Time to give you the rest of the megalinks.
I’ll provide you with the Weekend Viewing Picks since I was unable to do so in Part I.
The NFL Wildcard Weekend takes our viewing weekend attention as NBC has a doubleheader on Saturday with Atlanta taking on Arizona and Indianapolis renewing its rivalry with San Diego. All of the pregame shows, announcing assignments and postgame shows can be seen in the NFL Viewing Picks for Wild Card Weekend.
Conference play gets ramped up this weekend in college basketball. Lots of decent games including Pittsburgh at Georgetown on ESPN, Saturday at noon and Boston College at North Carolina on FSN, Sunday at 5:30 p.m. The College Basketball Viewing Picks have the entire national schedule.
There’s also one college bowl game, the International Bowl in Toronto involving Buffalo and UConn on ESPN, Saturday at noon.
And there will be two competing high school all-star football games, the All-American Bowl on NBC, Saturday at 1 p.m. and the All-America Game on ESPN, Sunday night at 8.
Now let’s get back to your links.
National
First, the excellent Baseball Toaster blog run by Bob Timmerman chronicles his troubles accessing the MLB Network through Time Warner Cable.
CNBC’s Darren Rovell writes that fans can no longer depend on corporations to save their NFL teams from being blacked out on TV.
Chistopher Byrne of the Eye on Sports Media blog has his top sports media story of 2008. And Chris also lists the top mainstream media blog.
The Big Lead finds an error in Thursday night’s Fox’s Orange Bowl coverage. And in a related note, College Game Balls found an error in ESPN’s coverage of the Chick-Fil-A Bowl.
Multichannel News reports that ESPN will be teaming up with 20 college football fan sites to syndicate content.
The Puck The Media blog has the overnight ratings for the NHL Winter Classic. And PTM has the remaining national TV schedule for the NHL in the US and Canada. The blog says it took just two hours for the MLB Network to surpass the NHL Network.
Midwest
Marc Katz of the Dayton Daily News says the MLB Network chose a “perfect” time to launch.
Michael Zuidema from the Grand Rapids Press writes that the NHL Winter Classic at Wrigley Field hit a home run.
The Associated Press reports that the Vikings have received an extension to sell out Sunday’s NFC Wild Card playoff game against the Eagles.
Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wonders with three sports radio stations in town, which one will survive? And Dan says the ratings for the Rams this season were the second lowest since the team landed in St. Louis in 1995.
West
Jay Posner of the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that the Padres have offered its TV play-by-play job to the voice of the Tulsa Drillers.
John Maffei of the North County Times says a local sports radio station has lost its mind.
Diane Pucin of the Los Angeles Times wonders who are all of the announcers calling bowl games. Diane writes that TNT is remaining silent on Charles Barkley’s arrest.
A story that has been burning up the sports blogosphere on Friday was Tom Hoffarth’s report in his Farther Off the Wall blog that ESPN/ABC’s Lisa Salters was snubbed by Penn State coach Joe Paterno before Thursday’s Rose Bowl game. Tom also talked to ESPN/ABC’s Brent Musberger about the dreaded “R” word in his LA Daily News column. Here’s more of Tom’s interview with Brent. Tom has his extensive media news and notes. Tom also reviews his week in blogging. And Tom notes that a former Dodger public relations officer is now leading the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Gary Washburn of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer writes that the Fox BCS team is on top of all the action.
That’s going to do it for the megalinks.
