Let’s do some links for today. Lots of stories and lots of stuff going on. From the NFL announcing the online streaming of Super Bowl XLVI to some mind blowing revelations about reporters, this has been an amazing day. It will call for some sports media thoughts later tonight. First the links.
I’ll begin with a story that’s breaking now. Nancy Phillips of the Philadelphia Inquirer breaks the story about Baseball Hall of Fame writer Bill Conlin being accused of molesting four children in the 1970’s. For his part, Conlin denies the allegations and has resigned from his columnist position at the Philadelphia Daily News. Last month, Conlin wrote the following about the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
In what has to be a giant conflict of interest, we learn from TMZ and the Crossing Broad blog that Jay Gray of NBC News was arrested on DUI charges after leaving a party thrown by Sandusky attorney Joe Amendola who invited a bunch of reporters to his house to curry favors for interviews of his client down the line.
Timothy Burke at Deadspin notes the ESPN Monday Night Football debut of sideline reporter John Sutcliffe of ESPN Deportes. For such a big game, ESPN brought in someone who had not worked on the MNF package on the Mothership (he has been sideline reporter for Deportes) and it didn’t work.
Last night on Twitter, I said something about Sutcliffe that I should not have. It was wrong. You will not find that tweet now. I’ve deleted it. I apologize and it will not happen again.
Sam Mamudi of Marketwatch.com writes that ESPN’s ratings for Monday Night Football are down this season.
The Futon Critic notes that ESPN’s Monday Night Football won the ratings last night not just on cable, but across all networks.
Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter writes about the NFL’s plan to stream Super Bowl XLVI online.
Georg Szalai of the Reporter talks with an industry analyst regarding the new NFL TV deals.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times also has a story on the Super Bowl going online for the first time.
Aaron Kuriloff of Bloomberg reports on the potential increase of the Thursday Night Football schedule on NFL Network as early as next season.
Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says the war of words between MSG Network and Time Warner Cable over their carriage talks is ratcheting up.
Mike says ESPN has ponied up $500 million to expand its deal with the NCAA.
John Eggerton of Multichannel writes that Tennis Channel has won a key FCC Administrative Law Judge ruling against Comcast.
Anthony Crupi of Adweek says ESPN’s ad sales for 33 college football bowls are red hot.
Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated has his NBA Broadcasting Guide for the upcoming season.
Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid talks about ESPN’s plans to overhaul its NBA pregame show.
CNBC’s Darren Rovell suspects Nike will raise prices to make up for lost revenue.
Elizabeth Kim of the Stamford (CT) Advocate goes in-depth on how NBC Sports decided to move to Connecticut.
Brian Stelter and Amy Chozick of the New York Times say you pay for sports on your cable bill whether you like it or not.
Newsday’s Neil Best reports that Fox has assigned Kenny Albert, Moose and Goose for the battle of New York this Saturday.
Laura Nachman says Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia aired CSN Mid-Atlantic’s coverage of the 76ers road game against the Washington Wizards last week.
Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman looks at the local weekend ratings.
John Kiesewetter from the Cincinnati Enquirer says the Bengals ratings on Sunday weren’t very good.
John says a local sports radio talk show host who left his regular gig earlier this month may have another one in line.
And I’ll end it there for now. I’ll try to bring some more linkage later.
