Tooling around the net this evening before I head out briefly.
In his Newsday blog, Neil Best has Bryant Gumbel’s closing comments from tonight’s Real Sports. Remember when Gumbel blasted NFL Players Association Executive Director Gene Upshaw last year on the same program? Well, Gumbel is at it again, but this time for Upshaw’s refusal to help older NFL retirees.
CBC Sports is having a revival. After losing a bid for the 2012 Winter Olympics in its home country to CTV and losing the CFL to said CTV, the network has been on a winning streak. After those two high profile losses, writers in Canada were ringing the death knell for CBC Sports. Since then, it’s renewed the rights to the venerable Hockey Night in Canada, signed up the rights to the World Cup for 2010 and 2014, signed the Toronto MLS team to a rights deal, brought the Toronto Blue Jays back into its fold and this week, comes the story from William Houston in the Toronto Globe and Mail that the Toronto Raptors will be on the CBC this coming season. The obituary for CBC Sports is not going to be written anytime soon.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times has a short blurb on the U.S. Open’s final ratings.
Also from the Times, John Branch looks at the NFL broadcasting boot camp.
Neil Best of Newsday has a look at a miniseries on the 1977 Yankees that will be aired next month by ESPN.
Tom Dienhart of The Sporting News is excited by the launch of the Big Ten Network. But as Lee Corso of ESPN says, “Not so fast, my friend!” Ohio State fans may be left out of the lurch.
You think the Super Bowl can be planned in a few hours? Think again. Scott Wong of the Arizona Republic reports on the NFL scouting Glendale, AZ for Super Bowl XLII, some eight and a half months from now. Some of the scouting is for the TV networks like ESPN and Fox which will set up in and around University of Phoenix Stadium and Glendale for a week.
FSN has announced its 30 game college football schedule.
And I believe those are your links for now. Unless I get the internet access up and running at work tomorrow, I don’t suspect that I’ll have an update for you until Thursday night.
