After seeing Georgetown-Villanova in the Big East Tournament earlier today, I’m now watching NC State-Miami (FL) in the ACC Tournament. I’m not watching the games off ESPN360, but from another site, but I’m not going to say which one. If you really need to know, you can try to e-mail me and if I’m in a decent mood, I’ll tell you, but overall, my lips are sealed. I don’t want this site to get shut down.
First, Phil Swann from the TV Predictions website tells us that DirecTV has announced its HD plans for the Mega March Madness NCAA Tournament PPV package.
Time Warner Cable has signed up to provide CBS’ March Madness Video on Demand highlights.
John Gartner of the Marketing Shift blog says CBS Sports.com has set the bar high for providing March Madness and for other networks to follow its lead for providing sports online.
Neil Best of Newsday has been busy blogging today. He breaks news that ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe has been diagnosed with colon cancer. Second, he says MSG Network not only has MSG Plus, but a spillover channel that will cause confusion and has a bad name. Neil was monitoring WFAN’s Mike and the Mad Dog calling this afternoon’s Big East Tournament (I believe Awful Announcing is trying to get audio clips up on its site). Finally Neil says Steven A. Smith essentially confirmed what he wrote yesterday, that he may be leaving ESPN Radio to focus on being an NBA analyst for the network.
Here’s the ESPN story on Sutcliffe. I do hope that he recovers fully. It appears that doctors did catch it in time.
Two things from Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News. In his Farther Off the Wall blog, Tom has some excerpts of a Golf Channel interview with John Daly who made news this week for being disqualified from this week’s PGA Tour event and being fired by his swing coach. Tom also tells us that Fox Sports is selling t-shirts adorned with “Digger”, the cartoon character who tells us when Gopher Cam is being used during NASCAR races.
Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union has the breakdown of Sports Emmy Awards nominations by network. NBC Sports is out with a press release touting its 23 nominations.
The Sports Media Watch has some TV ratings news and notes.
Dan Gross from the Philadelphia Daily News says former Phillies pitcher and current talk show host Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams owned up to yelling at a referee during his daughter’s CYO basketball game (link courtesy of Laura Nachman).
Speaking of Laura Nachman, she says a movie on the late Phillies outfielder and broadcaster Richie Ashburn will premiere in April.
ESPN has set its plans in stone for the NCAA Women’s Tournament Selection Show for next Monday.
I don’t know whether to laugh or denounce this story, but Amie Shak of the Chicago Daily Herald writes that a lawsuit has been filed against the Big Ten by a local man alleging that the conference stole his idea for the Big Ten Network.
That’s it for now.
