Media stocking stuffers
Postmarked and giftwrapped in time to add to the weekly sports media column, as we head into two weeks of vacation hibernation:
-- The temptation may be too great to fork over $6.99 for the January issue of Playboy with Pamela Anderson on the cover, so don’t do it just because your eye catches the tease that reads “Keith Olbermann … Dan Patrick … Chris Berman … An Oral History of SportsCenter.� Writer Kevin Cook calls the ESPN highlight staple “the Greatest Show in Sports,� devoting five pages to it – then there’s the Anderson spread, a peek at Miss January, the 2006 Year in Sex review and one last photo of all Playmates of the Month from a year ago – and five-plus pages to it on the jump end with quotes spliced together from all the usual suspects. Nothing really new gleaned from stuff we’ve already read before in books at the ESPN empire. There is Olbermann admitting that “on my first ‘SportsCenter’ (in April, ’92), I did the same ratio of jokes to minutes as I’d done on L.A. newscasts (at KTLA Channel 5 and KCBS Channel 2), on which the sports segment was much shorter. By the end, I’d done something like 90 jokes. Dan (Patrick) sat there quivering. He said, ‘I’m gonna need some time to adjust.’� John Walsh, the ESPN exec in charge of “SportsCenter,� then adds: “Really talented anchors always overdo it at first. It takes about six months before they find their rhythm.� Unfortunately, the magazine also encourages readers to vote online for their favorite “SportsCenter� catchphrase. Of the eight choices, I think we’ll go with Olbermann’s “Live from ESPN headquarters, It’s the big show.� Pretty catchy, eh? It may even pass Stuart Scott’s “Boo-yah!�
-- Even though the Target World Challenge is part of what the golf establishment calls the "Silly Season," ABC isn't giving it second-class treatment as it does its last tournament before the new PGA Tour TV deal takes affect -- without them. Says Brant Packer, the producer of this weekend's telecast who has covered the last two Target events at Sherwood as well as a Shark Shootout in years past: "The PGA people might not want to admit it, but once the British Open ends (in July), there's only three or four events that really have a great field, and this is one of them. Any time Tiger Woods is on the course, it's an event, especially in this quality of a field. If you went to Tommy Roy at NBC or Lance Barrow at CBS in the beginning of the year and said, 'Here's a list of the 16 people you'd have in your final eight pairings for the last round,' they be in. Our job is to not screw it up." Rain could cause havoc with things this weekend, but Packer said Wednesday he wasn't thinking that far ahead. "We'll cross the bridge later," he said. "We have no gameplan yet. Our job the first day is just to make sure everything works technically with the USA Network coverage and to start the storylines. After Thursday, we'll set things up for the weekend." Packer, the 32-year-old son of CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer, says his dream job one day is to produce a telecast of the Masters and do a game that his dad is calling. "So far, I'm 0-for-2," said the younger Packer, knowing he'd probably have to go back to CBS sooner than later to get those two things done. Packer will head over to The Golf Channel to produce the Champions Tour events starting next season, which he has some added interest: His father in law is Allen Doyle, a two-time Champions Tour winner. Brant's first love is golf; with the help of his father's broadcast partner, Jim Nantz, Brant got a golf scholarship to the University of Houston before he transfered to the University of Tennessee. Upon graduation, he got a job at CBS doing graphics for his dad's telecasts and has been in the business 11 years.
-- Syndicated columnist Norman Chad admitted on Colin Cowherd’s ESPN Radio show this week that Bryant Gumbel responded to a column Chad wrote last week tearing apart his performance as an NFL Network game play-by-play man so far this season. Wrote Chad: “When Bryant Gumbel made critical comments about the NFL before this season, outgoing NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue suggested that Gumbel might be relieved of his new duties as play-by-play broadcaster for NFL Network games. As it turns out, the NFL shouldn't have fired Gumbel for his remarks, it should've dumped him because his play-by-play work, well, stinks. … He makes Homer Simpson sound like Al Michaels. … Gumbel is unspectacular and uninspired -- his play-by-play voice flat, his play-by-play sensibilities pedestrian. He is wordy and windy, seemingly without emotion or care. It's like listening to an insurance underwriter giving last rites to the family gerbil.� Chad said Gumbel’s email was generally a grin-and-bear-it reaction, agreeing that it's an evolving process and he expects to shake off the rust. From our end of the couch, Chad was 100 percent correct in his assessment of Gumbel, especially from his start on the Thanksgiving night game. Gumbel does Saturday’s Dallas-Atlanta game with first-time network analyst Dick Vermeil, since Cris Collinsworth, Gumbel’s usual Thursday night partner, is tied up with NBC’s Sunday night studio show.
We got more ...
-- Read between the lines in stories that ran this week in both USA Today and the New York Times about how ESPN aspiring sideline reporter Jim Gray didn't think he did anything wrong in going on the air last Friday to report on how Allen Iverson told him he wanted to remain with the Philadelphia 76ers, but wouldn't mind a trade to Minnesota. As it turned out, Gray, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was duped and had to retract his story later in ESPN's NBA telecast. Seems that, according to Iverson's agent, that wasn't Iverson who Gray phoned and talked to. The Philadelphia Inquirer tried to follow up on the story, but Gray wouldn't talk anymore. His only on-the-record comment to the Inquirer was: “This thing has run its course and was a very unique instance. At this time it’s on to the next game and the next story.� Gray left Mark Mandel, a spokesman for ESPN, to lie and say that "ESPN is in total support of Jim’s work here and everything else he has done ... We like Jim and think this story is over with.� You wonder how it doesn't happen more often, except the weird thing is that it was Gray who called "Iverson," not the other way around. Still, it couldn't happen to a more gullible, least-credible psuedo-reporter than our boy Jimmy.
-- FSN Prime Ticket has struck a deal with the L.A. Sports Council to televise the group’s second annual “Greatest Moments in Sports� local awards show that airs Jan. 21 (8 p.m.) from the Beverly Hilton. Bill Macdonald and Petros Papadakis will be the master of ceremonies. Winners in 18 categories are determined by online voting at lasports.org plus a sportsman, sportswoman, sports executive and overall greatest moment award (decided by the LA Sports Awards media panel) are announced. Online voting starts Monday and run until Jan. 8.
-- We give due credit to the "Roggin and Simers Squared" morning radio show on 570-AM for being the first media outlet to inform everyone that Oscar de la Hoya's next fight on May 5 against Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be not at Staples Center, but at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. De la Hoya made the announcement himself on the show Thursday morning.
-- Does this really mean anything? CBS Sports sent out another release to proclaim that its NFL pre-game show, "The NFL Today," ourated Fox's pre-game show last Sunday with a 3.1 rating and 18 share (4.56 million viewers), which was 7 percent better than Fox's 2.9/8 (4.13 million viewers) during Week 14. It's the fourth time this year CBS has had better numbers than Fox in 2006 (also in week 4, 9 and 11). Before this season, CBS only beat Fox one time since 1998.
--Does this mean anything, too? ESPN reports in its Sunday NFL pregame show that it'll have a piece by Kenny Mayne on how "the red-hot Arizona Cardinals have won two in a row, largely a credit to their resident team pranksters, Matt Leinart and Adrian Wilson ...when it comes to practical joking, these two Cardinals just don't know when to quit."
-- Howard Cole, the editor of BaseballSavvy.com, has put up for auction a one-of-a-kind oil-on-canvas painting by L.A.-based artist Stanley Silver of former Dodgers catcher Paul LoDuca up on eBay.com (Item No. 150071229467), with 15 percent of the proceeds going to the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Opening bid is $8,500. Auction ends Dec. 23.
-- One of the cool community service projects FSN West and Prime Ticket has developed is refurbishing local basketall courts in conjunction with holding youth basketball clinkcs. In partnership with the Lakers Youth Foundation, FSN will revisit some of the eight courts they helped spruce up for the clinics. The first is Monday at 4 p.m. at the Branford Rec Center in Arleta. Future clinics include the Chatsworth Rec Center (22360 Devonshire Street) on Jan. 13 and the David M. Gonzalez Rec Center in Pacoima (10943 Herrick Ave.) on Jan. 27.
-- Keith Jackson returns to the air for something called the "Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year" show (most of the country aires it Saturday at 3 p.m., but KABC Channel 7 has it pigeoned into Sunday morning at 1:45 a.m.), co-hosted by Kirk Herbstreit. From a roup of 10 finalists, the college coach of the year will be named, one that, according to this criteria, "best exemplifies responsibility and excellence on and off the field of play." Fans were asked to help pick the 10 finalists during online voting at www.coachoftheyear.com, where profiles of each are still posted.
-- Tom Hammond, who NBC had pretty much tabbed as its NFL play-by-play man before Al Michaels reversed his field and agreed to take over the Sunday night package, will be paired up with Cris Collinsworth for the first game (1:30 p.m.) of the network's wild-card NFL doubleheader on Saturday, Jan. 6. The two last did a game together at the 1995 Orange Bowl, when Nebraska beat Miami for the national championship. They also did the NFL and Notre Dame football games together from '92-'94. Michaels and John Madden will call the second game that day (at 5 p.m.).
-- Takkle, Inc., an online social network site for high school sports, has alligned with Sports Illustrated for its nationwide launch. The site tries to hook up high-school athletes in 20 sports (including cheerleading) from all parts of the country to share their interests with videos, photos and team profiles. Sports Illustrated, which this week produced a magazine devoted to the history of its "Faces In the Crowd" feature, will have fans on takkle.com nominate athletes for its "FITC" segment. Takkle also has an alliance with the Santa Monica-based Wasserman Media Group, owned by Casey Wasserman, who runs the Arena Football League's L.A. Avengers and manages the careers of many high-profile athletes such as Tracy McGrady, Nomar Garciaparra and Freddie Adu.
-- Versus has locked up a deal to televise the first T-Mobile Invitational high school basketball tournament, set for Dec. 27-28 at the University of Washington in Seattle. The eight-team boys and girls tourney includes many in USA Today's Top 25, including L.A.'s Fairfax boys squad.
-- ESPN2 has Saturday's NCAA women's volleyball championship match (6 p.m.) between Nebraska and Stanford from Omaha, Neb., with Beth Mowins and Heather Cox on the call.
-- Airing head-to-head with ABC's coverage of the final round of the Target World Championship from Sherwood Country Club, NBC has a special airing Sunday at noon called "PGA TOUR 2006…Get Ready!" which reviews the past season and previews the new FedExCup.
-- Next Bob Miller signing of "Bob Miller's Tales from the Los Angeles Kings": Sunday, 5 p.m., Team LA store at Universal City Walk.
--And this note from David Halberstam, the executive VP and GM of Westwood One Sports, about something that happened last Thursday to Dick Enberg, who was covering an NFL game in Pittsburgh for the syndicated radio network with Sam Wyche as his analyst: "When Enberg arrived at Heinz Field and settled in the network radio booth, he realized that he left his glasses behind in his hotel room. The producer, engineer and everyone in view offered Dick theirs, but none was very helpful. So a runner fought his way downtown against the flow of on-coming game traffic. Meanwhile, the game began and Dick did what he had to do. He squinted, used the monitor and focused on the field through the lenses of binoculars. You would never know about the hardship he was battling because he was silky smooth. Afraid of botching his call, Enberg told me that it reminded him of his days doing Angels radio. Gene Autry would tell him, “Dick, it’s like two games, the one I watch on television and the one I listen to you do on the radio.� (While Dick spun it as self-deprecating humor, I guess Autry was really complimenting him for the enthusiasm he generated on radio as contrasted with the soporific on TV). The runner finally made it back to the stadium ten minutes or so into the game. The glasses were frosty after being exposed to temperatures in the teens but I’ll bet they never felt so good to Dick."
1 Comments
Leave a comment
About this blog
With all due respect to Vin Scully, Dick Enberg is the best there's ever been at describing and enabling viewers and listeners to enjoy a game.