For some reason, I’ve been out of the office a couple of times today and it’s pissing me off. Anyway, I’m back in the office now and barring an unforeseen interruption, I should be able to give you linkage here.
Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand has the local MLB TV ratings for the first half of the regular season and notes that the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets are in trouble.
This next story from Sports Business Daily is behind the dreaded paywall, but you can still get the gist of it as yesterday’s compelling Brazil-USA game at the Women’s World Cup received a 2.6 overnight rating for ESPN. CNBC’s Darren Rovell notes that the rating is better than this year’s NBA Draft!
Eben Novy-Williams of Bloomberg reports that Brazil-USA was the most watched Women’s World Cup Soccer game since the 1999 Final which the USA won over Communist China.
Lacey Rose of the Hollywood Reporter confirms what The Wrap reported over the weekend, that ESPN Classic will pick up the entire Friday Night Lights series.
Anthony Crupi of Adweek writes that the NFL could see as much as a $600 million rights fee for a new 8-game Thursday Night Football package.
Adweek’s Rebecca Cullers has a story on sports apparel outfitter K-Swiss continuing its storyline of utilizing HBO’s Eastbound & Down’s Kenny Powers character in its ad campaign.
USA Today’s Mike McCarthy talks with Fox Sports’ Joe Buck about his vocal cord troubles that have plagued his voice this year.
R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel News says cable providers could be crowing this year with some big name boxing pay per view fights.
Jon Lafayette at Broadcasting & Cable writes that Golf Channel has relaunched its website.
My good friends at SportsGrid have just launched a redesign of their excellent sports media website. Dan Fogarty explains.
SportsGrid has brought on Timothy Burke of the Mocksession site which provides vidcaps and videos. He’s been providing videos to the under the byline “SportsGrid Video”, but now can reveal himself publicly as of today. Tim has this funny post of the WGN Cubs announcers exposing their cameramen as pervs.
One more from SportsGrid. A look at how it would cast the movie based on the ESPN tome, “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside The World of ESPN.” The choices are pretty much dead on.
Cam Martin at SportsNewser has video of one of the media cars getting too close to one of the cyclists in the Tour de France and causing a horrific crash.
Also from SportsNewser, Marcus Vanderberg tells us that an estimated one billion people watched last year’s World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands. That’s a lot of people.
The London Telegraph has ESPN UK’s English Premier League schedule for the upcoming season.
Chris Fedor from Sports Radio Interviews has a link to Dan Patrick’s interview with reporting bulldog Jim Gray about “The Decision”, one year later.
CNBC’s Darren Rovell talks about Tiger Woods “special announcement” that he made on Golf Channel, that he’ll be following his agent, Mark Steinberg to a new agency.
Paul Devlin at the New Canaan (CT) Patch talks with CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz.
Newsday’s Neil Best notes that YES cleaned up in the ratings with Saturday’s Rays-Yankees game during which Derek Jeter got his 3,000th career hit.
Neil talks with women’s soccer legend Mia Hamm who’s doing work for espnW and ESPN for the Women’s World Cup about USA-Brazil.
Neil has a review of the HBO doc on Curt Flood that airs Wednesday.
David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun loves baseball, but can no longer stand watching the Orioles on MASN.
From the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog, Dan Steinberg looks at the Nationals’ attendance and TV ratings at the halfway point of the regular season.
Dan has Wizards’ TV analyst Phil Chenier explaining why he shaved off his trademark mustache.
Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with Fox Sports’ Tim McCarver about calling the MLB All-Star Game for the last 20 years.
In the St. Petersburg Times, Tom Jones lists some of the things in sports and sports TV that he has missed.
The Tampa Tribune notes that Rays outfielder Sam Fuld will be working for ESPN tonight during the MLB Home Run Derby.
Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says the Brewers local ratings are amongst the highest in MLB.
Jim Souhan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune gives praise to former Minnesota Twins manager Tom Kelly who pinch-hit for regular Fox Sports North analyst Bert Blyeven last week.
Jeff Korbelik of the Lincoln (NE) Journal Star says former local sports anchor Dari Nowkhah heads over to ESPNU full-time.
The Dickinson (ND) Press picks up a story from Brad Schlossman on the new college hockey superconference talking with Versus about a TV contract.
Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post reviews the HBO documentary on Curt Flood.
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has your SoCal sports calendar.
Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle says Showtime is hoping that “The Franchise” will become a sports franchise for the network.
Cathall Kelly of the Toronto Star is an asshole.
Bruce Dowbiggin at the Toronto Globe and Mail says a CFL on TSN analyst gave a compelling interview on his post-concussion syndrome.
Matt Hartley in the Financial Post says NBC will be handling all US ad sales for the NHL.
Wayne Friedman in MediaPost also writes about the NBC Sports Group/NHL ad sales joint venture.
Sports Media Watch has some news and notes on various sports media personalities.
SMW also has some local MLB ratings news.
That’s going to do it for today.
