Fang's Bites

The First Day of Autumn Links

It’s officially Fall in the US today. I still hope to have some nice days before it gets really cold in the next couple of months, but as the mornings are chilly when I get up, it’s a sign that the seasons are indeed changing.

Let’s get to your links.

David Scott of the Boston Sports Media Watch touches on a bunch of subjects today including Bob Costas’ appearance at Farm Aid this weekend, the latest at the Boston Herald, problems with the Patriots Rock Radio Network and WEEI winning a Marconi Award.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says the Ryder Cup was quite appealing to watch.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says Nike is getting out of the competitive Olympic swimsuit market (and touches upon a couple of things that were mentioned in our interview).

From the Sports Business Journal, John Ourand says NBA TV is making a push for a wider distribution.

Also from the SBJ, Eric Fisher and John Ourand write that the MLB Network will team up with ESPN to air the World Baseball Classic in 2009.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post says the New York media enabled MLB and ESPN to put the last Yankee Stadium game at night. That’s a real stretch, Phil.

And Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News seemed to hate everything about the Yankee Stadium Closing Ceremonies.

In a review of the TV sports weekend, Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times wondered when Fox’s Jeanne Zelasko will get the name of the Rays right.

The Houston Chronicle’s David Barron has the text and .pdf file of an apology MLB El Presidente Del Mundo Bud Selig made to Astros fans.

Maury Brown of the Biz of Baseball also looks at the full page apology MLB took in the Houston Chronicle regarding the Astros “home” series in Milwaukee last week.

Ray Frager of the Baltimore Sun goes over some of the notable quotes from the Sunday NFL pregame shows.

Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain News enjoyed a rare visit by Joe Buck and the Fox Sports crew to Denver.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel goes over the Cowboys-Packers game from several points of view.

Apparently, an NBC Sports crew member was injured following the Cowboys-Packers game last night.

We’re loving the fact that the Dallas Morning News’ Barry Horn is still in the honeymoon phase of blogging. Today, he gives a review of NBC’s production of Sunday Night Football. And Barry doesn’t quite understand the last concession at the Ryder Cup.

Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution says ESPN’s College Gameday will be live from the University of Georgia this Saturday.

Friend of Fang’s Bites, Christopher Byrne of the Eye on Sports Media blog looks at where College Gameday could set up for this Saturday’s live show.

Awful Announcing has the video of ESPN Radio host Mike Golic addressing his son’s arrest at Notre Dame over the weekend.

A few things from Laura Nachman. She talks about sports radio station WIP celebrating its 20th anniversary. Laura adds some names who have worked at the station over the years. And here are some more names. Finally, Laura says the U.S. Sports Film Festival is coming to Philly next month.

If you missed the piece on the late Lymon Bostock that aired on ESPN’s Outside the Lines yesterday, Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has the embedded the video at his blog.

Shahnaz Mahmud of Adweek says as sports leagues offer live internet streaming of their games and big events, the rules for marketers and advertisers change.

Randy Whitehouse of the Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal is not a fan of NESN’s Don Orsillo.

Andrew Goldman of New York magazine writes about the relationship between the lovely and hot Alexis Stewart and her mother, Martha as the new show, “Whatever, Martha” premiered on Fine Living last week. The show is pretty funny.

Those are your links for now.

Tuesday Evening Links

Let’s give some more links on this Tuesday evening here on the East Coast of the States.

First, Bruce Allen of the Boston Sports Media Watch transcribes a segment on WEEI’s The Big Show with the Big Fat Tub of Lard, Glenn Ordway in which he attacks fantasy football and those who play it. That’s like oh, millions of football fans Ordway is alienating.

A few things from Neil Best of Newsday. Neil tells us that Showtime/CBS Sports has hired a new correspondent for Inside the NFL. Neil has some comments from Chris Russo assessing his first show at Sirius XM. Finally, Neil has Mike Francesa’s rant on Russo leaving and on the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman. It’s great stuff.

Tim Lemke of the Washington Times talks about MASN expanding its HD programming.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell delves into what happened to the Magic Johnson co-sponsored Washington Mutual loan centers that eventually closed. And Darren wonders if the Spanish language version of Madden video game has a curse as well.

Joe Favorito likes how the NFL handled the Vince Young situation.

The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth has the NFL schedule for Week 3 in SoCal and he wonders where are the Raiders?

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union lists the college football games available in the New York State Capital Region this weekend.

A few things from the Sports Media Watch. Last night’s Eagles-Cowboys game set a record rating for ESPN. SMW says even with a blowout, Ohio State-USC still garnered good ratings for ABC on Saturday. And the blog states that NASCAR ratings on ABC got double digit increases from last year, but are still low.

Laura Nachman says Eagles-Cowboys cleaned up in the ratings in Philadelphia.

Maury Brown of the Biz of Football breaks down the record Monday Night Football ratings.

Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning News says the Eagles-Cowboys will be re-aired on NFL Network on Wednesday.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers is gaining some national attention.

The Capital (WI) Times tells us that the Big Ten Network will be going political this week.

Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune says the Chicago Tribune Live show on Comcast SportsNet Chicago is reaching a milestone.

Sergio Ibarra of TV Week reports that WGN-TV and WGN America will re-air Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitter of the Houston Astros this Friday night.

Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic says the Diamondbacks’ strategy of fewer sponsors and one lone TV partner instead of two is paying off with a better product on the field.

Jeffrey Flanagan of the Kansas City Star has Marty Schottenheimer saying his picking the Raiders over the Chiefs was all for show. What? Jeffrey has CBS’ Rich Gannon saying the Chiefs are far from the worst in the NFL. Finally Jeffrey says Kansas and Missouri football did well in the ratings this past weekend.

The Gainesville (GA) Times reports that ESPN will pick up Georgia-Alabama in primetime on September 27.

Tom Kensler of the Denver Post says ESPN’s Chris Fowler returns home to the University of Colorado Thursday to call the Buffaloes against West Virginia.

Jayda Evans of the Seattle Times caught up with ESPN’s Linda Cohn as she was promoting her book yesterday.

Mike Hutton of the Gary Post-Tribune says former Indiana University basketball coach Dan Dakich will be hosting a sports radio talk show in Indianpolis starting next month.

Del Milligan over at The Ledger (FL) says there will not a shortage in TV coverage of the Ryder Cup this weekend.

NBC’s Bob Costas speaks to the AfterElton site about why the network did not mention that Australian gold medal-winning diver Matthew Mitcham was openly gay.

The Gaffer at EPL Talk wonders why Setanta Sports doesn’t air in HD in the States.

Louisa Ada Seltzer of Media Life Magazine looks at the premiere of Whatever, Martha featuring two of my favorite radio co-hosts, Jennifer Koppelman-Hutt and the extremely lovely Alexis Stewart.

That will do it tonight. I’ll put up a review of the latest edition of Real Sports later this week.

The Tuesday Linkage

Well, I’m still recovering from staying up late watching the Olympics coverage. With women’s gymnastics on tonight, expect another late night.

Let’s start with Newsday’s Neil Best who has a couple of stories in today’s edition of the newspaper. The first story has reaction from NBC’s Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines who called the thrilling men’s 4 x 100 meters swimming relay. Neil’s second story is on NBC’s internet coverage which is sans announcers, but has bloggers providing live commentary. And in his blog, Neil writes about the New York Jets bringing on Florida State University Cowgirl Jenn Sterger as their gameday host. Bloggers across the country seemed to be obsessed with Jenn, mostly in a negative way. She’s hot and she’s parlayed one cutaway TV shot on ABC into a career, but more power to her for being able to make money. If you so wish, you can visit her website.

The New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman feels Bela Karolyi is a walking, talking conflict of interest commenting on gymnastics on NBC while his wife is coaching the US women’s team.

Keith Groller of the Allentown (PA) Morning Call says NBC’s ratings for the Olympics have been nothing short of golden.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says Rick and Dick Hoyt, the father and son team that have been seen in many a marathon and triathlon, have been signed to a shoe endorsement deal and I think everyone can agree they truly deserve it. Last year, HBO’s Real Sports profiled the pair in a very inspirational story. If you don’t know, Rick has cerebral palsy and his father Dick, pushes him in a wheelchair at road races all across the country.

The Albany Times Union’s Pete Dougherty says NBC’s softball voice Joe Castellano made his debut last night.

Ken McMillan from the Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record says Late Night with the Olympics has been quite entertaining.

James Hibberd from the Hollywood Reporter has NBC responding to some fakery accusations during the Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

Christopher Byrne of the Eye on Sports Media blog gives Microsoft credit for its Silverlight technology which powers the NBCOlympics.com live video streams.

Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press likes the online streaming of the Games, but it won’t replace TV.

The Sports Business Daily/Journal’s Olympic website reports that NBC is averaging a 17.0 rating for the Games through Sunday, a very good number in this day and age.

Mike Shields of Adweek says NBC and Yahoo are the clear leaders in online traffic for the Olympics.

Jerry Guo of Gadling has some ways to find the Olympics online if you can’t access NBCOlympics.com’s streams. I’m not endorsing this by the way.

NBC is taking preorders for the Olympics highlights DVD.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News says the Olympics beat the Cowboys in the local ratings on Saturday.

Ted Cox of the Chicago Daily Herald writes that NBC has been caught off guard as the Olympics are actually living up to the hype.

Bob Wolfley from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says the NFL Network is going to pick up the reamaining exhibition game schedule of the New York Jets and ESPN has changed plans for the first Monday Night Football game at Green Bay.

Jay Glazer of Fox Sports gives us the account of how he came to break the Brett Favre-to-the-Jets story.

Jeffrey Flanagan of the Kansas City Star says the Monday Night Football crew might be finally getting the broadcast right.

George M. Thomas of the Akron Beacon Journal says Time Warner Cable is not doing right by its customers by not adding the Big Ten Network to its lineup.

But Comcast customers aren’t going to have that problem as of August 15. Don Dodson of the Urbana/Champaign (IL) News-Gazette has the story.

Mike Nadel who wrote the anti-Erin Andrews column now comes back with a new story talking about the reaction.

Wayne Fish from the Philly Burbs newspapers says Chris Thierien will join the Flyers’ radio booth. Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer says Thierien will replace Brian Propp.

Thomas Stinson of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes about the Skip Caray memorial service that took place on Monday. Carroll Rogers of the AJC says Caray’s wit and life were celebrated.

And our last story has to do with a new show on Fine Living that will skewer Martha Stewart. Brook Barnes of the New York Times writes that Martha’s daughter, the always lovely Alexis and Jennifer Koppleman Hutt, the co-hosts of Whatever on Sirius Satellite Radio will do a MST3K-type snarky skewering of Martha’s old shows.

My Thoughts Are With You, Jennifer

You probably don’t know that I’m a regular listener and caller to Whatever Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio hosted by Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Koppelman Hutt. If you listen to the show, I call in as “Ken in Rhode Island” to add my two cents to whatever the girls are discussing.

Yesterday, Jennifer’s mother, Bunny died at the age of 65.

Jennifer’s mother would also call into the show and she was always delightful.

Regular listeners know that Jennifer had been talking about her frustrations over her mother’s cancer and the doctors treating her. She has also been bearing her soul on her blog at the Whatever Radio website.

I wanted to express my sympathies to the entire Koppelman family. I feel I’ve gotten to know them just a little bit through the show.

The show has been in reruns the last two days as Jennifer and her family are making arrangements. It’s a tough time for everyone. My thoughts are with the family.

More on the XM-Sirius Merger

Earlier today, the Department of Justice approved the buyout of XM Satellite Radio by Sirius. The agreement between the two companies had been announced early in 2007, but inexplicably, it took more than a year for the DOJ to come to a decision. In fact, it took 399 days from the day of announcement to Justice’s approval. We have reaction from all over the place to the merger. I’ll also look for a sports angle to this.

First, some links on the story.

The Orbitcast blog which follows all things satellite radio was on top of the story when it broke late this afternoon on the East Coast. Naturally, the National Association of Broadcasters which lobbies for radio behemoths Clear Channel, CBS Radio and Citadel, among other groups, was unhappy with the news.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer who had been calling for the merger on his popular Mad Money show, is now calling for the Federal Communications Commission to quickly approve the merger.

Paul Thomasch and Kenneth Li of Reuters write that Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin is the big winner in the merger.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable writes that Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee wants the FCC to block the merger. And Eggerton adds that Massachusetts Representative Edward Markey, chair of the House Telecommunications & Internet Subcommittee wants conditions attached to the combined Sirius-XM.

If you want to read what the DOJ said, then you can read the full news release here.

And we get the combined reaction of Sirius and XM.

As far as sports are concerned, this will give the sports fan the ultimate place to listen to just about all of the major events on the calendar.

For disclosure purposes, I am a Sirius subscriber. I bought two receivers so I could listen to Howard Stern and have become a fan of Whatever Radio hosted by Alexis Stewart and Jennifer Hutt.

Sirius is the satellite rightsholder to the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, Wimbledon, the NCAA Men’s Tournament and the English Premier League. However, its sports programming lags behind XM which has MLB, NHL, PGA Tour, the Bowl Championship Series, the major college basketball conference, the World Cup, the Triple Crown, Indy Racing League and the U.S. Tennis Open.

ESPN Radio is on both services, Sporting News Radio is on Sirius, Fox Sports Radio is on XM. With the new Sirius-XM, the sports fan won’t have to suffer without the other service. There will be new pricing plans if you want to hear the other service on your current receiver. All this will be sorted out when the merger is approved by the FCC and that should be coming in April.

Hopefully, it will come in time for baseball season so I can finally listen to the Red Sox on my Sirius receivers.

Wednesday Night Links

A couple of more things since I last updated here.

First, I finally heard Alicia Silverstone today! Remember I was asking if you remembered Alicia? She was on Sirius Satellite Radio talking with Alexis Stewart (yes, Martha’s daughter) and Jennifer Hutt on Whatever, a show that’s on the Martha Stewart channel. Before you go killing me listening to Martha Stewart Living Radio, Alexis and Jennifer talk about a lot of things, like Jennifer schtupping her boyfriend, Guy; and Jennifer thinking about schtupping her husband for their 10th Anniversary. So it’s not about cooking, sewing, lifestyles and the like. If you have Sirius, Alexis and Jennifer are on Sirius channel 112 from 5 – 7 p.m. Eastern Time. It’s quite the show and I’ve called in a few times although not in the last six months. Very funny show.

This story came in late this afternoon, but Mark Cuban wants to be part of a new league that will rival the NFL. Just like the USFL before it in the 1980′s, the objective is to bid for the lower round talent, but I’m sure just like the USFL before it in the 1980′s, the owners of this new league will want to make a splash and will enter into a bidding war for higher priced talent. This was tried with the USFL and when Donald Trump became owner of the New Jersey Generals, he thought it would be a good idea to try to sue the NFL to force a merger. Didn’t happen and it was one of the bigger losses Trump suffered in his career. The fact that this league will try to compete in the fall with the NFL is one red flag I see right off the bat. Sports fans are so ingrained with the NFL, this will not work. Yes, the AFL became an alternative to the NFL in the 1960′s, but they were in cities the NFL had not touched (Boston, KC, San Diego, Buffalo, Miami). Cuban comments about what will be called the UFL in his blog.

Defending BCS Champ Florida will have its annual faceoff against Tennessee on CBS Sports on September 15. CBS Sports has not announced its full slate of SEC games as of yet, but has announced its windows this season.

CBC’s Don Cherry will finally make his debut on NBC’s Stanley Cup Final coverage this Monday.

The Rocky Mount Telegram appeals to its cable company to pick up five channels including the NFL Network and ESPNU.

The Sports Media Watch blog reports that ratings for Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Versus fell almost 30% from last year. That’s not good. How are you going to spin this, Gary Bettman?

May was a bad month for the cable channels including TNT and ESPN. Ratings for the NBA hurt both channels and don’t forget, that all of the over-the-air networks were also running their season ending finales.

That should be it for tonight.