Fang's Bites

Some Sunday Linkage

Ok, I have some free time to do some linkage now. I was hoping to get this posted in the morning, but recently, weekends have become busier than my workweek. I really don’t understand how this happened. However, with the next few hours free, I should be able to give you some good posts here.

Edvard Pettersson of Bloomberg notes that Fox Sports has objected to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ hiring of a firm to help the team  gain a new cable TV rights deal. Fox agreed to a long term deal with the Dodgers and lent money to the team which has led to MLB taking over the operations.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News notes that the Pac-12 will be adding channels to your cable and satellite universe in 2012.

Mike says NFL Network and NFL.com received record numbers for free agent frenzy last week.

Craig Harris at the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism talks about the importance of sports business reporting.

Cam Martin at SportsNewser says universally hated Mike Lupica will now target 8-12 year olds as he will write books for that age group.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post sets his hate on in-game reporters Kim Jones of YES and Kevin Burkhardt of SNY.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that the Buffalo Bills won’t be heard on local radio this season.

Pete discusses Curt Smith’s new tome on baseball announcers.

Pete wonders why NFL Network dumped live Arena Football and CFL action for free agent frenzy programming.

David Walsh of the Huntington (WV) Herald-Dispatch talks with Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman about her visit to the Greenbrier Classic this week.

Jim Kleinpeter of the New Orleans Times-Picayune talks with ESPN’s Desmond Howard about the season opening LSU-Oregon game.

The Cleveland-centric Waiting For Next Year blog says Sportstime Ohio, the home of the Indians and Browns could be sold to one of two potential suitors.

Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times writes about Fox Sports attempting to block the Dodgers of hiring a firm to help secure a new cable TV rights deal.

John Daly at The Daly Planet writes about Allen Bestwick’s return to the NASCAR broadcast booth this weekend after being screwed over by NBC seven years ago.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing looks at some of the grammatical and typographical errors on ESPN last week.

Sports Media Watch looks at the big ratings increase for last week’s Canadian Open on CBS.

SMW has some various ratings news and notes.

SMW has a few more notes.

That will do it.

Trying To Do A Friday Megalink Session

I’m hoping to get this entire Megalink session finished in one sitting. It’s been a crazy day thus far. Of course, all of your weekend sport and entertainment programming are featured in the Weekend Viewing Picks.

Let’s get to the linkage now.

National

Michael Hiestand of USA Today speaks with noted baseball announcing author Curt Smith who has written another book about the subject.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy has ESPN’s Desmond Howard criticizing the current college athletics system which does not allow for students to get paid.

Sports Illustrated’s Stewart Mandel talks with Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott about the details of the conference’s new TV networks.

Mike Barnes of the Hollywood Reporter writes that Golf Channel and CBS will have the honors of airing Tiger Woods’ return to golf next weekend.

Michael Malone at Broadcasting & Cable criticizes WPRI-TV in Providence for recreating golf highlights and passing it off as it actually happened.

Thomas Umstead from Multichannel News says boxing is still a big part of HBO Sports.

Todd Spangler at Multichannel says ESPN will redesign its live streaming site for Xbox 360 users.

Timothy Burke of SportsGrid has the video of Dan Patrick joining old SportsCenter partner Keith Olbermann on Current’s Countdown program to talk about casting the potential ESPN Movie.

Marcus Vanderberg at SportsNewser notes that ESPN’s John Clayton still hasn’t grasped this Twitter thing yet.

Cam Martin of SportsNewser writes that Rory McIlroy called out a BBC golf commentator and had quite the Twitter battle.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says Knicks and Rangers fans will have the opportunity to see their team’s players go from the court/ice to the locker room and vice versa.

The Big Lead speaks with actor Dan Lauria about bringing his Broadway role of coach Vince Lombardi “home” to Green Bay this weekend.

Sports Media Watch says viewership declined for the last week of Copa América on Univision as glamor teams Brazil and Argentina lost before the semifinal round.

SMW notes that the ratings jumped for the WNBA All-Star Game on ABC last weekend.

Joe Favorito says Baseball’s governing body is now using social media to its advantage.

Bob’s Blitz has an interesting story of a former cameraman and ESPN director who got a lucky cell phone and has been living the life of a celebrity.

Ben Koo of Awful Announcing notes that the Pac-12 Networks will further fragment sports on cable.

Overseas, this is big news. John Plunkett of the London Guardian says BBC Sport is letting go of most of its Formula 1 contract and satellite provider Sky Sports will pick up a lion’s share of races starting next year. That would be as if Fox decided to allow DirecTV to take over most of the NASCAR contract.

Ben Gallop of BBC’s motorsports division explains why the decision was made.

East & Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe feels melancholy over the loss of HBO’s Hard Knocks, a victim of the NFL lockout this season.

At SB Nation, Kat Hasenauer Cornetta says women are still trying to get a foothold in the Boston sports media.

Newsday’s Neil Best says Derek Jeter finally opened up a bit in the HBO documentary that premiered this week.

At the New York Post, Phil Mushnick warns to be careful what you wish for in wanting replay review in baseball.

Mike Battaglino of the Post notes that there will be no edition of Hard Knocks this season.

Justin Terranova writes that the NFL TV’s partners were never worried about losing games to the lockout.

A couple of more stories from the Post. Tim Bontemps from the Post says Derek Jeter agreed to do the HBO documentary on his quest for 3,000 hits so his future children could see him at work.

Justin has five questions for the producer of the HBO Jeter documentary.

Pete Dougherty at the Albany Times Union writes that the premiere of NBC’s Summer at Saratoga series did quite well.

On Thursday, Pete, the lovely Rachel Cohen of the Associated Press and your humble blogger were invited to ESPN to talk to several of the network’s production staff and then interview Norby Williamson, the network’s Vice President of Studio and Event Production. Pete has a story on that visit.

Pete Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News writes about the contentious relationship between NFL Network and NFL Films.

To the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog and Dan Steinberg who notes that local talk show host John Riggins isn’t optimistic about DC NFL team coach Mike Shanahan’s chances this year.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says MLB Network will be all over the Trading Deadline this weekend.

South

Jared Hunt from the Charleston (WV) Daily Mail profiles CBS golf producer Lance Barrow as he helms the network’s broadcasts of the Greenbrier Classic this weekend.

Cindy Watts of The Tennessean talks about country star Kenny Chesney writing and performing the theme song for a new ESPN series.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says NFL Films founder Ed Sabol is deservedly getting the NFL Films treatment in a new documentary celebrating his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

David talks about the lack of a Hard Knocks series this season.

Rick Cantu and Kirk Bohis of the Austin (TX) American-Statesman says ESPN approached several high schools about putting their games on the Longhorn Network.

Mel Bracht from the Daily Oklahoman talks with ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit about the upcoming season.

Mel finds the real reason why Herbstreit chose to move his family away from his native Columbus, OH to Tennessee.

Midwest

Michael Zuidema from the Grand Rapids (MI) Press talks with former NFL’er and current TV analyst Ray Bentley about the 1987 NFL strike.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel finds some interesting Brewers anecdotes in the new Curt Smith book.

Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune interviews ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.

Over to the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin where Paul Christian notes that ex-Minnesota Golden Gopher coaches keep finding their way to television.

West

Brian T. Smith of the Salt Lake Tribune says former Utah Jazz player Matt Harpring has made the successful transition to the TV booth.

John Maffei of the North County Times understands why Mexican government ads must be played on a local sports radio station, but it doesn’t mean he has to like them.

Tom Hoffarth at the Los Angeles Daily News looks at the new batch of ESPN Films documentaries that will be released later this year.

Tom has Fox Sports/MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal still being wary of Twitter.

Tom talks with Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott about his whirlwind tenure that has left the league with a pocketful of riches.

Tom has more on the Pac-12 Network announcement aftermath.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin at the Toronto Globe and Mail says the father of new Blue Jay Colby Ramus is using the local media to blast St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa.

And that will do it for today.

Doing a Sunday Link Thing

Time for some links on this Sunday. I watched a fun South Africa-Spain match in the 3rd place game at the Confederations Cup on Univision this morning and kept up through Twitter with the coup in Honduras that CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are all ignoring today. News never stops just because it’s the weekend. I’m surprised not to hear any mention of it.

Anyway, time for some links.

Dave Solomon of the New Haven Register talks with CBS Sports’ Peter Kostis about golfer Kenny Green who had part of his leg amputated following a serious car accident two weeks ago.

Newsday’s Neil Best says the YES crew did a good job of filling time during last night’s Yankees-Mets blowout.

The New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman didn’t like Greta Van Susteren’s visit to the Fox Sports booth during last week’s game between the Mets and Tampa Bay.

Paul Mrozek of the Batavia (NY) Daily News speaks with author Curt Smith about his book on Vin Scully.

Laura Nachman says Brian Baldinger will no longer be an NFL analyst with Fox Sports.

Brian’s brother Richard who has done work for CBS Sports, was involved in a fatal car accident in the Kansas City area.

Joe Logan in the Philadelphia Inquirer reviews a new book that NBC’s Jimmy Roberts has written about golf slumps.

Bob Molinaro of the Virginian-Pilot looks at one sports radio talk show host who’s firmly entrenched at his radio station.

Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that the University of Georgia is expanding its football game coverage on radio.

In a related note, Chip Towers of the AJC says the Bulldogs will have two primetime games this fall on ESPN.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times lists the Top 10 Most Influential Figures in Sports and there are sports TV executives included.

Barry Horn from the Dallas Morning News previews the next episode of “4th and Long” and has found out an interesting spoiler.

Howard McEwen of the Cincinnati Enquirer says a college student announcer is being recognized for his work.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks with ESPN’s Dick Vitale about last week’s NBA Draft.

The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth looks at some of the intersting blog posts on various SoCal sports issues. And Tom provides some links to said blog posts.

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times says it didn’t take long for Conan O’Brien to make fun of the Clippers.

From the San Francisco Examiner, Artie Gigantino has some observations on various sports TV topics.

James Robinson of the London Observer says the worldwide credit crunch led to the downfall of Setanta Sports in the UK.

The Sports Media Watch has the ratings for three sports series. And the SMW has its usual weekend ratings predictions.

The great Maury Brown looks at the second MLB team that will be streaming its games online in-market.

Joe Favorito looks at how teams and athletes can use the Draft to their branding advantage.

The Daly Planet NASCAR blog says TNT’s Bill Weber was suspended for today’s race at Loudon, NH over an incident at his hotel on Friday. No specifics are available. John says Ralph Shaheen will call the race in his place.

The Bundesliga Talk blog talks with ESPN’s soccer announcer extraordinaire Derek Rae about the German soccer league and international football in general.

I’ll end it here for now. I might be back later. Keep it here.

An Extremely Late Night Megalinks

Well, here we are doing the Friday megalinks well into the late night.

As usual, we have the Weekend Viewing Picks for you.

The U.S. Open has been pushed back a day and possibly more with some rainy weather expected in New York this weekend. NBC has announced it will start its Saturday coverage of the second and possibly third round at 10 a.m., four hours before it was originally scheduled to come on the air. Should the weather cooperate and the final round is played as scheduled on Sunday, NBC will begin its coverage at 1:30 p.m.

Interleague baseball continues this weekend. Fox’s Saturday matchups include Tampa Bay at the Mets. MLB Network has the Civil Rights Game in Cincinnati. TBS has Atlanta at Boston. Check out what your national baseball games are in the “Baseball This Weekend” post.

NASCAR heads to Sonoma, CA this Sunday and TNT has the race at 5 p.m.

The IndyCar series is on ABC, Sunday at 1 and the Formula 1 circuit, most likely on its last legs, is in the UK for the British Grand Prix. Fox has same day coverage starting at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Soccer fans have the Confederations Cup with the US taking on Egypt on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN2.

And for fans of Ninja Warrior, there’s the weekend marathon taking place all weekend on G4 leading up to the new Sasuke 22 competition that airs Sunday night starting at 6:30 preceeded by the American Ninja Challenge at 5:30.

The Weekend Viewing Picks have everything in sports and primetime you need to see.

National

Starting with USA Today’s Michael Hiestand, he looks at a new ESPN2 show to be co-hosted by ESPN Radio no-talent hack Colin Cowherd.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell is surprised that golfer Vijay Singh is still wearing the logo of embattled Stanford Financial Group despite its CEO being indicted on Federal fraud charges.

Darren has an interview with Tiger Woods’ agent.

Joe Favorito likes the move to set up a new office for Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport.

Leo Baraclough of Variety says the English Premier League has terminated its relationship with Setanta Sports after it failed to meet a deadline to pay part of its rights fee. ESPN is now the frontrunner to pick up Setanta’s 23 game package that begins next season.

Marc Graser of Variety says the WWE punked the media with a fake press release saying Donald Trump purchased “Monday Night Raw”.

Claire Atkinson of Broadcasting & Cable writes that Tennis Channel is gearing up to air Wimbledon starting on Monday.

The Sports Media Watch looks at the ratings for the PGA Tour this year to date. The SMW says the ACC Football Championship Game heads to primetime, but will be on ESPN after spending its first four years on ABC. The SMW has some various news and notes. SMW also has news on various sports personalities.

The Big Lead interviewed ESPN SportsCenter anchor Josh Elliott.

Steve Lepore of Puck The Media has some suggestions on how to improve the NHL Awards Show.

Chris Byrne of Eye on Sports Media wonders why NBC Sports used baseball lingo to promote the U.S. Open. Chris notes that there’s the same small group of volunteers who help the media at the U.S. Open every year.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe looks at Matt Millen’s two NFL broadcasting gigs this upcoming season.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette hears from the NBC golf crew about the U.S. Open.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says there was little for ESPN and NBC to do when the rains started falling at the U.S. Open on Thursday.

Newsday’s Neil Best says NBC is set to start its U.S. Open coverage early on Saturday morning. Neil namedrops from his day at Bethpage Black. Neil says a scheduled Friday appearance by Sid Rosenberg on WFAN was nixed at the last moment.

Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News is amazed at how Mets manager Jerry Manuel manipulates the media.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post weighs in on the Joe Buck Live/Artie Lange controversy.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says the U.S. Open provides plenty of intrigue for the viewer.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette writes that a local New York-Penn League team will have its games webcast on the internet this season.

Laura Nachman says a popular Philly sports anchor, Gary Papa, passed away on Friday. Laura has a statement from the Papa’s former TV station. And Laura links to some clips that paid tribute to Papa.

Michael Klein of the Philadelphia Inquirer also writes about Papa’s death.

The 700 Level blog also pays tribute to Papa.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner writes about NBC starting its U.S. Open coverage some four hours earlier than planned on Saturday.

South

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle talks with ESPN/ABC’s Jeff Van Gundy about his experience calling the NBA Finals with his brother on the sidelines.

Ray Buck of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram doesn’t feel this year’s U.S. Open and Wimbledon tournaments will be as dramatic as last year’s.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News unveils the identity of the mysterious quarterback in 4th and Long.

James Corley of The Oklahoman writes that ESPN will showcase former OU Sooner standout Blake Griffin during the NBA Draft.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that Fox Sports Ohio plans limited commercial interruptions for the Civil Rights Game on Saturday.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids Press says HBO generated the wrong type of buzz for Joe Buck Live.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Bob Wolfley talks with author Curt Smith about his new biography about Dodgers voice Vin Scully.

Ed Sherman from Crain’s Chicago Business lists his winners and losers of the week. Ed also sets the record straight about who broke the story about the now-defunct Windy City internet sports radio station.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Judd Zulgad says TV is the most likely step for former Timberwolves General Manger Kevin McHale.

Paul Christian in the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin writes that rain will make for interesting viewing at the U.S. Open this weekend.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dan Caesar says Joe Buck might have taken hits for a bad show and the Artie Lange controversy, but his show did pull viewers for HBO.

West

Scott D. Pierce of the Deseret Morning News says the only ways to catch the Salt Lake Bees are on the radio or the internet.

Jay Posner from the San Diego Union-Tribune writes that long-time local personality Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton returns to the area airwaves for a week.

John Maffei of the North County Times says rain or shine, the U.S. Open will go on.

Diane Pucin from the Los Angeles Times also writes about the waterlogged U.S. Open that’s wreaking havoc with ESPN and NBC.

Austin Knoblauch of the Times feels the NHL shot and missed by holding its Awards show in Las Vegas.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says rain makes for a difficult telecast at the U.S. Open. Tom has his usual news and notes. Tom looks at the week in sports blogging.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail says NBC’s Johnny Miller is honest to a fault.

And we’re done.