It’s Monday, August 20 and our friends, John Dennis & Gerry Callahan are still out from WEEI, termed a “vacation” by the station’s public relations firm. Sitting in for D & C today were FSN New England’s Greg Dickerson and Fox 25’s Butch Sterns. And it was the first Patriots Monday for the station. Dickerson is abrasive and Sterns is also so you can imagine the stellar radio we heard today. Thank goodness I have Sirius Satellite Radio so I could listen to Howard Stern via the wireless connection.
Let’s get to your links.
Mike McCarthy of USA Today says communication between the coach’s booth and the sidelines in the NFL have reached the 21st Century. My question is with the new technology, will teams now hire hackers to tap into this new system to steal plays?
From the DC/Baltimore Examiner, Jim Williams writes about the debut of former New York Giant running back Tiki Barber on NBC’s preseason NFL game last night. Williams wrote the story a day before Tiki’s debut just so you know. Bob Molinaro of The Virginian-Pilot says Tiki’s debut went well.
The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick says ESPN Radio in New York had to play the ESPN self-promotion game when paying tribute to the late Phil Rizzuto. Mushnick may be stretching here. Joe Deacon of the Bloomington (IN) Pentagraph says ESPN could lose its strong following with its incessant self-promotion and what he calls the “Eastern Seaboard Programming Network”.
Peter Grant and Adam Thompson of the Wall Street Journal write about the battle between the NFL Network and cable TV. I gave you this story in the Sunday links, but John Consoli of Mediaweek picks it up as well. The NFL Network is close to signing an agreement with MyNetworkTV to air an exclusive edition of NFL Total Access on Saturday nights during the regular season.
From Chris Lempesis of The Forum newspaper in North Dakota, he writes about the Big Ten Network which won’t be available in the Fargo area either. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron Musselman says Comcast isn’t budging in its standoff with BTN.
Shannon Shelton of the Detroit Free Press says ESPN was ready when rain forced the delay of the NASCAR Michigan 400 yesterday.
In the St. Petersburg Times, Tom Jones gives his recap of the sports TV weekend including stuff on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters and Monday Night Football.
Dusty Saunders in the Rocky Mountain News had a rare opportunity to compare CBS 4 to ESPN’s Monday Night Football in the Dallas-Denver game last week nad says CBS4 had a better production than ESPN.
Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman says Oklahoma City is a hotbed for sports talk radio.
Chris Zelkovich in the Toronto Star says CBC had its own “Heidi Game” moment when it cut away from a CFL game due to a weather delay and subsequent electrical problems late Saturday night, but never went back and missed the exciting ending. And William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail has head of CBC Sports Scott Moore taking full responsibility for not returning to the game.
Those are your links for now.
