I hope you survived the Black Friday experience if you went out today. If you decided to shop online, better to do that than wait outside in the cold especially in the Northeast where the temperatures dropped below freezing overnight. No fun.
Anyway, I’ll provide the links. The Weekend Viewing Picks are here.
To the linkage.
National
At USA Today, Michael Hiestand and Mike McCarthy debate whether it’s appropriate to mention religion and faith in sports television.
Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News writes that HBO will give viewers a 12 minute sneak peek on its new NHL-themed 24/7 series tonight.
Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid has the picture of Thanksgiving Day in which a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader got the start of her 15 minutes.
Tom Lorenzo at SportsGrid has a funny vidcap of a kid fast asleep during the Miami-Dallas game. Too much turkey, I guess.
Joe Favorito says hockey hopes to fill a void left by the NBA.
Sports Media Watch has the ratings for all NASCAR Sprint Cup races this season.
SMW notes that ESPN’s Monday Night Football saw a ratings increase for Chiefs-Pats.
SMW says NBC’s Sunday Night Football suffered a rare ratings and viewership drop in Week 11.
And SMW writes that last week’s Thursday Night Football gave NFL Network some early Thanksgiving treats.
Steve Lepore at Puck The Media has the ratings of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada to date.
The Awful Announcing staff lists the announcers it’s thankful for.
Overseas, BBC Sport, once a UK powerhouse, is now cutting back and it’s only doing half a schedule of one of its signature sports, Formula 1. It explains how it’s covering Formula 1 in 2012.
Owen Gibson of the London (UK) Guardian says BBC has won back the rights to the IAAF World Athletic Championships, an event it lost for the first time this year.
Jackie Pepper writes about a Kansas City Royals MLB.com beat reporter who received a life-saving transplant and then went to cover every single game this past season.
East and Mid-Atlantic
Chad Finn of the Boston Globe writes that NBC is looking to carve out a Thanksgiving niche for the NHL with a new Black Friday game.
Phil Mushnick of the New York Post actually gives praise today! Stop the presses!
Justin Terranova of the Post has 5 questions for Sirius XM college football analyst Eddie George.
Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says ex-coaches don’t always make for the best broadcasters.
David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun thoroughly enjoyed NFL Network’s coverage of last night’s 49ers-Ravens game.
Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with an NHL official about its new “Thanksgiving Showdown”.
South
David Barron of the Houston Chronicle waxes poetic about losing the Texas-Texas A&M rivalry.
Chris Baldwin at CultureMap Houston says ESPN reminded Texas A&M fans why the school’s rivalry with Texas is ending when it promoted the Longhorn Network.
Midwest
Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that Ndamukong Suh’s stomp on Green Bay Packers offensive lineman Evan Dietrich-Smith got plenty of play on Fox yesterday.
Paul Christian of the Rochester Post (MN) Bulletin also writes about the TV reaction to Suh’s stomp.
Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says embattled Cardinals TV voice Dan McLaughlin might be returning next season after all despite two arrests for DWI.
West
The Salt Lake Tribune’s Brian T. Smith says the Utah Jazz’s glory days can be seen on TV as fill for the NBA Lockout.
John Maffei at the North County Times reports that the San Diego Padres still have yet to sign a TV deal for next season.
Jim Carlisle in the Ventura County Star notes that LSU is playing another big game today on CBS.
Bill Shaikin from the Los Angeles Times says Fox is asking a judge for the Dodgers to throw in the parking lots in the team’s sale price rather than try to boost it and block its bid for the team’s media rights.
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News looks at some of the most dubious moments in sports media this year.
Joshua Myers of the Seattle Times notes that NBC is tapping Sounders voice Arlo White to be its MLS announcer.
Canada
Bruce Dowbiggin at the Toronto Globe and Mail says a new TSN documentary on the 20th anniversary of the Argonauts winning the CFL Grey Cup shows how far the team has sunk.
The Canadian Sports Media Blog goes inside the numbers of TSN’s coverage of this Sunday’s Grey Cup.
