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

Erin Andrews: Jeff Pearlman, writing on his blog, does a takedown of Erin Andrews. He compares her to Kim Kardashian. Too harsh?

The thing is, Erin Andrews has done nothing wrong. She was born pretty, she was a college athlete, she speaks well and she likes sports. If someone wants to pay her huge amounts of money for that, well, so be it. She’s the Kardashian of televised sports—and being a Kardashian has worked out pretty well for the actual Kardashians. The problem comes when something like the Richard Sherman situation arises, and Fox’s sideline star looks overwhelmed and out of her league and lost. Bonnie Bernstein (the gold standard, in my opinion), fires right back—hard. So does Jim Gray—confrontational, edgy, oft-hated—but a guy who doesn’t digest an athlete’s nonsense with an crooked smile and a “Back to you, Troy …”

Sigh

Rare TV audio: Classic TV Sports has vintage audio of the 1965 NFL title game with Ray Scott, Ken Coleman and Frank Gifford. There’s more on the site with a complete analysis. Very cool.

Network shilling is nothing new. At the 11:15 mark of the 4Q video, Coleman does a promo for the CBS telecast of the meaningless Playoff Bowl (a consolation game between 2nd place teams) and hypes it as a “big one”.

Brent Musburger: Richard Deitsch at SI.com reports that Musburger isn’t pleased with how he’s being treated at ESPN. And if the network makes the change, who will replace him as ESPN’s lead voice on college football.

As first reported by James Andrew Miller, Musburger has been offered the job of lead college football announcer for the upcoming SEC Network, which debuts at the end of August. It is unclear whether Musburger will take that offer, as some sources I spoke with noted he is unhappy with how the process is shaking out. What seems clear is that Musburger is being pulled from the lead announcer spot for ABC’s Saturday Night Football, which is ESPN’s top game each week. (Musburger, via ESPN PR, turned down an interview request from SI.com. “He isn’t doing any interviews on the subject,” said an ESPN spokesperson.)

More Brent: In a college football roundtable at Awful Announcing, Musburger’s future is among the issues discussed.

Fang: I don’t agree with this and Brent may have an age discrimination case if he so desires. Brent still has his fastball and shows no sign that he’s slipping. ESPN is caught between a rock and a hard place as Chris Fowler’s contract is expiring this year and it wants to keep him happy. He’s been with the network since the late 1980’s. According to two published reports, Brent has been offered the top spot at the SEC Network, but has yet to accept it. Brent deserves to bring ESPN into the College Football Playoff era, but it appears he won’t have that opportunity.

Covering Super Bowl: Deitsch at MMQB talks to veteran reporters on what it is like to cover the Super Bowl circus.

Werder: For me, the most frustrating element of Super Bowl week is that while you have access to all the players and coaches for several days, there is almost no opportunity to speak with prominent players individually or in small groups, or to develop a logical line of questioning that’s usually necessary to extract something of value. It’s also unnerving to be responsible for covering a team at an event of this magnitude when the story of the day might exist anywhere in the room and be delivered at any time. Richard Sherman is going to be closely followed—especially after his remarks following Sunday’s game—but the quote everybody wants could come from any of his teammates from somewhere across the room in the presence of other reporters working for prominent newspapers, TV networks or websites without me knowing until after media access has been completed.

NHL Revealed: Steve Lepore at Awful Announcing does a Q/A with Ross Greenburg on NBC SN’s new NHL show.

Steve Lepore: You obviously have an extensive history in working on shows like this, but was there anything about the actual production of this as you went about it?  

Ross Greenburg: I think when we announced that we were gonna follow the nine teams that are in the [Stadium Series] through those games and the Sochi Olympics, and do a behind-the-scenes on the NHL and what happens to those star players when they transition… it’s one thing to say it, and it’s another to actually do it. 

It’s been an awesome task to send out multiple crews around North America and get the access from all the nine teams in order to execute on the vision, and that’s a tall task but my co-executive producers Julie Bristow and Steve Mayer, they put together a heck of a team. We’re getting closer to episode one and we’re pretty proud of what we’re delivering. 

We definitely fulfilled the promise that we’re going to take people inside, it isn’t the first time, but we’re going pretty deep. We’re seeing babies born in the hospital, we’re getting a pretty sentimental night with Martin Brodeur in Montreal in this first episode. He’s reunited with his family after the recent passing of his dad, and goes on the ice and plays a pretty spectacular game for the Devils as they beat Montreal, a typical Martin Brodeur stage toward the end of the game.

We’re everywhere we want to be, and I think we’re everywhere the viewers want us to be.

Super Bowl restraint? Michael Bradley at the National Sports Journalism Center asks for the impossible: toning down the hype for a Super Bowl week in New York.

It will be an excruciating process, and weariness with the Sherman story should set in by about next Monday. There will likely also be many cries of “enough!” regarding the coverage of Manning, because talk of his legacy, his place in history, his health, his record-setting season and his future will be ubiquitous. Then there are his myriad car and pizza commercials, which are likely to occupy entire half-hour blocks of programming.

It would be great if there were some restraint exercised leading up to the game. Talk football, for sure, but try not to manufacture outrage and anger. These teams have no beef with each other. Trying to create one is the worst kind of “journalism.”

Podcasts: Sports-Casters is back with a new Podcast that includes an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins. Fang’s Bites has a podcast with ESPN book author James Andrew Miller.

Andrew Catalon talked curling in an Awful Announcing podcast.