On this New Year’s Day during it which seems college football is quite irrelevant. That’s what the BCS National Champion Game has done, made any New Year’s Day bowl games totally forgettable. And you have some weak matchups in the Rose and Fiesta Bowls tonight so I’m not all that excited about the games. And with the NHL Winter Classic postponed until tonight, this might be the event needed to make New Year’s Day into a great day for hockey. Seriously.
And as long as Pierre McGuire isn’t allowed to do the game tonight, even better.
Let’s give you some linkage now.
At Fanhouse, NHL writer Christopher Botta who can’t get a credential for a New York Islanders game, but can for the Winter Classic, talks about the debut of Cablecam for tonight’s game in Pittsburgh.
Fanhouse’s Milton Kent says this week’s Stanford upset of UConn to end their 90 game winning streak set a women’s college basketball ratings record for ESPN2.
Michael Malone of Broadcasting & Cable notes that Hearst TV stations have avoided being pulled from DirecTV.
Meanwhile, Northwest Broadcasting stations in four smaller markets have been taken off DirecTV systems.
Marcus Vanderberg from SportsNewser discusses how the NHL decided to postpone the Winter Classic until tonight.
Richard Sandomir from the New York Times facetiously lists seven events that won’t happen this year.
Newsday has the Best of Neil Best’s blog from this week.
Neil also discusses the migration of the BCS from over the air TV to cable.
Neil also provides some sports media predictions for 2011.
Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that two area natives were cited by Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch in his year-end media column.
The Buffalo News reports that Sinclair Broadcasting has agreed to an extension with Time Warner Cable to keep its stations on the provider temporarily.
Jim Williams from the Washington Examiner says a primetime NHL Winter Classic is actually a very good break for NBC.
Jim provides a few sports media predictions of his own.
Barry Jackson from the Miami Herald lists his best and worst sports media stories of 2010.
Barry Horn at the Dallas Morning News discusses today’s bowl games on TV.
David Barron of the Houston Chronicle pays tribute to the late Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan.
Ed Sherman from Crain’s Chicago Business reviews the year in sports business and media.
Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reviews 2010’s biggest stories in the Gateway City and beyond.
Tom Hoffarth at the Los Angeles Daily News looks behind some of the decisions behind NFL games shown in SoCal.
Tom also looks at some of the events from the past week.
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times feels the NBC-Comcast merger does not serve the public interest.
Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail looks at how the NHL found its signature event.
Paulsen who always does great work at Sports Media Watch goes through his top 20 sports media stories of 2010 here, here, here, here, and finally here.
Paulsen also reviews his sports media predictions from last year.
SMW provides its predictions for 2011.
Former Washington Times reporter Mark Zuckerman at the Nats blog looks at what has happened to the entire Times sports staff which was let go at this time last year.
Steve Lepore from Puck The Media lists the best and worst in hockey media in 2010.
Joe Favorito talks about the Harlem Globetrotters still going strong.
I’ll end it there for now.
