and oftentimes one or two others) would find a corner in the dining room of the media center, a couple of old-timers watching the world go by.  You could see them people-watching, then nodding in apparent agreement over something or somebody, or perhaps just over the absurdity of it all.

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

Concussions: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News talks to Troy Aikman and others in the aftermath of the NFL concussion case.

Aikman, who has said back problems rather than migraine headaches were more related to why he retired, pointed out this week that he was not one of the plaintiffs suing the league. But he called the settlement “another win for the NFL … that’s a lot of money (paid out), but relatively speaking, in terms of what could have been paid, it’s not that much.

“There are guys who will be able to benefit, and some money will be put into research. (But) the one thing I’m disappointed about is that the NFL didn’t have to acknowledge what they knew and when they knew it (concerning brain injury research). It’s not about tarnishing the NFL, but I think full disclosure would have been the best way to go.”

CBS’ Boomer Esiason, who suffered such a severe concussion while playing quarterback for the New York Jets in 1995 that he was one of the first to undergo an extensive concussion study during the season while unable to play, said he’s “grateful” for the 4,500 players who went forth with the lawsuit and “I may fall under this fund if I need it.”

Broadcaster draft: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing conducted his annual college football fantasy broadcasting draft.

Round 1

1) Ourand: Chris Fowler, ESPN, studio host 

With so many games on TV, the best way to stand out is with a pre- or post-game show. College GameDay is the best show covering college sports today, and Fowler is the best anchor. This is the easiest pick of the draft.

2) Deitsch: Kirk Herbstreit, ESPN, game analyst

Luck or RGIII? Fowler and Herbstreit were going 1-2 in this draft in some order and with the GameDay host going first overall, this was an easy selection. Herbstreit is versatile enough to excel in either the studio or game format, and he’ll do both for my network.  

3) Kenney: Rece Davis, ESPN, studio host

I was hoping to get either Davis or Fowler, because the gulf between these two and the remaining studio hosts is huge. Davis has the misfortune of being paired with the clownish duo of Mark May and Lou Holtz on ESPN’s wrap-up show, which means I generally don’t see that much of him on Saturdays. There has to be a better way to utilize his considerable talents.  

4) Yoder: Mark May, ESPN, studio analyst

No wait, that’s a joke…

4) Yoder: Gus Johnson, Fox, play by play

My lead play by play man was an excruciating pick, but I went with Gus over Brent Musburger & Verne Lundquist. I don’t know how much longer I’ll have some of those other top names so I’m looking both short and long term with this pick. Gus has received much more hype for his college basketball and soccer work (for better and worse) but his enthusiasm and style is a great fit for college football.

NFL broadcasting guide: Richard Deitsch of MMQB has an extensive guide of the networks’ game coverage for 2013.

It’s a simple question with a complex answer. What makes a successful NFL game broadcast?

“I think a successful game broadcast is one where everyone is working in concert together to tell a story,” says CBS Sports broadcaster Jim Nantz, the network’s lead NFL play-by-play voice since 2004. “It is an effort of about 250 strong for our crew, and everybody has an important part to play to make sure the story is told accurately. The art of it, when you boil it down, is storytelling, and not just anecdotal stuff. It’s about why a play did or did not work, or why a player or coach made that decision. It’s storytelling whether from a play-by-play man or analyst, or the producer having the right sequence of replays, or the director visually showing you what happened.

Sunday Night Football: I’m not exactly sure what this is, but Neil Best of Newsday says Sunday night’s game will be featured on FreeD TV.

Starting with Sunday’s Giants-Cowboys game at AT&T Stadium and continuing with Notre Dame vs. Arizona Oct. 5 and Redskins vs. Cowboys Oct. 13, every NBC game at the Cowboys’ building will feature “FreeD” TV.

The plan, fashioned by a company called Replay Technologies, is to mount a total of 24 high-speed cameras — 12 on each end — covering every angle in both red zones to provide a seamless 360-degree arc of replay possibilities.

“FreeD,” short for “free dimensional video,” also will be shown on the Cowboys’ famously mammoth in-stadium video board.

Fox College Saturday: Ken Fang at Awful Announcing thought the season debut was much better than last year’s version.

Does it work? Well, there are segments where Klatt takes the lead and the show truly becomes his. Andrews has improved after her shaky start with Fox College Saturday last year. There’s only been one show in 2013, but Andrews does better handing off to this crew than when she had to carry George and Harrington in 2012. There is definitely better chemistry in this year’s cast and it helps that Klatt has been brought in to co-host.

Peyton Manning, TV analyst: Richard Deitsch of SI.com speculates on the great QB’s future as an analyst, if he goes that route.

How likely is Manning to go into the booth after he’s retired? For as many interviews and studio appearances he’s done over his 15 NFL seasons, the Broncos quarterback has never indicated that he’ll pursue broadcasting after his career ends. (Worth noting is his father, Archie, a broadcaster for CBS Sports, told the Indianapolis Business Journal in 2011 that he was not sure if Peyton’s heart was into broadcasting.)

In an interview with SI.com last week, though, Manning’s former coach, Tony Dungy, predicted Manning would be a broadcaster five years from now. “I would say he would,” said Dungy, an analyst for NBC’s Football Night In America. “He enjoys the game so much and it is a way to keep yourself involved. He would also be phenomenal. He has everything you are looking for. I joked with [NBC Sports executive producer] Sam Flood awhile back: If we hired him at NBC, it would triple Sam’s workload. Peyton will be so prepared and not leave a stone unturned. He would put 30 hours a week into it because he will want to be the best. Whoever hires him, they have to know what comes the territory. But if he did this he would be phenomenal.”

Dan Wetzel: The Yahoo! Sports columnist does an interview on APSE’s site with Dan Wiederer on the art of column writing.

For me, I think it’s important that I report out every column as much as possible. We have a great NBA reporter, Adrian Wojnarowski, and Jeff Passan, another of our columnists. We have a lot of great people and we talk a lot about reporting every column. Needless to say, there are times when you can’t always report out a column. Something breaking and there’s no access. Like Tiger Woods smashing his car into the fire hydrant. You’re not getting Tiger Woods on the phone. At that moment, nobody is. So sometimes you don’t have the choice. But for 99 percent of columns, how can you report it out? What can you give the reader that they’re not getting without your reporting eye? So you have to zero in on using your access and asking the right questions.

Georgia Tech announcer: Mike Tierney in the New York Times writes about the unusual hire for the voice of Georgia Tech football.

Less than an hour later, after a swig of water that would stay in his system for a while, Gaudin delivered his first unrecorded words to the Georgia Tech audience: “Live from Bobby Dodd Stadium. Welcome, everybody. I’m Brandon Gaudin.”

There was no telling how many listeners heard that and said, “Who?”

Football is a young man’s game, but the art of describing it on the radio has largely been the purview of those middle-aged and older. Georgia Tech athletics is affiliated with IMG College, which holds the multimedia rights to the football programs of 80 universities, making it the largest such network. On average, two jobs within that group become available each year, and 15 of the current IMG announcers have been calling games from the same campus for at least 30 years, longer than Gaudin, 29, has been alive.

Namath and Bryant: Sports Books Review Center reviews Rising Tide, a new book on Joe Namath’s years in Alabama with Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Bryant was waiting for him, even having him up to his fabled coaching tower when Namath arrived. We forget what a great athlete Namath was in those pre-knee operation days, but he was a standout in all sports (he could dunk a basketball without a running start) and had excellent speed.

The authors do capture the atmosphere that greeted Namath in Alabama. This is someone who had black friends back home, and who therefore wasn’t used to the idea of separate drinking fountains and bus lobbies. We couldn’t see what was  Joe did what he wanted – being a special athlete always has had its advantages –  and while it ruffled some feathers he was good enough and friendly enough to make it work.

Most of the book is devoted to a game-by-game account of Namath’s seasons there. There’s some good research involved here and the story moves along, although it is a little difficult to make football games from 50 years ago fresh and interesting. It’s striking how much the game of football has changed since then. Namath had games where he only threw a handful of times, something of a waste of his talent. But, when he had to throw, he was a sight. Namath did more than enough for people to realize he was something special.

Podcasts

Big Lead-Jason McIntyre: Jay Glazer

Awful Announcing: Darren Sharper, NFL Network.

Sports-Casters: Dave Dameshek (NFL Network, NFL.Com), Richard Deitsch (Sports Illustrated, SI.Com) and Jeff Duncan (Times-Picayune, NOLA.Com)

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

NBA TV rights: Jason McIntyre of Big Lead reports that Turner Sports, not ESPN, will feel the greatest threat from Fox Sports in the upcoming negotiations for the league’s TV rights.

The TV rights showdown over the NBA will accelerate in the coming weeks/months, and many in the media are portraying the battle as ESPN vs. Fox Sports.

One problem: Although it makes for a great headline, those aren’t the two networks to keep an eye on.

There’s virtually no chance ESPN is losing the NBA.

Turner? That’s another story.

The real bidding war will take place between Turner and Fox Sports, multiple industry sources tell The Big Lead. The NBA’s current TV deals with ABC/ESPN and TNT run through the 2015-2016 season. But the next TV deal is expected to be complete by early next year, with discussions expected to intensify in February, after Adam Silver takes over as commish for David Stern.

Keith Olbermann: Will Leitch of Sports on Earth writes that things will be different for Olbermann at ESPN than they were at MSNBC.

The ESPN of today is not the ESPN that Olbermann left. They’re the big dogs now, and whether Olbermann would want to admit it or not, thusly so is he.

When Olbermann was lobbing rhetorical bombs at President Bush from the MSNBC chair, well, this was a guy on a then-fledgling basic cable network screaming into the void at the leader of the free world. But last night, when Olbermann began his show with a shockingly long, 20-minute screed against New York Daily News Jets beat reporter Manish Mehta, it felt less like a justified takedown and more like institutional bullying. Olbermann wasn’t necessarily wrong about Mehta’s (and the New York media’s in general) ridiculousness about Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez, but to rain that much thunder on a beat guy? To have Jason Whitlock come in and talk about how “incapable” Mehta was? For 20 minutes of airtime on a signature ESPN station? It was using the world engine to squash an ant.

Keith Olbermann II: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News is glad to have Olbermann back.

And reading between the lines in everything Olbermann does, even if there are some less-than-subtle jabs at his own company’s policies, is mandatory if anyone plans to stick with it past the some volatile opening monologue and get to the compelling interviews, retro sports highlight commentary and even a re-washing of his “worst people” segments as they relate to the sports world.

“I’m here to calm you down,” joked Wednesday night guest John McEnroe, introduced shortly after Olbermann’s railing against the NCAA’s decision to suspend Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel for the first half of Saturday’s opener, a follow-up lambasting from the night before where he created a well-told but refreshingly new spin on how the game Manziel  plays is really “college pro football.”

“You don’t need to be that angry,” McEnroe continued. “You seemed fairly mellow early on, and now you’re coming on strong.”

McEnroe couldn’t be serious. But in a way, he was.

Vin Scully: Dan Shaugnessy of the Boston Globe writes about the great one coming back for his 859th year (or so it seems) in the Dodgers booth in 2014.

In all of sports, there is nothing like the Scully-Dodgers relationship. Ernie Harwell was the sweet honey voice of the Tigers for a million years and Marv Albert has been the signature caller of the Knicks forever. We came to associate Keith Jackson with college football and Al Michaels with believing in miracles. Boston has been graced with the iconic Curt Gowdy, the mellow Ned Martin, Drano-gargling Johnny Most, steady Gil Santos, puckish Fred Cusick, and pom-pom Joe Castiglione, who moved thousands of “can you believe it?” bottle openers after the Red Sox finally won in 2004.

All of these guys are/were great, but none can be Vin Scully. Only one man can be the greatest sports broadcaster who ever lived.

Vin Scully II: Howard Megdal of Sports on Earth also praises the great one.

Scully doesn’t just stay and chat a while, every day, for six months. He tells you things you didn’t know, and in a singularly interesting way. The Mets happen to have excellent announcers on both the radio and television sides — and still, when the Mets go to Los Angeles, I learn things about them I haven’t heard all season.

Bart Scott: Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News thinks Bart Scott has a chance to be very good on the new pregame show on CBS Sports Network.

Scott marketed himself to CBS in a most unusual way. The fact that he has a big mouth does not separate him from other former NFL players who tried making it on TV. What separates Scott is his overt dislike of the media.

So, when CBS Sports boss Sean McManus heard Scott once tried organizing a player boycott of the local media while he was with the Jets, he must have said: “Bart Scott, that’s our guy.” Or maybe what really impressed McManus was when Scott angrily approached Dan Leberfeld , the Jets Confidential publisher who was taking his picture, and said, “I’ll kick the s— out of you.”

Brian Urlacher: Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Sun-Times writes the new Fox Sports 1 analyst wasn’t so media friendly as a player.

On Sunday, I heard someone mention Brian Urlacher was going to be a TV analyst. I thought I must have heard wrong. No way the former Bears linebacker would join the Dark Side. He wasn’t as bad with the media as the aforementioned cornerback had been, but I never got the feeling he would have reached for a bucket if a reporter’s hair were on fire. So no way he would put in with us media slobs. I went back to minding my own business.

On Monday, I Googled ‘‘Urlacher’’ and ‘‘TV.’’ And there it was. Urlacher will be an NFL analyst for the new Fox Sports 1 network. I guess I missed the news while covering the Cubs’ big turnaround.

How’s that for a 180 on Urlacher’s part?

Urban Meyer: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing thought Rolling Stone was wrong for including Meyer in a story about Aaron Hernandez.

That’s a pretty large, serious allegation to make… with almost no weight behind it.  Meyer “may have” helped cover up failed drug tests and shootings?  May have?  Sure, and Urban Meyer also “may have” been the second gunman on the grassy knoll too.

When the actual piece was published today, it was revealed that Rolling Stone misfired in a needless attempt to capitalize on the cottage industry of painting Urban Meyer as a corrupt despot and it hurt the credibility of the rest of the piece as a result.

Pac 12 Network vs. DirecTV: Ben Koo of Awful Announcing examines the discord.

DTV will tell you it’s the Pac 12 Network’s fault for trying to ripoff their customers and not having an a la carte option for the channel. DirecTV operates the Root Sports affiliates that carry sporting events in Seattle and Pittsburgh and don’t seem to embrace the a la carte concept when it applies to them.

The Pac 12 Network will scream bloody murder that other providers entered into deals and this is just the market rate for the channel, and DTV is just being unreasonable.

Most industry experts will tell you that is has to do with a number and both sides are apart on that number. Here is the nonsense though:

It’s none of the above.

Sochi Olympics: Erin Sharoni, writing in the Huffington Post, suggests people become active on social media during the Games to protest Russia’s anti-gay stance.

So, if only for two weeks in February 2014, become a superfan, whether you’re gay, straight, in between, or something else entirely, and whether you’re watching from a dorm room, on an iPhone, or in the city of Sochi itself. Support the athletes, regardless of whom they sleep with, what nation they hail from, or what god they worship. For the sake of equality, civility, and in the name of tolerance, be seen and be heard. Every person reading these words has benefitted from someone else’s raised voice in the past. Pay it forward. Wearing a ribbon and silently signing an online petition is not enough. Get rowdy. Make noise. Invite everyone. Start the dance party, and keep people moving.

Greg Gumbel: Paul Banks of Chicago Sports Media Watch talks about Gumbel’s Chicago roots.

Paul M. Banks: tell me about your time at WMAQ-TV

Greg Gumbel : It’s where I got my start; in March of 1973, I worked there for seven and a half years, it was a nice learning platform. Local news was frustrating to me because local news really isn’t about sports. Local news is fine with the local sports team until they are no longer in contention. And you couldn’t explain to these idiots running the place that sports fans don’t care if they’re in contention or not, they want to know what their team did.”

Whereas management thought they’re no longer in contention, so you don’t need that. Bull you do need that. So there was a certain amount of frustration built into doing local news, but it was a good learning platform and from there I went to ESPN and then to Madison Square Garden to CBS.

Podcasts:

BS Report: Bill Simmons talks to Matthew Berry about his new book on Fantasy Football.

Sports-Casters: Interviews with Andy Staples (Sports Illustrated, SI.Com), and Joe Lemire (Sports Illustrated, SI.Com).

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

Chris Fowler: Richard Deitsch of SI.com has an interesting interview with one of the best in the business. Fowler wants to expand his horizons at ESPN.

SI.com: Generally speaking, are you happy at ESPN?

Fowler: I have been very happy — more than happy. Fulfilled, satisfied and challenged, and as long as that continues, I would expect to stay there. But what I think is important to know for anyone in this business is people sort of view you in a static state. For me, anyway, you want to be continuously challenged. Professionally, you don’t want to coast into the sunset. I am 50. [He turns 51 on Friday]. I have a lot more to do and there are other things I want to do that I have not done. I don’t think it is anything secret internally what I want the next step for me to be at ESPN. I don’t think that is a mystery given the landscape. It’s why GameDay is a unique standalone thing for me. It doesn’t act or feel like a studio show. But the live events are the most inspiring, unexplored thing for me.

SI.com: How so?

Fowler: I really have a passion to document live events as they happen. Hosting is wonderful and remains really satisfying but the joy for me is calling big matches and it was very hard for me to give up calling Thursday Night Football on ESPN. It became too much to manage with GameDay’s increased schedule and travel. But giving up calling football in the booth was the toughest decision I have had to make. That remains something I am drawn powerfully to.

In game commercials: Richard Sandomir of the New York writes about those in-game commercials, “drop ins,” that clutter up radio broadcasts of baseball.

The phenomenon, playing out on airwaves around the country, is most pronounced in Yankees broadcasts. The first Yankees walk prompts, “Just walk into any of CityMD’s six convenient locations.” The announcement of the game’s umpires is brought to you by Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, a law firm specializing in asbestos exposure cases. The personal injury law firm Cellino & Barnes gets a plug when the announcers explain the broadcast’s copyright violation policy. A call to the bullpen comes with a nod to one of three sponsors: Aamco Car Care, Hyundai and the Tri-State Ford Dealers.

The postgame wrap-up show? That’s brought to you, naturally, by Reynolds Wrap.

“They’re not tough to do, but does it feel like it slows the pace of the game?” said Charley Steiner, a Los Angeles Dodgers announcer who previously called Yankee games. “Of course it does. From an announcer’s point of view, less is more.”

Fox Sports 1: Eric Deggans of the National Sports Journalism Center thinks the new network got off to a good start.

Here’s a secret about new TV programs any experienced critic knows: Often, when evaluating the first episode, you can’t judge the content, you gotta judge the framework.

So in the case of new cable sportschannel Fox Sports 1, you can’t jump to conclusions just because its one-on-one interview series looks like a half-hour hagiography, or the smart alecky anchors on its “SportsCenter” clone “Fox Sports Live” sound like the announcers on ABC’s parody of a sports competition, “Wipeout.”

What matters most, is the framework. And on that score, Fox Sports 1 mostly gets positive marks in its first weekend on air.

Regis: In this week’s NPR commentary, Frank Deford takes a knock at Fox Sports 1 and Regis Philbin.

To get in on this sports TV humbug, Fox just opened its new all-sports network. The centerpiece is a talk show hosted by Regis Philbin, who says his credentials for the job are that he’s a fan.

I hate to tell the Fox people this, but the last thing sports fans want to listen to is another fan. If you are a fan, you don’t want to hear jack from another fan, because, hey, you know more. Instead, you want to hear from experts and analysts, and fired ex-coaches and washed-up ex-players, the artless in-the-know crowd.

Premier League: Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing was impressed with NBC SN’s first weekend of coverage.

NBC presented the Premier League more like it presents the Olympics as opposed to how they present the NHL: like a major event. The commentators and studio crew used a technique that more American commentators could learn from: silence letting the crowd tell the story. The very first Premier League match on NBCSN pitted Liverpool against Stoke City. Although they were using a syndicated feed, NBC let the crowd at Anfield take over with their rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” instead of talking over it. From then, I was almost immediately hooked.

Sportsdash: Steve Lepore of SB Nation has a Q/A about NBC Sports SN’s new show.

Steve Lepore: Where did the idea come from? I know NBC had partnered with Yahoo! a while back, had they been looking to collaborate on a show?

Dan Steir: The concept came from expanding our news gathering, and taking advantage of this great relationship with, and the asset of, Yahoo. We said let’s go ahead and extend the window of Dan Patrick, play off that and do an hour at noon where a lot of people are sort of transitioning into the real time and relevant news of the day during their lunch timeframe.

To your original question, it was sort of “how do we maximize this relationship with Yahoo?” and let’s start getting our feet wet in the news and information department.

Hal McCoy: Rick Reilly at ESPN.com writes about the legendary Cincinnati baseball writer who continues to cover the Reds despite failing eyesight.

“The worst part is people think I’m ignoring them,” McCoy says. “I have to get up on a guy to two feet before I know who it is. So people will say hello to me and I won’t say anything. They probably think I’m an arrogant jerk.”

Ali documentary: Dave Zirin with Edge on Sports is very high on a new documentary about Muhammad Ali.

I write all this so it’s understood that when I say that The Trials of Muhammad Ali is the best documentary ever made about the most famous draft-resister in human history, you know that I choose those words with extreme care. What makes The Trials of Muhammad Ali, by Academy Award–nominated director Bill (The Weather Underground) Siegel so special, is that it succeeds where so many have failed. Finally we have a film that presents an honest, thorough excavation of Ali’s politics in the 1960s. Siegel, perhaps because he has experience chronicling the often messy movements of that era, is able to communicate Ali’s journey of rebellion against racism and war with nuance and without a hint of condescension.

Sports Journalism: With school starting again, Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center has sage advice for prospective sports journalists.

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to a pair of students who will be starting their collegiate journeys this semester. Each, like so many other young people, was interested in sports journalism and wanted to know what they should do. My answer, in a word, was “everything.” I referenced comments by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who said that anybody interested in being in sports had better have a strong resume in place before they leave college. I told them that they should be involved in every possible media opportunity available at their schools and then look for more off campus. They had better blog and establish a presence on Twitter.

Pro! Magazine: Remember the vintage NFL magazine? Classic Sports TV and Media revisits a 1976 edition that featured Ken Anderson on the cover.

My favorite piece is the PRO! Talk feature which has a conversion with Tom Brookshier who was in his second full season as the #1 analyst on the CBS telecasts. That article focuses on Brookshier’s broadcasting career which started on Philadelphia radio in 1962. It includes a detailed recap of his infamous Duane Thomas “Evidently” interview during the Super Bowl 6 postgame show. The story also covers his TV partnership with Pat Summerall which began with the syndicated NFL Films highlight show This Week in Pro Football. The interview also delves into the decision by CBS to pair this duo together midway through the 1974 season and Brookshier shares his perspective on their early days as a booth tandem. Brookshier incorrectly recalls their first telecast together as being a Giants-Cardinals game in St Louis. (The opponent that day in St Louis was actually the Redskins.) Brookshier also describes the day that he and Summerall were awarded the Super Bowl 10 booth assignment and spends several paragraphs recapping that telecast from January of that year.

Podcasts:

Awful Announcing: An interview with Sam Ponder.

Sports-Casters: Interviews with Mike Tirico, and Doug Farrar with Chris Burke, co-authors of the Audibles Blog at SI.Com.

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

******

Regis: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has an amusing piece on one of new/old faces of Fox Sports 1.

“Some people are wondering why I took this job,” Mr. Philbin said. “But I’m a fan.”

Mr. Philbin is not working solo on “Crowd.” Nor is he part of a duo, as he was on “Live!” This time he has five partners.

“I can sit back and relax,” he said during the interview at his house. “I killed myself all those years. Let them do it.”

Fox Sports 1: Will Leitch at Sports on Earth on the battleground for the new network.

You need sports, which is why Fox Sports 1 is being taken more seriously. Fox has more sports rights than NBC does, with college football and the NFL and UFC and the World Cup and tons more things that can both be shown and promoted on Fox Sports 1. Right now, NBC only has the NFL, sort of, the Premier League, the Tour de France and some college basketball. (They’re working on it.) ESPN, of course, has a little bit of everything. That’s where these wars will be won: Not in studios, or newsrooms, or branding meetings. They’ll be won in corporate boardrooms where negotiations over exclusive rights are held. That’s all that matters.

Jay Bilas: The ESPN basketball analyst tells Richard Deitsch of SI.com how his Twitter expose led to the NCAA changing its policy on selling athlete’s jersey.

SI.com: Clearly, when they shut the search capability down, this generated into something larger. What was your reaction when that happened?

Bilas: Disbelief. Jeremy Fowler of CBS Sports texted me about the shutdown. At first, I wasn’t certain why it was disabled, but it seemed a reaction to the Twitter activity. I thought it was an overreaction, and I was very surprised. If not for the NCAA disabling its search function, this whole thing would have been of interest primarily on Twitter and some opinion pieces. But the search shutdown was like an admission of wrongdoing by the NCAA, and everything blew up from there. I believe the NCAA itself really raised the temperature of this, and made it such a big deal. With the exception of the interest of the player search capability, this wasn’t that big of a deal until the search capability was disabled. Someone tweeted how to get around the disabling using the URL, and I had a bit of a lark tweeting out a few more searches.

NCAA: Michael Bradley at the National Sports Journalism Center says the media has to keep up the pressure on the NCAA.

It’s incumbent on the media to keep pressure on schools and especially the NCAA, so that fans will understand that this is no longer a case of a player’s not having money to buy a pizza. With hundreds of millions in play, the players deserve more.

Bilas proved that last week.

Clay Travis: How did he go from being a lawyer to launching a site to landing a role on Fox Sports 1’s new college football pregame show. From Darren Heitner of Forbes.

QB Nonsense index: Mike Tanier on Sports on Earth has an amusing piece on the overkill of analysis for NFL quarterbacks. He comes up with his own system.

He writes:

No athletes generate as much mass-media nonsense as NFL quarterbacks (well, maybe with the exception of one or two). When they win, it is news. But when they lose, lose badly, lose comically, get paid, get married, get a new tattoo or do anything else besides study playbooks and lift weights, it’s bigger news. An entire industry is fueled by quarterback nonsense: ESPN would go dark during the day without it, sports radio would not be a three-station-per-market phenomenon, and the blogosphere would go back to being a concentrate-on-your-jobosphere. Also, I would still be teaching algebra.

Veterans in LA: Helene Elliott in the Los Angeles has a piece on the long-time announcers in LA, including Vin Scully, who still are going strong.

APSE: Gerry Ahern writes about his year as APSE president. He writes:

Important progress has been made regarding access and credential issues with the leagues and teams we cover. I am looking forward to serving on a working group along with John Cherwa and Tim Franklin of APSE, the NCAA, conference commissioners and COSIDA to sort through issues and represent our interests proactively. We hope to head off problems and protect our ability to practice sports journalism at its highest level.

APSE 2: New president Tim Stephens says the association is needed more than ever.

It has often been said that journalism is at a crossroads, but I believe that time has past. The road has been chosen, the path is clear even if it is not easy to navigate, and now is the time for action in the new digital landscape. Now, more than ever, is the time for this organization to be the standard bearer for quality sports journalism and the source of leadership, mentorship and inspiration.  Whether that leadership is evident in the pages of a newspaper or within the video of a complex multimedia presentation or even within the 140 characters of a reporter’s tweet, APSE must be that beacon of light in a crowded sea of content.

Podcasts:

Awful Announcing: Rebecca Lowe, who will anchor NBC SN’s coverage of the Premier League.

Sports Media Weekly: Bill Wanger talks about new Fox Sports 1 and David Berson of CBS Sports Network.

Sports-Casters: Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports, and Brett Martin, author, GQ Magazine.