Fang's Bites

College Basketball Viewing Picks For 02/25 & 02/26, All Times Eastern

Men’s Schedule Courtesy of Matt’s College Sports on TV

Saturday, February 25

College GameDay live from Storrs, CT — ESPNU, 10 a.m./ESPN, 11 a.m./ESPN, 8 p.m.

11 a.m.
Robert Morris at Quinnipiac — ESPNU

noon
Virginia Tech at Duke — ACC Network
Vanderbilt at Kentucky — CBS
Northeastern at Delaware — Comcast SportsNet New England/CSS/The Comcast Network
Notre Dame at St. John’s — ESPN2

Women’s: DePaul at Louisville — Big East Network: MASN/SNY

1 p.m.
Boston College at Wake Forest — Fox Sports Net: Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Fox Sports Florida/Fox Sports North Plus/Fox Sports South/Fox Sports West/NESN
LaSalle at Fordham — YES

1:30 p.m.
Iowa State at Kansas State — Big 12 Network
Oklahoma at Baylor — Big 12 Network
Drake at Wichita State — Fox College Sports Central/Comcast SportsNet Chicago Plus/Fox Sports Midwest
LSU at Mississippi — SEC Network

2 p.m.
St. Louis at URI — A-10 Network: Comcast SportsNet New England/Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia/Cox Sports RI
UCLA at Arizona — CBS
Villanova at Georgetown — CBS
Texas A&M at Oklahoma State — ESPN2
Boise State at Wyoming — the mtn.

2:30 p.m.
Maryland at Georgia Tech — ACC Network
NC State at Clemson — ACC Network

3 p.m.
St. Francis at Sacred Heart — Fox College Sports Atlantic

4 p.m.
Texas at Texas Tech — Big 12 Network
Missouri at Kansas — CBS
Lafayette at American — CBS Sports Network
Drexel at Old Dominion — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Comcast SportsNet New England/Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia
North Carolina at Virginia — ESPN
Creighton at Indiana State — ESPN2
Hawaii at Louisiana Tech — ESPN Plus
Memphis at Marshall — Fox Sports Net (national)
Air Force at UNLV — NBC Sports Network
Arkansas at Auburn — SEC Network
Florida at Georgia — SEC Network

5 p.m.
Rutgers at Seton Hall — ESPNU
Houston Baptist at North Dakota — Fox College Sports Central

6 p.m.
Purdue at Michigan — Big Ten Network
Portland at BYU — BYU TV
UMass at Dayton — CBS Sports Network
Mississippi State at Alabama — ESPN
George Mason at Virginia Commonwealth — ESPN2

Women’s: Oklahoma at Texas — Fox Sports Net (national)

7 p.m.
Temple at St. Joseph’s — ESPNU
New Mexico at TCU — the mtn.

8 p.m.
Nebraska at Michigan State — Big Ten Network
UTEP at Central Florida — CBS Sports Network
Richmond at Xavier — ESPN2
Middle Tennessee at Western Kentucky — Fox College Sports Atlantic
USC at Arizona State — Fox College Sports Central/Fox Sports Prime Ticket/Fox Sports Arizona
Washington at Washington State — Fox College Sports Pacific/Root Sports Northwest
Tennessee at South Carolina — Fox Sports Net: Fox Sports Houston/Fox Sports South/Fox Sports Southwest/Sun Sports

Women’s: Texas Tech at Texas A&M — Fox Sports Net (national)

9 p.m.
Syracuse at UConn — ESPN
Northwestern at Penn State — ESPNU

10 p.m.
Colorado State at San Diego State — the mtn.
Nevada at Fresno State — WAC Sports Network

11 p.m.
Cal Poly at UC-Santa Barbara — ESPNU

Sunday, February 26

noon
Cincinnati at South Florida — Big East Network: Altitude/Cox Sports Television/MASN/SNY
Maine at Stony Brook — CBS Sports Network

Women’s: Indiana at Purdue — Big Ten Network

1 p.m.
Indiana at Minnesota — ESPN

Women’s: Boston College at Miami — Fox Sports Net: Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Fox Sports South/NESN/Sun Sports Plus
Women’s: Central Florida at Houston — Fox Sports Net (national)

1:30 p.m.
Women’s: Kentucky at Mississippi State — ESPNU

2 p.m.
Pittsburgh at Louisville — CBS

Women’s: Minnesota at Penn State — Big Ten Network
Women’s: UMass at Xavier — CBS Sports Network

3 p.m.
Women’s: Duke at North Carolina — ESPN2
Women’s: Washington State at Washington — Fox Sports Net (national)

3:30 p.m.
Women’s: Old Dominion at James Madison — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic
Women’s: Florida at Tennessee — ESPNU
Women’s: Mississippi at Auburn — Fox Sports Net: Fox Sports North Plus/Fox Sports Southwest Plus/SportSouth/Sun Sports Plus

4 p.m.
Wisconsin at Ohio State — CBS

Women’s: Ohio State at Nebraska — Big Ten Network

5 p.m.
Women’s: LSU at Georgia — ESPN2

5:30 p.m.
Cal at Colorado — Fox Sports Net (national)

6 p.m.
Iowa at Illinois — Big Ten Network
Florida State at Miami (FL) — ESPNU

7:30 p.m.
Oregon at Oregon State — Fox Sports Net

8 p.m.
Akron at Ohio — ESPNU

College Basketball Viewing Picks for 02/11 & 02/12/12, All Times Eastern

Men’s Schedule Courtesy of Matt’s College Sports on TV

Saturday, February 11

College GameDay live from Nashville, TN — ESPNU, 10 a.m./ESPN,11 a.m./ESPN, 8 p.m.

11 a.m.
Butler at Cleveland State — ESPN2
Ball State at Kent State — ESPNU

noon
DePaul at Notre Dame — Big East Network: Cox Sports Television/MASN/SNY
James Madison at Towson — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/The Comcast Network
Louisville at West Virginia — ESPN
IPFW at Oakland — Fox College Sports Atlantic/Fox Sports Detroit

Women’s: Navy at Army — CBS Sports Network

1 p.m.
Miami at Florida State — ACC Network
Virginia at North Carolina — ACC Network
UConn at Syracuse — CBS
Arkansas-Little Rock at Middle Tennessee — ESPN2
Nebraska at Penn State — ESPNU
Dayton at Fordham — YES

1:30 p.m.
Baylor at Missouri — Big 12 Network
Georgia at Mississippi State — SEC Network
South Carolina at Arkansas — SEC Network

2 p.m.
Virginia Commonwealth at Old Dominion — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Comcast SportsNet New England/CSS/The Comcast Network
Kansas State at Texas — ESPN
Western Kentucky at Troy — Fox College Sports Central
Utah at Arizona — Fox Sports Net (national)

2:30 p.m.
Navy at Army — CBS Sports Network

3 p.m.
New Mexico State at Utah State — ESPN2
Cincinnati at Marquette — ESPNU

3:30 p.m.
Wyoming at New Mexico — the mtn.

4 p.m.
Duquense at St. Bonaventure — A-10: CSS/The Comcast Network
Oklahoma at Kansas — Big 12 Network
Texas A&M at Iowa State — Big 12 Network
Maryland at Duke — ESPN
Cal at UCLA — Fox Sports Net (national)
Clemson at Wake Forest — Fox Sports Net: Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Fox Sports Arizona Plus/Fox Sports Florida/Fox Sports North Plus/Fox Sports South/NESN
San Diego State at UNLV — NBC Sports Network
Tennessee at Florida — SEC Network

Women’s: Georgetown at UConn — Big East Network: Comcast SportsNet New England/MASN/SNY

4:30 p.m.
Women’s: Charlotte at Duquense — CBS Sports Network

5 p.m.
Wichita State at Creighton — ESPN2
George Washington at Richmond — ESPNU

6 p.m.
Pepperdine at BYU — BYU TV/Fox Sports West
Michigan State at Ohio State — ESPN

Women’s: Texas A&M at Baylor — Fox Sports Net (national)
Women’s: Air Force at Boise State — the mtn.

6:30 p.m.
Colorado at Arizona State — Fox College Sports Pacific/Root Sports Rocky Mountain/Fox Sports Arizona

Women’s: TCU at Colorado State — CBS Sports Network

7 p.m.
Alabama at LSU — ESPN2
Harvard at Princeton — ESPNU
Auburn at Mississippi — Fox Sports Net: Fox Sports Houston/Fox Sports South/Fox Sports Southwest/Sun Sports

8 p.m.
Western Illinois at Oral Roberts — Fox College Sports Central

8:30 p.m.
Colorado State at TCU — the mtn.

9 p.m.
Boise State at Air Force — CBS Sports Network
Kentucky at Vanderbilt — ESPN
Xavier at Temple — ESPN2

11 p.m.
Women’s: USC at Cal — Fox Sports Net (national)

Sunday, February 12

noon
Pittsburgh at Seton Hall — Big East Network: Altitude/Bright House/Cox Sports Television/CSS/MASN/SNY
Stony Brook at Vermont — CBS Sports Network

1 p.m.
Illinois at Michigan — CBS
St. John’s at Georgetown — ESPN
Wisconsin-Green Bay at Detroit — Fox Sports Pacific/Fox Sports Detroit

Women’s: Penn State at Northwestern — Big Ten Network
Women’s: Duke at Florida State — Fox Sports Net: Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/Fox Sports South/NESN/Sun Sports
Women’s: Kansas at Kansas State — Fox Sports Net (national)

2 p.m.
Women’s: Southern Mississippi at SMU — CBS Sports Network

2:30 p.m.
Play for Kay
ESPN2 Coverage Map
Women’s: Arkansas at Auburn — ESPN2
Women’s: Iowa State at Texas Tech — ESPN2
Women’s: Marquette at DePaul — ESPN2
Women’s: Miami at Maryland — ESPN2

3 p.m.
Bradley at Missouri State — Fox Sports Central/Fox Sports Midwest/Comcast SportsNet Chicago

Women’s: Michigan State at Iowa — Big Ten Network
Women’s: UCLA at Stanford — Fox Sports Net (national)

3:30 p.m.
Women’s: West Virginia at Notre Dame — ESPNU
Women’s: Mississippi at Mississippi State — Fox Sports Net: Fox Sports Southwest Plus/SportSouth/Sun Sports

4:30 p.m.
St. Francis (NY) at Long Island University — Fox Sports Atlantic/MSG Network

5 p.m.
Play for Kay
ESPN2 Coverage Map
Women’s: Florida at South Carolina — ESPN2
Women’s: Purdue at Ohio State — ESPN2
Women’s: St. John’s at Rutgers — ESPN2
Women’s: Wake Forest at North Carolina State — ESPN2

5:30 p.m.
Washington at Oregon State — Fox Sports Net (national)

6 p.m.
Northwestern at Purdue — Big Ten Network
Boston College at Virginia Tech — ESPNU

7:30 p.m.
Stanford at USC — Fox Sports Net (national)

8 p.m.
Evansville at Drake — ESPNU

Mike & The Mad Dog Back Together Again… For 15 Minutes

It took the Super Bowl and Radio Row in Indianapolis to bring WFAN’s Mike Francesa and SiriusXM’s Chris Russo back together again. The duo had been together at WFAN in New York, part of the legendary Mike and the Mad Dog show fom 1989 until 2008 when Russo was lured to Sirius Satellite Radio to head up his own sports talk channel.

Since then, there was one reunion in 2009 when Francesa and Russo went on each other’s shows before the American League Championship Series.

Today for 15 short minutes, Russo joined Francesa once again on WFAN on “Mike’s On” live from Indianapolis. For that quarter- hour, the magic was back. Both talked about baseball, Russo’s son and a little bit about the Super Bowl. Thanks to the TV simulcast on YES Network, we have video of the encounter. It was fun to see them back, albeit for a short time. Here’s the video courtesy of YES.

Certainly fun to watch.

Doing Some Friday Megalinks

With a rainy day in Southern New England, it’s time to provide you with some media links. Lots of them on a Friday.

You can check out the Weekend Viewing Picks for the sports and entertainment programming suggestions.

Now to the links.

National

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand talks with NBC’s Al Michaels about calling his 8th Super Bowl and 2nd for NBC.

Mike Ozanian from Forbes says NFL TV rightsholders will be able to reap financial benefits while non-rightsholders end up holding the bag.

Sam Mamudi of Marketwatch.com says you can follow along the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter results in real time thanks to a new Facebook app.

Michael O’Connell from the Hollywood Reporter has a sneak peek at some of the Super Bowls ads.

Kelly McBride of the ESPN Poynter Review Project looks at why ESPN made so much of Tim Tebow.

Alex Klein at Romanesko looks into why the Yale Daily News sat on a story for several months and how it took the New York Times to report on former quarterback Patrick Witt’s alleged sexual assault on campus. You may remember that Witt was a candidate to become a Rhodes Scholar but then skipped his interview. Now we know why.

Todd Spangler at Multichannel News says ESPN will let viewers see additional highlights and material from the Winter X Games via the Shazam mobile app.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel writes that NBC Sports Network goes into the NHL All-Star Weekend with increased ratings for the games.

Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily also has a story on the increased NHL ratings for NBC Sports Network.

Gabriel Beltrone from Adweek says Coke will have a Super Bowl microsite where its famous polar bears will react to the game and ads in real time.

David Gianatasio of Adweek writes one local Super Bowl spot will urge you to pee during its commercial.

E.J. Schultz at Advertising Age has Anheuser-Busch’s Super Bowl plans.

Matt Hardigree at Jalopnik says he’s solved the mystery behind the advertiser behind the Ferris Bueller-themed Super Bowl spot.

Adam Jacobi, the college football writer at CBSSports.com, who put the link to Onward State’s erroneous tweet about Joe Paterno’s death last Saturday has been fired. Jacobi says he understands the decision and has apologized to the Paterno family for his mistake.

Brandon Costa of Sports Video Group says NBC will take a lighter approach for Sunday’s NFL Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

Harry A. Jessell at TV NewsCheck notes that while the national TV ratings for the NFL are good, go inside the local numbers and they’re even better.

ESPN PR man Bill Hofheimer gives you an inside look at the network’s Super Bowl studios in Indianapolis.

Sports Media Watch says college basketball ratings are up on both ESPN and ESPN2.

SMW has some news and notes on some various people in the sports media.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing goes into some of the on-screen typos on TV this week.

Jeff Pearlman gets vindication from Chris “Mad Dog” Russo.

Steven Crist from the Daily Racing Form feels returning the Breeders Cup to NBC can only help horse racing.

All Access says a Hartford, CT FM station has flipped to all-sports.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe says NESN has selected the replacement for Heidi Watney on its Red Sox broadcasts.

Chad says of all of the local TV outlets, Comcast SportsNet New England will have the largest contingent covering the Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

Johnny Diaz from the Globe says Boston DirecTV subscribers will see the Super Bowl after all.

Bill Doyle from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette talks with NBC’s Rodney Harrison about Super Bowl XLII and how some present New England Patriots still remaining from the game want revenge.

Stuart Elliot at the New York Times says some Super Bowl advertisers are returning buyers.

Richard Sandomir of the Times has Joe Namath’s reaction to the HBO/NFL Films documentary on his career that premieres tomorrow.

Richard adds that Namath is right now estranged from his former team, the New York Jets.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post says the Namath documentary for the most part is good.

Justin Terranova of the Post speaks with NBC NHL charlatan Pierre McGuire.

Mike Silva at Sports Media Watchdog wonders why Kim Jones left YES.

Pete Dougherty from the Albany Times Union says a local sports talk show will broadcast live from the Super Bowl next week.

Pete talks with the host of that talk show who also wears other hats in the Albany market.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says NYC residents will be able to hear the local and national radio calls of the Super Bowl next Sunday.

The Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News notes the firing of a CBSSports.com writer for falsely reporting Joe Paterno’s death.

DCRTV’s Dave Hughes at Press Row has media notes from the Baltimore-DC area.

South

The Tallahassee (FL) Democrat writes that a local sports talk show host who left his former station this week will be back on the air at another station later this year.

Billy Cox of the Sarasota (FL) Herald Tribune says ESPN’s Dick Vitale will be the subject of a profile produced by ….. ESPN!

Josh Bowe of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says Fox Sports Southwest will stream Lone Star Conference football games and a highlight show over the internet.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle talks with a retiring local sports anchor who looks back at the 2011 Texans rather fondly.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman reviews the HBO/NFL Films documentary on Joe Namath.

Mel says ESPNU will be all over National Signing Day.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer talks with former Bengal Artrell Hawkins who is now co-hosting Fox Sports Radio’s national morning show.

Jeff Moss of the Detroit Sports Rag looks into the new program director and on-air host of a local sports radio station.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Wisconsin sports teams did well in the national TV ratings last year.

Dan McGrath of the Chicago News Cooperative notes the 20 year anniversary of sports talk radio in the Windy City.

Paul Christian of the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin says new Minnesota Twins radio voice Cory Provus has big shoes to fill.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks with Bob Costas about returning to host his familiar town hall format next week.

West

Thomas Harding of MLB.com says Root Sports Rocky Mountain’s Alana Rizzo is leaving the network’s Colorado Rockies broadcast team and heading for MLB Network.

John Maffei at the North County Times says HBO’s documentary on Joe Namath is on par with previous efforts.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star also reviews the documentary.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News talks with Kings radio analyst Daryl Evans and also lists his best/worst LA broadcast analysts.

Tom has more on Evans in his blog.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says it’s time to play the NHL All-Star Game outdoors.

And that will do it.

The Mid-Week Linkage

I haven’t provided links on schedule so let me try to do it now.

We begin with Michael Hiestand of USA Today who talks about NBCUniversal’s big plans to blanket Super Bowl XLVI next week.

Wow. The secret organization Anonymous plans to attack ESPN.com over its support of SOPA and PIPA. In case anyone from Anonymous is reading, Fang’s Bites is an ardent critic of both bills.

Adrian Melville of Forbes says Fox is hoping to retain the US rights to the English Premier League.

Jeff Roberts at paidContent looks at USA Today Media Group’s purchase of Big Lead Sports.

Funny post. It’s a long one, but stay with it. Complex provides the 100 Worst Sports Tweets in history.

The Nielsen Wire blog reviews the year in sports advertising for 2011.

Rarely do we link to Self Magazine, but it has a story on ESPN SportsCenter anchor Sage Steele training for the upcoming Disney Princess Half Marathon.

Last week, ESPN’s Front Row PR blog posted part one of its behind the scenes look at Sunday NFL Countdown. Today, it provides part two of that look.

Lacey Rose at the Hollywood Reporter writes that current NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner will host a USA Network reality show that will premiere later this year.

James Hibberd at Entertainment Weekly looks at NBC’s plans for the Super Bowl.

John Eggerton from Broadcasting & Cable says Massachusetts US Senator John Kerry wants DirecTV and Sunbeam to pledge that Super Bowl XLVI won’t be blacked out in Boston. Sunbeam’s WHDH-TV is off DirecTV right now over a carriage dispute and it’s the NBC affiliate.

Tim Nudd of Adweek says clothing retailer H&M is trying to put out a social media firestorm in advance of its first-ever Super Bowl ad.

Ken Wheaton at Advertising Age says CareerBuilder is keeping its lovable chimps for this year’s Super Bowl commercial.

Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth has the best Super Bowl ads ever.

Diego Vasquez from Media Life Magazine speaks with two people from a research firm to find out why some Super Bowl ads fail to connect with viewers.

Karlene Lukovitz from MediaPost’s Marketing Daily says Papa John’s is betting on the Super Bowl coin flip to help sell pizzas.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life notes that the NBA’s ratings despite the lockout are way up from last year’s record.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid catches ESPN2′s Patrick McEnroe firing off an “F” bomb during the Australian Open coverage last night.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell has some myths and facts about the Super Bowl ticket market.

Mary Alice Gill from the Nashua (NH) Telegraph writes about the DirecTV/Sunbeam dispute that could affect Boston’s watching of the Super Bowl.

Johnny Diaz of the Boston Globe says area bars with DirecTV are scrambling for other possible ways to show the Super Bowl.

At SB Nation Boston, Kat Hasenauer Cornetta looks at how small market New England sports radio stations try to serve the needs of their audience.

Stuart Elliot of the New York Times says the pregame show has begun for the Super Bowl ads.

To Newsday and Neil Best who writes that reporter Kim Jones is leaving the YES network.

Justin Terranova and Phil Mushnick of the New York Post report that Jones is talking with a national network.

Don McKee of the Philadelphia Inquirer has an obituary for the late Andy Musser.

Ray Didinger of Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia remembers Musser.

David Jones from Florida Today feels ESPN’s deal with the SEC is bad for the league.

Gregory A. Hall of the Louisville Courier-Journal notes that NBC has brought the Breeders’ Cup back under its fold.

The Houston Chronicle’s David Barron says a long-time local TV sports director is leaving after this year.

Mel Bracht from the Daily Oklahoman notes that the NFL Conference Championship Games drew big ratings locally.

Steve Nitz of the Morris (IL) Daily Herald is no longer a fan of ESPN.

NBC’s Michele Tafoya is ending her Minneapolis radio show.

Jon Bream at the Minneapolis Star Tribune says Tafoya has grown tired of a weekly 7 day grind between her show and Sunday Night Football.

David Brauer of MinnPost.com writes that Tafoya’s ratings weren’t great.

Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star looks at ESPN’s College GameDay’s visit to the University of Arizona campus this weekend.

Anthony Gimino of the Tucson Citizen says CBS Sports Network will have inside access to Rich Rodriguez and the University of Arizona during National Signing Day.

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail wonders if TSN’s Dave Hodge was reaching when he tried to tweet a connection between Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas and the KKK after Thomas refused to go to the White House earlier this week.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog looks at CBC’s dropping of the Curling’s Grand Slams.

To the Big Lead and Jason McIntyre who has a profile of ESPN Radio Hack Colin Cowherd. Actually it’s a very good profile.

Ryan Yoder at Awful Announcing has the Top 10 Sports Media Busts.

Blythe Brumleve at AA looks at CBS’ client stroke for E-Trade during the NFL Today on Sunday.

Sports Media Watch notes that the NHL is getting increased ratings on both NBC and NBC Sports Network.

Steve Lepore of Puck The Media wants the in-game coach interviews during NHL games to end.

Steve tells us where the AHL All-Start Game can be seen in your market.

SportsRantz says NBC Sports Network is using the Super Bowl to get a ratings boost.

And Morgan Wick informs us what the Breeders’ Cup move back to NBC means.

And that is it.

Some Late Monday Night Linkage

I’ll do some links that I’ve gathered over the day. You deserve some.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today discusses the monster ratings for Championship Sunday in the NFL.

Michael says with NBC reacquiring the rights to the Breeders Cup, ESPN has gotten out of the horse racing business.

And Michael discusses Jim Rome’s CBS debut before the AFC Championship.

Stuart Miller of Multichannel News says league-owned networks are looking to fill time through imaginative programming.

John Ourand at Sports Business Journal notes that the dispute between MSG Network and Time Warner Cable could threaten the Buffalo Sabres’ number one spot in the local NHL ratings.

John says carriage talks for Time Warner’s new regional sports network featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and for the Pac-12 Network are about to begin in California.

Michael Smith of SBJ says Turner Sports will be running the Fan Fest and other events at the NCAA Final Four this year.

Some stories on how the media handled or did not handle the premature reports of Joe Paterno’s death.

Ronnie Ramos at the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center says there are lessons to be learned from the way the Paterno story was reported on Saturday.

Craig Silverman of the Poynter Institute tells us how the Associated Press did not fall into the trap of reporting Paterno’s death.

Davis Shaver on Onward State, the online publication that made the erroneous report, explains the events on Saturday.

Michael Malone of Broadcasting & Cable notes that local TV stations in the Penn State vicinity showed restraint on the Paterno story.

Brian Stelter of the New York Times looks into how the Paterno story burned online news sources.

Now to other links.

John Daly of the Daly Planet delves into how Danica Patrick will influence NASCAR this season.

Barry Janoff of The Big Lead writes about Danica’s GoDaddy.com Super Bowl ad.

Sam Laird of Mashable notes that Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis will be the first to have a social media command center.

Sam informs advertisers what the typical NFL fan looks like.

Now some remembrances of the late Andy Musser who along with the late Harry Kalas, the late Richie Ashburn and Chris Wheeler, formed one of the best local broadcast teams whey they called the Philadelphia Phillies from the 1970′s into the 1990′s. Musser died Sunday at the age of 74. Musser was a consummate professional who called the Phillies, the Eagles, the 76ers and Villanova basketball. He did all of them well. A man who was content to be the number two broadcaster on the Phillies behind Kalas, he would call games on both radio and TV for the team.

Todd Zolecki of MLB.com has an obituary of Musser.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says a memorial service will be held at the end of the month for Musser.

Tyler Kepner of the New York Times says Musser was a true gentleman.

And I hope to have more stories about Musser in Tuesday’s links.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid has video of a Baltimore news anchor trying to prop up a depressed Ravens fan base.

Dan has another video of a Ravens fan kicking out an entire viewing party after the failed field goal by Billy Cundiff on Sunday.

Glen Davis of SportsGrid has the clip of the Ravens’ Terrell Suggs giving Skip Bayless a verbal beatdown.

Bob’s Blitz notes that Boomer Esiason and Jillian Michaels will co-host this year’s “Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials.”

Patrick Burns of Deadspin did some excellent work to break down SportsCenter’s coverage on ESPN over an 11 day span earlier this month.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times notes how Gary Carter’s daughter is chronicling her father’s struggles with a brain tumor.

Matt Flegenheimer of the Times writes about how New York Knicks fans are actually going to games in the wake of the Time Warner Cable-MSG Network dispute.

Back to Brian Stelter of the Times who profiles NFL Films.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post wonders why CBS won’t bring up Ray Lewis’ stabby past.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette notes the big ratings for NFL Conference Championship Sunday.

Pete Dougherty at the Albany Times Union has the ESPN Family of Networks college lacrosse schedule.

Ken says YES will air Jorge Posada’s retirement from the Yankees on Tuesday.

Ken McMillan at the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says ESPN will air a half-dozen Spring Training MLB games in March.

At the Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik says CBS got the job done during the AFC Championship.

David says the local ratings for the AFC Championship may have set a record.

David writes that the AFC Championship definitely set a social media record.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner writes about Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic’s new show.

Tom Jones from the Tampa Bay Times looks back at a tumultuous weekend in sports television.

David Barron at the Houston Chronicle writes about the NFL Conference Championship Games’ ratings.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer has Thom Brennaman threatening promising to call Reds games on the radio with his dad, Marty.

Dusty Saunders from the Denver Post reviews the HBO Sports documentary on Joe Namath.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News discusses the Breeders Cup going primetime on NBC later this year.

Bill Shakin of the Los Angeles Times goes over the process of the Dodgers sale that began in earnest on Monday.

Sports Media Watch says the NBA’s move to becoming a mostly cable television league has paid off.

SMW has some various news and notes.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says the Boston Bruins had a mixed bag over the weekend on NESN.

Dave Kohl at the Broadcast Booth says live sports continues to rack in the ratings.

Joe Favorito looks at the growth of squash, Twitter trouble and how to use the social media service properly.

Joe Lucia at Awful Announcing wonders how CBS’ Jim Nantz could confuse two Baltimore Ravens’ wide receivers.

And that will do it for your late night linkage.

Some Quick Sunday Links

I’m going to provide a few links for you since they’ve been lacking here over the last few days.

We begin with Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deistch who talked with ESPN’s Brent Musburger who will call Monday’s BCS National Championship Game.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News talks with ESPN’s Chris Fowler about the BCS National Championship Game.

Lang Whitaker from GQ talks with ESPN’s Erin Andrews in advance of Monday’s BCS National Championship.

Brian Lowry at Variety writes that as sports rights fees become more expensive, expect cable to take over for network TV and pass on the cost to consumers.

Mike Ozanian at Forbes reports that Fox Sports is giving individual teams equity stakes in its regional sports networks to prevent them from taking offers from competitors.

Andy Fixmer of Bloomberg says this season’s NFL’s TV ratings were off slightly from last year.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy notes that Pittsburgh Steelers QB Roethlisburger is blaming ESPN for overhyping Denver QB Tim Tebow.

Michael Hiestand from USA Today says the Orange Bowl on ESPN drew its lowest BCS TV ratings ever.

CJ Fogler of SportsGrid has videos of TNT paying tribute to the late Jim Huber this week.

Tom Lorenzo from SportsGrid has the video from last night’s Saturday Night Live’s Charles Barkley Post Game Translation App. Sharp-eyed viewers may notice Hazel Mae making an appearance.

Charles Apple of The American Copy Editors Society feels ESPN should be more careful in its on-screen graphics.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek notes that CBS/Turner has signed Northwestern Mutual to be the exclusive insurance sponsor of the NCAA Tournament.

Timothy Burke at Deadspin did some investigating and found that salsa music played during last week’s Sunday Night Football game came directly from the NBC truck.

Dave Kindred at the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center laments the death of the newspaper sports column.

Eric Deggans from the Tampa Bay Times provides his 2012 sports media predictions in the National Sports Journalism Center.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says LSU coach Les Miles stands to get millions if he wins the BCS National Championship.

Ken Belson of the New York Times says ESPN has obtained the rights to the New York City Marathon and pledges to show it live across the country, something NBC’s Universal Sports could not do.

Phil Mushnick at the New York Post feels the New York Jets coaching staff is just plain insensitive.

Ken Schott at the Schenectady Gazette informs readers what MSG Network is airing today as its dispute with Time Warner Cable continues.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times-Union says what a lot of people tweeted yesterday, that Mike Mayock talked too much during yesterday’s Cincinnati-Houston game.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says YES will air a handful of Fordham basketball games.

Greg Connors of the Buffalo News says the Bills will have a new flagship radio station for next season.

T.J. Pignataro of the News says the Sabres TV ratings have suffered since Time Warner Cable removed MSG Buffalo from its lineup.

In the New Jersey Newsroom, Evan Weiner warns you that your cable bill will go up this year and sports will be to blame.

Bob Fernandez of the Philadelphia Inquirer notes that Comcast’s distribution deal with Disney, ESPN in particular, shows that the company is thinking about the long-term.

Mike McGovern of the Reading (PA) Eagle pays tribute to the late Jim Huber.

Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post says Nationals TV voice Bob Carpenter will return in 2012.

The Huntington (WV) Dispatch feels ESPN needs a geography and history lesson about West Virginia.

David Knox from the Birmingham (AL) News talks with ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit about the BCS National Championship Game.

Dave Walker at the New Orleans Times-Picayune profiles LSU radio voice Jim Hawthorne.

Nakia Hogan of the Times-Picayune talks with an ESPN executive who denies the network has undue influence over college sports.

Berry Tramel of the Daily Oklahoman delves into Oklahoma University’s deal with Fox Sports to air sports on two of its regional sports networks.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the Packers increased their TV ratings this season.

Bob says Milwaukee did not necessarily rate well for Monday Night Football.

The Chicago Tribune picks up a Variety story that Fox Sports wants to develop original programming that would air after live events.

Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times says the Disney family is interested in buying the Dodgers.

Joshua Myers of the Seattle Times says the MLS’ Sounders have found an analyst for its games, but is still missing a play-by-play man.

Lehia Apana from the Maui (HI) News says Golf Channel’s coverage of this year’s Tournament of Champions has a few new wrinkles.

Sports Media Watch says despite strong numbers, last night’s Detroit-New Orleans drew the NFL’s lowest ratings for a Wild Card Playoff in three years.

SMW says Cincinnati-Houston suffered a precipitous ratings drop from last year’s Saints-Seahawks game.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing reviews Gus Johnson’s first year as top college football man for Fox.

In the Sports Media Watchdog, Mike Silva speculates on who should replace WFAN’s Mike Francesa if he leaves in 2014.

And that will conclude the links for today.

It’s The Linkage! At Long Last and It’s Back!

I think it’s about a week and a half since I’ve been able to do links. Been crazy with me, but you’ve still been visiting and I appreciate that. Time to provide you with sports media news links which is what the site depends on to begin with.

Thanks for your patience during this trying time for me. Onward and let’s do the links.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today writes that NBA analysts aren’t holding back as they get ready for a new truncated season.

Mike Foss of USA Today talks with the new ESPN main soccer analyst Taylor Twellman about tweeting while commentating and concussions.

From earlier this week, Tom Weir of USA Today’s Game On blog notes that “Tebowing” has been officially recognized as a word.

This week’s Sports Business Journal lists the 50 Most Influential People in Sports Business for 2011. I’m not in this year’s list (I’m joking).

Terry Lefton of SBJ says the Stadium Formerly Known as San Diego Jack Murphy will have a temporary name for the holiday season.

Dan Shanoff’s Quickish site lists the Best Sportswriting in 2011. Some good choices and good reading throughout.

Toni Fitzgerald from Media Life Magazine says three of the five NFL TV partners are experiencing lower ratings from last season.

From MediaPost, Wayne Friedman writes that smaller market TV revenues played a huge role in the NBA’s nixing of the Chris Paul from New Orleans-to-Los Angeles Lakers trade.

Brian Steinberg of Advertising Age says hoping to tap into a more health-conscious audience, Dannon Yogurt becomes the first of its kind to advertise on the Super Bowl.

At Adweek, Lucia Moses says Rolling Stone magazine will host its first-ever Super Bowl party in Indianapolis come February.

All Access notes that Milwaukee Brewers radio voice Bob Uecker will be inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Chris Chase at Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner has a video that has gone viral in which a Washington, DC news anchor said that if Tom Brady had died, the DC NFL Team might have had a chance to beat the New England Patriots last Sunday.

Michael Bradley at the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center says don’t expect journalism from local MLB TV partners as they increasingly fund team’s payrolls.

Dan Fogarty at SportsGrid wonders if Shaquille O’Neal will upset the apple cart that is TNT’s Inside the NBA postgame studio show.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III of Baylor is setting the world afire with his Superman socks.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing lists the site’s Top 10 Pammies of the Year.

Gabriel Sherman of The New Yorker magazine writes about sports journalism getting into some hard reporting in the wake of various scandals.

Newsday’s Neil Best writes about tonight’s premiere of HBO’s 24/7 Flyers/Rangers.

The New York Daily News’ Dr. Gloom and Doom reports that YES may hire former MLB manager Lou Piniella as an analyst for next season.

Pete Dougherty in the Albany Times Union says while CBS won the right to keep Patriots-Broncos in Week 15, viewers in the Capital Region won’t see it.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette notes that DirecTV will air a local college hockey game through Fox College Sports.

Ken McMillen from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says WGN America will pick up 10 Chicago Bulls games this season.

Laura Nachman has a couple of Philadelphia 76ers announcements.

Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog has gotten a hold of Tony Kornheiser’s high school yearbook picture and yes, he had hair.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with Golf Channel Morning Drive co-host Gary Williams.

Dwain Price at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram speaks with new Dallas Maverick Lamar Odom about his trade from the Lakers and whether he’ll continue to do the Kardashian television abortion.

The Houston Chronicle reports that ESPN college football analyst Craig James is expected to announce a run for the U.S. Senate, a move that would thrill many fans who can’t stand him on television.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman notes that the NFL topped the local ratings in the Sooner State.

Mel says the local CBS affiliate will pick up the rest of the Denver Broncos schedule and air plenty of Tim Tebow.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says a local sports talk show host has resigned leaving his station in the lurch.

Ed Sherman in Crain’s Chicago Business talks with “NHL 36″ Executive Producer Ross Greenburg about tonight’s series premiere.

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail asks if lightning can strike twice with HBO’s 24/7.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog looks at the effect of media giants Bell Canada and Rogers combining to purchase Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment which would be like ESPN and NBC teaming up to buy the New York Yankees, that’s how big the news is in Canada.

John Daly at The Daly Planet explores the continuing dispute between Sirius XM and Turner Sports over streaming NASCAR on the internet.

Sports Media Watch looks at the final ratings for the SEC on CBS.

And SMW also notes the final ratings of college football on ABC.

SMW says the Heisman Trophy Presentation on ESPN last Saturday did well.

And SMW has some ratings news and notes.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says today is a pretty big day for hockey fans.

And the Big Lead notes that Tim Tebow is on the cover of this week’s Sports Illustrated.

That will conclude our linkage today and I hope that the next set of linkage will come tomorrow instead of another 10 days.

College Basketball Viewing Picks For 12/03 & 12/04/11, All Times Eastern

Schedule courtesy Matt’s College Sports

Saturday, December 3

Big East/SEC Challenge
Arkansas at UConn — ESPN, 3:15 p.m.
Pittsburgh at Tennessee — ESPN, 5:15 p.m.
LSU at Rutgers — ESPNU, 7 p.m.
West Virginia at Mississippi State — ESPNU, 9 p.m.

noon
Iowa State at Michigan — Big Ten Network

North Carolina at Kentucky — CBS

1 p.m.
UMass at Miami (FL) — ESPNU

Longwood at Virginia — Fox Sports Net (regional)

2 p.m.
Georgia Tech at Tulane — CBS Sports Network

2:15 p.m.
USC at Minnesota — Big Ten Network

3 p.m.
Purdue at Xavier — ESPNU

3:15 p.m.
Gonzaga at Illinois — ESPN2

4 p.m.
Arizona State at Tulsa — CBS Sports Network

Drexel at Delaware — Comcast SportsNet New England/The Comcast Network

4:30 p.m.
Marquette at Wisconsin — Big Ten Network

Texas at UCLA — Fox Sports Net (national)

5 p.m.
Oregon vs. BYU at Salt Lake City, UT — ESPNU

Charlotte at East Carolina — MASN/YES

5:15 p.m.
South Florida at Kansas — ESPN2

6:30 p.m.
Eastern Washington at Washington State — Fox College Sports Atlantic/Root Sports Northwest
Northern Arizona at Arizona — Fox College Sports Pacific/Fox Sports Arizona

10 p.m.
Missouri State at New Mexico — the mtn.

Sunday, December 4

noon
women’s: Texas A&M at Purdue — Big Ten Network

2 p.m.
Maine at URI — Cox Sports RI

women’s: Baylor at Minnesota — Big Ten Network

2:30 p.m.
BB&T Classic, Washington, DC: George Washington vs. VCU — Versus

3 p.m.
Bowling Green at Kentucky — Fox College Sports Atlantic

women’s: New Mexico State at New Mexico — the mtn.

3:30 p.m.
South Carolina at Clemson — ESPNU

4 p.m.
Baylor at Northwestern — Big Ten Network

NC State at Stanford — Fox Sports Net (national)

4:45 p.m.
BB&T Classic, Washington, DC: Notre Dame vs. Maryland — Versus

5 p.m.
Cal at San Diego State — the mtn.

5:30 p.m.
Kansas State at Virginia Tech — ESPNU

6 p.m.
Mississippi at Penn State — Big Ten Network

8 p.m.
St. Joseph’s at American — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic/The Comcast Network

Montana at Oregon State — Fox College Sports Pacific/Root Sports Northwest

Some Quickie Tuesday Links

I’ve been away from the computer again today so it led to minimal blogging. Let’s provide some links now.

We begin with some breaking news from the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman who reports that TNT will air the NBA season opening game on Christmas Day between the Boston Celtics and New York Knicks. ESPN/ABC usually airs the Christmas Day games, but TNT has the rights to the league’s first game and Turner Sports apparently won out here.

Jason Lisk at the Big Lead criticizes ESPN for sitting on the Bernie Fine Syracuse story for more than eight years.

Allen Barra of the Daily Beast talks about ESPN and the Syracuse Post-Standard sitting on the Bernie Fine story for way too long.

At ESPN Front Row, Vince Doria, network vice president for news content defends ESPN’s handling of the story.

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart announced on his annual Sirius XM show that the sport has extended its agreement with the satellite radio provider for another five years.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/SBJSBD/statuses/141626213369257984"]

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that YES Network will premiere a new series providing viewers access to Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek says CBS/Turner expect big bucks from ad sales in the multiple platforms showing the NCAA Tournament.

David Goetzl of MediaPost says Paramount Pictures will incorporate NHL footage into promos for the latest Mission: Impossible movie on both US and Canadian TV.

Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid notes that a Tampa-St. Petersburg TV station accidentally showed a man’s schlong during a report from the Buccaneers locker room.

Brandon Costa of Sports Video Group notes that Big Ten Network has launched a mobile app for the Apple iPhone, iPod and yes, the iPad.

Mike Anthony of the Hartford Courant says ESPN has signed a deal with the America East conference for 47 basketball games on the network’s various platforms.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times reports on the feud between Los Angeles Dodgers Frank McCourt and Fox Sports over media rights for the team.

Jim Williams from the Washington Examiner notes the longevity of “Inside the NFL”.

Emily Adamson of NBCMontana says the NCAA is now encouraging ESPN to find a way to air the Division I Football playoff games involving Montana and Montana State in Big Sky country. The games are only available on ESPN3.com which is not readily available in Montana.

Dan Bickley of the Arizona Republic talks with NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner about Tim Tebow.

I’ll try to get some more links later on.

College Football Viewing Picks For Week 11, 11/12/11, All Times Eastern

Schedule courtesy of Matt’s College Sports

College GameDay live from Palo Alto, CA — ESPNU, 9 a.m./ESPN, 10 a.m.

noon
ABC Coverage Map
Oklahoma State at Texas Tech — ABC
West Virginia at Cincinnati — ABC

Pittsburgh at Louisville — Big East Network

Big Ten Network Channel Finder
Ohio State at Purdue — Big Ten Network
Rice at Northwestern — Big Ten Network

Florida at South Carolina — CBS

Old Dominion at William & Mary — Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic

Nebraska at Penn State — ESPN
Michigan State at Iowa — ESPN2
Wake Forest at Clemson — ESPNU

Marshall at Tulsa — Fox Sports Net (national)
Texas at Missouri — FX

Kentucky at Vanderbilt — SEC Network (12:21 p.m. kickoff)

Penn at Harvard — Versus

Yale at Princeton — YES

12:30 p.m.
NC State at Boston College — ACC Network

2 p.m.
Wyoming at Air Force — the mtn.

2:30 p.m.
Arizona at Colorado — Fox College Sports Pacific

3 p.m.
Duke at Virginia — Fox Sports Net (regional)

3:30 p.m.
Miami (FL) at Florida State — ABC/ESPN
Michigan at Illinois — ABC/ESPN
Texas A&M at Kansas State — ABC

Wisconsin at Minnesota — Big Ten Network

Auburn at Georgia — CBS
Rutgers vs. Army at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY — CBS Sports Network

Navy at SMU — Fox Sports Net (national)

Richmond at Delaware — The Comcast Network

TCU at Boise State — Versus

3:45 p.m.
Washington at USC — FX

6 p.m.
Tennessee at Arkansas — ESPN2

San Diego State at Colorado State — the mtn.

6:30 p.m.
Oregon State at Cal — Fox College Sports Atlantic
UCLA at Utah — Fox College Sports Pacific/Fox Sports Prime Ticket/KJZZ

7 p.m.
College Football Scoreboard — ESPN
Western Kentucky at LSU — ESPNU

7:30 p.m.
Louisiana Tech at Ole Miss — CSS

Maryland vs. Notre Dame at Landover, MD — NBC

7:45 p.m.
Alabama at Mississippi State — ESPN

8 p.m.
Oregon at Stanford — ABC

Central Florida at Southern Mississippi — CBS Sports Network

Fresno State at New Mexico State — WAC Sports Network

9:15 p.m.
Idaho at BYU — ESPN2

10 p.m.
UNLV at New Mexico — the mtn.

10:15 p.m.
Hawaii at Nevada — ESPNU

10:30 p.m.
Arizona State at Washington State — Versus

College Football Viewing Picks For Week 10, 11/05/2011, All Times Eastern

Schedule Courtesy of Matt’s College Sports

College GameDay live from Tuscaloosa, AL — ESPNU, 9 a.m./ ESPN, 10 a.m.

noon
Louisville at West Virginia — Big East Network

Big Ten Network Channel Finder
Indiana at Ohio State — Big Ten Network
Minnesota at Michigan State — Big Ten Network

Michigan at Iowa — ESPN
Syracuse at UConn — ESPNU
Ball State at Eastern Michigan — ESPN Plus

Robert Morris at Central Connecticut State — Fox College Sports Atlantic
Texas Tech at Texas — FX

Vanderbilt at Florida — SEC Network (12:21 p.m. kickoff)

Brown at Yale — YES

12:30 p.m.
North Carolina at NC State — ACC Network
Virginia at Maryland — ACC Network

New Mexico at Georgia — CSS

Kansas at Iowa State — Fox College Sports Central

2 p.m.
TCU at Wyoming — the mtn.

3 p.m.
College Football Countdown — ABC
College Football Today — CBS

Duke at Miami (FL) — Fox Sports Net (regional)

3:30 p.m.
Purdue at Wisconsin — ABC/ESPN2
Stanford at Oregon State — ABC
Texas A&M at Oklahoma — ABC/ESPN2

Northwestern at Nebraska — Big Ten Network

Troy at Navy — CBS

Villanova at UMass — Comcast SportsNet New England/The Comcast Network

Mississippi at Kentucky — ESPNU

UTEP at Rice — Fox Sports Net (national)

4 p.m.
Southern Mississippi at East Carolina — CSS

Idaho at San Jose State — WAC Sports Network

5 p.m.
Northern Colorado at Northern Arizona — Fox College Sports Pacific

7 p.m.
College Football Scoreboard — ESPN2

Houston at UAB — CBS Sports Network

South Carolina at Arkansas — ESPN (7:15 p.m. kickoff)
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh — ESPNU

Middle Tennessee at Tennessee — Fox Sports Net (regional)
Missouri at Baylor — Fox Sports Net (national)
Utah at Arizona — Fox College Sports Central

7:30 p.m.
Tennessee-Martin at Mississippi State — CSS

Arizona State at UCLA — Versus

8 p.m.
Kansas State at Oklahoma State — ABC/ESPN2
Notre Dame at Wake Forest — ABC/ESPN2

LSU at Alabama — CBS

New Mexico at San Diego State — the mtn.

10:30 p.m.
Boise State at UNLV — CBS Sports Network

Louisiana State at Fresno State — ESPNU

Oregon at Washington — Fox Sports Net

Bringing Out The Tuesday Links

Let’s do some links for you now.

First, Sports Business Journal’s editorial team talked with ESPN and NFL executives on the decision to remove Hank Williams, Jr.’s open from Monday Night Football.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today looks at the ratings from the weekend in sports television.

Mike Lopresti of USA Today writes about Turner Sports’ Ernie Johnson’s tough month.

Mike McCarthy of USA Today notes that Hank Williams, Jr.’s new song rips ESPN, Fox News and everyone else in his path.

Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy notes that several ex-NHL fighters plan a response to CBC’s Don Cherry who called them out last week.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch says former Red Sox manager Terry Francona got the job done for Fox in Games 1 & 2 of the American League Championship Series.

Lindsay Powers of the Hollywood Reporter says ESPN’s Monday Night Football game between Chicago and Detroit is the network’s 2nd highest rated game of the year.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that the NBA’s national and local TV partners are now scrambling to find other programming in the wake of the cancellation of the 1st two weeks of the regular season.

Todd Spangler of Multichannel News says YES Network is not happy over Cablevision’s live iPad app.

Adweek’s Anthony Crupi writes that ESPN/ABC and TNT will have to find a way to replace almost a billion dollars in ad revenue if the entire 2011-12 NBA season is lost.

Andrew McMains from Adweek looks at Phoenix Suns star Steve Nash spending the NBA lockout as a pitchman.

Media Life Magazine’s Toni Fitzgerald says the ALCS and NLCS helped to take a chunk out of the network ratings on Monday.

Gary Parrish of CBS Sports says the Big East feels ESPN definitely had a hand in its current inner turmoil.

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid notes a sign in Detroit that made fun of an ESPN NFL analyst on ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Jason Dachman from Sports Video Group both broadcasters and production companies know they’re going to take a hit with the NBA lockout.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell gets Twitter reaction from real people about the impact of the NBA lockout on their lives.

Richard Goldstein of the New York Times remembers the late ABC, CBS and Fox Sports director Joe Aceti who worked many of sports’ biggest events.

Newsday’s Neil Best feels Joe Buck’s voice is coming back.

Neil says Terry Francona shows potential if he wants to be a full-time TV analyst.

Pete Dougherty at the Albany Times Union has the Week 7 college football TV schedule.

From the Washington Post, the DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg has an old picture of Tim Brant and former DC NFL team QB Joe Theismann from a 1980 media guide.

David Teel from the Newport News (VA) Daily Press has Virginia and Virginia Tech athletic officials refuting what Boston College’s athletic director said about ESPN influencing the ACC’s decision to add Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle has some local football TV ratings.

John Kiesewette of the Cincinnati Enquirer says the Bengals hit their season ratings low on Sunday.

John says Fox Sports Ohio will pick up a good number of Xavier basketball games this season.

Eric Lacy of the Detroit News says preliminary ratings show both the Tigers and Lions pulled big numbers on Monday.

Jo-Ann Barnas of the Detroit Free Press goes behind the scenes with ESPN’s Monday Night Football at Ford Field.

The Free Press has three questions for Fox Sports Detroit MLB analyst Rod Allen.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says NBA broadcasters are officially on lockout watch.

Bob looks at the national numbers for the Green Bay-Atlanta Sunday Night Football game.

Ed Sherman at Crain’s Chicago Business hopes to have the NBA back by Christmas. Good luck.

Joe Flint of the Los Angeles Times’ Company Town blog says NBA labor strife doesn’t help its local and national TV partners.

The Los Angeles Times notes that the USC Trojans have announced their basketball TV schedule.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog asks if Don Cherry went too far.

Sports Media Watch notes that Game 1 of the National League Championship Series hit its lowest ratings ever.

SMW has some various overnight ratings.

Steve Lepore of Puck The Media has the final numbers for the NHL opening night on Versus.

Steve also has last Friday’s ratings for the NHL’s Europe game on Versus.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing has the video of Joe Buck’s call of Texas’ walkoff win against Detroit in Game 2 of the ALCS on Monday.

And that’s where we’ll end things for today.

Red Sox-Yankees Friday Rain Out Becomes Sunday Day-Night Doubleheader

Due to rain in the New York area, tonight’s Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees game has been postponed until Sunday night. With Sunday afternoon’s game scheduled for a 1 p.m. ET start, TBS will carry the game nationally as planned. But with the added game for 6:30 Sunday night, MLB Network will pick up the YES feed. MLB Network was to pick up tonight’s game as well.

Both NESN and YES have announced they will air both games to the New England and Tri-State areas respectively. MLB Network will be blacked out in the home markets.

So the schedule for Sunday looks like this:

Boston at New York Yankees — TBS/NESN/YES, 1 p.m.
Boston at New York Yankees — MLB Network/NESN/YES, 6:30 p.m.

Fox will carry Saturday’s game at 4:10 p.m. as scheduled.

Friday Megalinks Or The Return of Linkage

Due to being at jobsites for the last few days, I haven’t been able post links like I’ve wanted to. I apologize for that. I have tried to be diligent in updating as much as I can.

I have quite a bit to catch up with. I may be a blogging machine as I have to post a lot of things today. Plus, I to get ready to head to New York tomorrow for Blogs with Balls 4 so I’m going to be quite busy. Let’s get to the linkage.

But first, there’s always the Weekend Viewing Picks for your sports and entertainment planning.

National

John Ourand at Sports Business Journal writes that ESPN will do everything it can to head off NBC/Versus at the pass.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch asks if sports broadcasting and politics should mix?

Jeff Latzke of the Associated Press says the Big 12′s TV contracts helped to keep the conference together for now.

The Nielsen Ratings Wire blog notes that among various TV programming, sports in primetime continues to do well.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy talks with CBS/WFAN/Westwood One’s Boomer Esiason on how the NFL should investigate the Dallas Cowboys’ medical staff for clearing Tony Romo to play last Sunday.

Mike says ESPN is denying any responsibility for the recent college football chaos and says the Longhorn Network doesn’t have anything to do with it. I think Texas A&M, Missouri and other Big 12 schools would beg to differ.

Bob Velin of USA Today writes that CBS’ 48 Hours Mystery program will investigate the mysterious and unsettling death of boxer Arturo Gatti.

Mike McCarthy and Michael Hiestand of USA Today debate whether schools or TV wield the power in college sports.

John Taylor of College Football Talk writes that Brett Favre gets his first taste of being an analyst next week for CSS.

John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable reports that the FCC has ruled that Cablevision-owned MSG Network cannot withhold its HD signal to other cable providers violating program-access rules.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that YES received its second highest rating ever for the American League East Division clinching game this week.

Mike says Golf Channel and NBC Sports are teaming up for a promotion to give a lucky viewer of “The Big Break” a chance to win a trip to see Notre Dame play in Ireland next year.

Tim Nudd of Adweek says the NFL has pulled an ad for its fantasy football product which used a picture of Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles after he was injured last week.

David Lieberman of Deadline reports that Time Warner Cable is planning to offer a low cost tier that will not include ESPN in the lineup.

Timothy Burke of SportsGrid has the video of ESPN sideline reporter Jenn Brown calling Cincinnati football coach Butch Jones something else.

Glenn Davis at SportsGrid has the sixth and perhaps final installment of New Era’s Yankees-Red Sox Alec Baldwin-John Kraskinski ads. They have been quite good. This latest one may have taken it a bit too far.

Also from SportsGrid, Dan Fogarty reviews the ESPN Films documentary “Catching Hell”, on Steve Bartman and the 2003 Chicago Cubs.

Sports Media Watch talks with the crew of ESPN’s College GameDay.

SMW says despite being on tape delay, Fox drew a decent audience for its first English Premier League game on Sunday.

SMW notes that the ratings for CBS’ 2nd game of its NFL doubleheader dropped from last year.

SMW says the NBA lockout has forced the cancellation of the start of training camp and over 40 preseason games.

And SMW has some various ratings news and notes.

Joe Favorito looks at one imaginative marketing campaign that helped Eye Black this week.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell reviews “Moneyball.”

Darren has some interesting facts on sports participation in America.

Karen Hogan of Sports Video Group looks at how CBS Sports Network was able to bring the Tim Brando Show into a TV simulcast from his base in Shreveport, LA.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing has this week’s network TV on-screen typos.

Ben Koo from AA says tomorrow is when Gus Johnson and FX get their real grand opening in college football.

At The Stir, Maressa Brown feels ESPN’s Erin Andrews is unqualified to demonstrate CrossFit.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe writes that WEEI’s Glenn Ordway has suffered a rather severe pay cut due to lower ratings for his afternoon drive show.

At SBNation Boston, Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch looks at a busy week in local sports media news.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette writes that Dale Arnold is pleased to be back with NESN after leaving in 2007.

Lang Whitaker and Ian Lovett of the New York Times give us an inside look at DirecTV’s Red Zone Channel and NFL Network’s RedZone.

John Jeansonne of Newsday reviews ESPN Films’ documentary on transgendered tennis player Renee Richards.

Newsday’s Neil Best says fans seem to be buying into the New York Islanders’ future.

Claire Atkinson of the New York Post has news that some Time Warner Cable subscribers have been waiting for, that the company appears to be close to a carriage agreement with NFL Network.

Phil Mushnick at the Post can’t stand ESPN’s Monday Night Football.

Justin Terranova of the Post says last month’s Russian plane crash that killed 44 members of the KHL team Lokomotiv Yaroslavl really hit home for MSG Network analyst Joe Micheletti.

And Justin has five questions for Joe.

Lou Lumenick of the Post says “Moneyball” is one of the best baseball movies of all-time.

I’ll break my self-imposed embargo on the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman for a week for this story on the Yankees’ radio rights which are in flux and so are the fates of broadcasters John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union writes that MSG Network has named Steve Cangialosi to replace Mike “Doc” Emrick on New Jersey Devils games.

And Pete talks with Steve about his new gig.

Ken Schott of the Schenectady Gazette is not a fan of a new local sports talk show host.

Ken notes that NBC Sports is extending its “Summer at Saratoga” series for at least two more years.

At Press Box, Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com notes that Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic has announced its Capitals and Wizards schedules.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says the college football conference merry-go-round could have some legal ramifications.

Jim says the ratings for the NFL in both Baltimore and Washington were very strong.

South

In the Miami Herald, Joseph Goodman notes the irony of ESPN possibly saving college football from massive chaos.

Matt Murschel of the Orlando Sentinel catches up with ESPN college football analyst Jesse Palmer.

Jeff Sentell of the Birmingham (AL) News says ESPN is not ponying up to air high school games from the region.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle notes that an Astros broadcaster is celebrating 25 years with the club.

David asks readers if they find the idea of the Longhorn Network offensive.

Mel Bracht at the Daily Oklahoman says an Oklahoma State wide receiver will be profiled on ESPN’s College GameDay.

Midwest

Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer says Cleveland MLB team radio voice Mike Hegan is leaving he broadcast after this season.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says Reds voice Marty Brennaman can’t campaign on-air for his former partner Joe Nuxhall for the Baseball Hall of Fame Ford C. Frick Award.

Micahel Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press wonders why the DirecTV/NBC series “Friday Night Lights” didn’t do better in the ratings.

Bob Wolfley in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says actor Brad Pitt saw “Moneyball” as a compelling story.

Bob says the Green Bay Packers will be showcased aplenty in the late afternoon window on both CBS and Fox this season.

Ed Sherman in Crain’s Chicago Business writes that the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship failed to draw viewers away from the NFL on Sunday.

Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times talks with WMAQ-TV sports anchor Paula Ferris.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wonders why Cardinals TV voice Dan McLaughlin has been missing of late.

Kevin Haskin of the Topeka (KS) Capital-Journal writes that CBS Sports Network was in town to air an NCAA Division II football game this week.

West

Jay Posner from the San Diego Union-Tribune says Big Ten Network won’t allow the local Cox system to pick up Saturday’s San Diego State-Michigan game on a one-time only basis.

The North County Times’ John Maffei writes that unless fans can find a sports bar, they’ll have to listen to San Diego State on the radio.

Jim Carlisle at the Ventura County Star says it’s too bad Southern California couldn’t see the end of the exciting Oakland-Buffalo game due to silly NFL rules.

Jim says HBO will replay last Saturday’s controversial Floyd Mayweather-Victor Ortiz fight.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says a bankruptcy court has given the Dodgers permission to change their flagship radio station for next season.

Tom says the NFL secondary market rule needs to be changed.

Tom also has a few notes that he couldn’t get into his Friday column.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News looks at the Pac-12′s decision to stand pat, TV’s role in the whole thing and where BYU may be headed.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that CBC’s P.J. Stock is regretting his initial comments on Wade Belak’s death.

The Toronto Sports Media Blog is not so fast to forgive P.J.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog notes that CBC has made some additions to its Hockey Night in Canada crew.

And there you have it for your links today.

Friday Megalinks Just For You

Let’s do some linkage.

The Weekend Viewing Picks give you everything to you need for your viewing pleasure.

Let’s do this.

National

Michael Hiestand of USA Today writes that primetime is the right time for college football.

Tripp Mickle of Sports Business Daily reports that ESPN has sold out its ad inventory for its new NASCAR non-stop initiative which will allow fans to see continuous race action while commercials run.

Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says NFL Network used some creative methods in Boston to promote its Bill Belichick documentary.

If you watched the Belichick documentary, then you probably know about the best scene which was the coach yelling at the Baltimore Ravens’ Derrick Mason who was trash talking. Dan Fogarty of SportsGrid has the video.

Brandon Costa from Sports Video Group notes that Sports Illustrated has released a new Football Rivals mobile app.

Sports Media Watch says ABC is doing well with college football in its first two weeks of the season.

SMW notes that last Saturday’s Notre Dame-Michigan game on ESPN in primetime did better than the previous week’s Fighting Irish game on NBC.

SMW says last week’s NASCAR race in Richmond garnered a four year ratings high for ABC.

Tony Manfred of the Business Insider Sports Page says sports bars got hit the hardest by DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket technical difficulties last week.

Steve Lepore from Puck The Media has NHL Network’s preseason schedule that begins next week.

Joe Favorito says sports brands are now jumping into the corn field maze craze.

Awful Announcing has this week’s network TV on-screen typos.

Parade talks with ESPN’s Erin Andrews.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Chad Finn from the Boston Globe writes about some ex-Patriots players who have made the transition to TV.

Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald talks about 98.5 The Sports Hub winning the prestigious Marconi for Best Sports Station in the country over a former winner, WEEI.

Bill Doyle at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette praises the NFL Films documentary on Bill Belichick.

The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir looks at a rare film that followed the late Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto and other ex-Pinstripers to Austria for an exhibition game in 1994.

Daniel E. Slotnick of the Times writes that former New York Jet and broadcaster Sam DeLuca has passed away.

Newsday’s Neil Best talks with statistician Steve Hirdt about his career and getting to work a “home” game for this week’s edition of Monday Night Football.

Neil says SNY is fortunate to have the Jets as a partner to help viewers forget about the Mets.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post is angry at everyone.

The Post’s Justin Terranova has five questions for YES analyst Ken Singleton.

Jerry Barmash in Fishbowl NY writes that MSG Network brings back its signature hockey studio show for another season.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union notes that local sports anchor Andrew Catalon gets a call-up to the NFL on CBS in October.

Ken McMillan of the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record talks with MLB Network’s Brian Kenny about why he left ESPN after almost a decade and a half.

Ken has more with Brian Kenny in his column.

Ken is tired of NHL Network rerunning last season’s playoffs.

South

Serena Moyle of the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat profiles ESPN’s Erin Andrews as she’s in town for the Oklahoma-Florida State game.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle says you watched the NFL in droves last week.

David says ESPN is treating Longhorn Network differently than its other entities.

Mel Bracht from the Daily Oklahoman writes that Longhorn Network will pick up one Oklahoma State basketball game.

Mel has some news and notes.

Gina Mizell of the Oklahoman says ESPN is keeping a close eye on Oklahoma State and Texas A&M for a potential College GameDay visit.

Midwest

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer writes that Fox Sports Ohio expands its pregame show tomorrow to air highlights of Johnny Bench Night.

John says a local radio station has fired a long-time sports reporter and other parts of its staff.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press talks with a long-time Division II college football radio voice.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says some local Time Warner Cable subscribers will have access to this Saturday’s Wisconsin game.

Bob explains why the Wisconsin game isn’t on TV.

Bob says the Brewers’ Prince Fielder will be seen in a profile on TBS Sunday.

Ed Sherman at Crain’s Chicago Business has his winners and losers in sports business and media.

Dan Caesar in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says all of the Blues games will be televised for the first time ever.

West

Jay Drew of the Salt Lake Tribune writes that ESPN’s deal with BYU has now become a recruiting tool for the school.

Matt Solinsky of the Desert (CA) Sun says the NFL Network documentary on Patriots coach Bill Belichick is definitely “must see TV”.

John Maffei from the North County Times tries to discover what the holdup is for the San Diego Padres’ TV and radio rights.

Jim Carlisle at the Ventura County Star says Time Warner Cable has signed a long-term deal for California’s high school championships.

Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times talks with the Fox NFL Sunday crew.

T.J. Simers of the Times writes that Vin Scully can cause trouble at home.

Also from the Times, Eric Sondheimer has details of the Time Warner deal with the California Interscholastic Federation.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says Jay “The Rat” Mariotti is determined to get the last word on his tumultuous year.

Tom has some media moves that didn’t make his column.

Tom says MLB Network will air a special on statistics.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says an 8 year delay will help Steve Moore in his lawsuit against Todd Bertuzzi and the NHL stemming from an incident in Vancouver.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog notes that CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada has finally made some moves to fill some personnel holes.

And that’s going to conclude the links for this Friday.

Back With Monday Links

This past weekend was spent preparing for my sister’s baby shower and then grilling for those in attendance so I was very busy after posting last Friday’s megalinks. My apologies for not being able to blog as I wanted this past weekend, but I do appreciate your patience. Let’s get to the linkage as we have quite a few stories to provide today.

First, USA Today’s Michael Hiestand reports that Fox Sports will unveil their NFL announcing lineup today with a few revamps and reboots, but nothing new in their top three teams.

John Ourand at Sports Business Journal notes that talks with potential suitors are heating up on the new Thursday Night Football package.

Dan Rafael of ESPN.com writes that boxer Manny Pacquaio’s next fight will be heading back to HBO after a one bout hiatus to Showtime.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek notes that while the NFL lockout was ongoing, advertisers still continued to buy commercials on the networks showing their confidence that there would be a season.

Over to Kristi Dosh, the SportsBizMiss, in the Business of College Sports who looks at ESPN’s contract for the Longhorn Network.

Dan Fogarty of SportGrid notes that Stephen A. “A is for Anguish” Smith increased his vocal volume over Tiger Woods’ former caddie, Steve Williams jumping for joy over helping Adam Scott win over the weekend.

Timothy Burke at SportsGrid has video of yesterday’s NASCAR Countdown pre-race show which was a complete mess.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell feels college football coaches who ban their team from tweeting are missing the point.

Jim Romanesko at the Poynter Institute has former Los Angeles Times NBA beat writer Mark Heisler writing about how he was laid off from the paper and how he was not too unhappy about it.

Cam Martin of SportsNewser notes that ESPN saw its best overnight ratings of the season for Sunday Night Baseball thanks to another Yankees-Red Sox matchup.

Richard Lawler at Engadget says ESPN 3D is doubling its college football schedule from last year.

The Radio & TV Business Report has Westwood One Radio’s NFL announcing crews for this season.

Brian Straight of the Hartford Business Journal writes about the long-standing relationship between ESPN and Bristol, CT.

Joe Brescia from the New York Times speaks with new NFL Hall of Famer and NFL Network analyst Marshall Faulk.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick is not a fan of YES’ Michael Kay.

Phil wants TNT to spill the beans on the Tiger Woods-Charles Barkley split. Like that will ever happen and who really cares?

The New York Daily News’ Gatecrasher tells us that Lifetime (a.k.a. The Network That Hates Men) has pulled the plug on a Serena Williams reality TV project.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette has the transcript and video of caddie Steve Williams’ interview with CBS’ David Feherty following Adam Scott’s win in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

Jim Williams at the Washington Examiner looks at CBS/Showtime’s new reality show on the Army-Navy rivalry.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times feels ESPN’s Merril Hoge may have an agenda against Denver quarterback Tim Tebow.

Stephen F. Holder and Rick Stroud of the Times write that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers may fall victim to more local blackouts this season.

Ed Sherman from Crain’s Chicago Business wishes the Bears would take care of their turf.

Dusty Saunders of the Denver Post talks with Colorado Rockies analyst George Frazier.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has this week’s sports calendar.

Tom reviews the incendiary comments Fox Sports Radio’s Tony Bruno made on his Twitter account Friday night as the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies had a full-scale brawl.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle has Giants manager Bruce Bochy irate over Bruno’s tweet.

Bruce Dowbiggin in the Toronto Globe and Mail looks at the Canadian sports media battle between giants Rogers and Bell.

Raju Mudhar from the Toronto Star previews Rogers’ entry into the sports magazine market.

Ben Koo of Awful Announcing says the NFL pregame shows are inundated with Hall of Famers.

Sports Media Watch has some ratings news and notes.

And SMW has more ratings news here.

Joe Favorito has a primer on keeping notes and how they could save you in the long run.

And that is all for today.

Bringing You Some Friday Megalink Love

Ok, seeing some good stories on this Friday and it appears that I’m staying in the office today so I can give you a full set and not have to leave for another site. Let’s git ‘er done!

We start as always with the Weekend Viewing Picks which are getting busier with each passing weekend as we get closer to football. And in September, you’ll have College Football Viewing Picks and the NFL Viewing Picks to go along with the weekend picks so you can expect to see those every Friday from September through the end of both football seasons.

Let’s do the linkage.

National

Michael Hiestand and Mike McCarthy of USA Today debate whether networks really need to use ex-jocks to be analysts.

R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel News reports that HBO PPV will air the Manny Pacquaio-Juan Manuel Marquez fight with replays of the 24/7 documentary series airing on CNN. Interesting.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel says Comcast is going after DirecTV for what it says is a deceptive ad campaign by the satellite provider for offering “free” NFL games.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine looks at how Kraft used its Macaroni & Cheese brand to help warm up football fans tailgating in cold weather cities.

Jason Fry in the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center gives some tips on starting up a digital sports journalism program.

At NFL.com, Adam Rank gives his top six favorite features from NFL Films as founder Ed Sabol goes into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend.

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid is giddy over Stephen Colbert taking over MLB’s Twitter account for all day today.

Cam Martin of SportsNewser has the latest New Era Red Sox-Yankees ad featuring notorious Yankees fan Alec Baldwin and Red Sox fan John Krasinski. This ad called “One Hitter” is the best of the series thus far.

Karen Hogan of Sports Video Group says NASCAR.com is expanding its online RaceView program from Sprint Cup only to three Nationwide Series races.

Sports Media Watch notes that the ratings for the MLS All-Star Game on ESPN2 went up slightly from last year.

Joe Favorito talks about motorsports trying to tap into the New York market.

Barry Janoff of The Big Lead notes that Pepsi is returning to advertise in the Super Bowl by using the winner of Fox’s X Factor contest into NBC’s broadcast.

Brady Green at Awful Announcing reports a story that we’ve been following closely here, that Versus may make a big commitment to college hockey.

AA also introduces its Fan Forum where you get a voice on the blog.

In Sports TV Jobs, ESPN’s Clay Matvick talks about what it takes to be a play-by-play announcer.

Kristi Dosh, the SportsBizMiss, notes how big a business college sports is in the Business of College Sports.

Law professor Roger Groves writes in Forbes that the Pac-12 deal while lucrative, may end up costing college sports in the long run.

East and Mid-Atlantic

To the Lewiston (ME) Sun Journal and Randy Whitehouse who writes that the Maine Sports Network has carved a niche for itself by broadcasting local high school sports and talk shows to a hungry audience.

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe talks about the rebranding of Versus to fit the NBC Sports Group.

At Boston Sports Media Watch, Ryan Hadfield has some local media musings.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes about the ailing NFL Films team of Ed and Steve Sabol who are holding on to see Ed finally make it to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Newsday’s Neil Best says the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry hasn’t lost any of its luster to ESPN or Fox.

Neil says MSG Network has finalized a deal with Spero Dedes for him to call New York Knicks games on radio.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick is filled with hatred for the entire world today.

Marc Berman at the Post says MSG is overlooking a recent DWI arrest in hiring Dedes.

Justin Terranova in the Post has five questions for CBS/TNT golf analyst Ian Baker-Finch.

In the Albany Times Union, Pete Dougherty would like YES to stop airing a certain smoking cessation ad.

Pete says NFL Network has confirmed talks with Time Warner Cable to possibly get carriage for this season.

Pete talks with player agent J.R. Rickert about having to squash inaccurate media reports about his clients.

Ken Schott at the Schenectady Gazette says NFL Network will have up to six live preseason on its air this month.

Laura Nachman says a Philly sports reporter is teaming up on a new book on the hapless 1972 Phillies.

In Press Box, Dave Hughes notes that Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic has hired a new Capitals insider for TV and online appearances.

At the Washington Examiner, Jim Williams says the rebrand from Versus to NBC Sports Network is more than just a name change.

South

David Barron at the Houston Chronicle talks Texans with NFL Network’s Michael Lombardi.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman notes that Cox has released its local high school football schedule.

Mel says Tulsa native Bob Carpenter may be looking for a new gig after MASN did not pick up his option to call Washington Nationals games.

Midwest

Josh Weir in the Canton (OH) Repository profiles NFL Films founder Ed Sabol as he enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend.

Josh writes that Ed’s relationship with the late NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle changed the fate of the league and NFL Films.

Josh says Ed’s hiring of the late John Facenda as the voice of NFL Films added a mystique to the NFL.

Josh says Ed’s successor at NFL Films, his son Steve, has been ailing almost as much as Ed has.

And Josh writes that before Ed was a filmmaker, he was a very good swimmer at Ohio State.

Over to the Akron Beacon Journal, Jason Lloyd goes behind the scenes with CBS Sports as it airs this weekend’s coverage of the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer says a former Bengals radio pregame host is returning to his position this season.

John has a little more on the story in his blog.

John says Fox Sports Ohio picks up an additional Cincinnati Reds game later this month.

Mark Snyder of the Detroit Free Press says ESPN will make next month’s Michigan-Notre Dame game into a big primetime affair.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press says Versus will air a documentary on MLB’s first openly gay player next week.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the Green Bay Packers’ weekend scrimmage will be picked up on TV both locally and nationally.

Paul Christian of the Rochester Post-Bulletin says eight years after its creation, NFL Network finally gets picked up by Charter Communications.

In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dan Caesar writes the NFL Network-Charter agreement was a compromise on where the channel would be placed.

Dan says the St. Louis Cardinals were kicked off Fox’s national MLB schedule to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a rare spotlight.

West

John Maffei in the North County Times says the NFL’s TV partners are hopeful viewers will watch preseason football.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says Ed Sabol is worthy of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Tom wonders if Ed was actually a candidate to succeed the late Pete Rozelle as NFL Commish.

Ed looks at the sports media’s connection to this year’s class of 2011 for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Tom says ESPN has invented a quarterback rating statistic and wants everyone to know about it.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail talks about a new reality series in which a former CFL’er is trying to make Canada’s bobsledding team.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog looks at CBC and Rogers Sportsnet teaming up to air two tennis tournaments this month.

And the Canadian Sports Media Blog lists the Gemini Award nominees in the sports categories. The Geminis are Canada’s version of the Emmys.

That will conclude the links today.

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.

It’s A Monday Linkfest

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.

Bringing You Sunday Linkage

I’m at work again, but I’m trying to cope by flicking on the Watch ESPN for the Women’s World Cup game against Brazil. I’ll give you what linkage I can find today.

Mike McCarthy of USA Today says Turner Sports has reportedly hired Shaquille O’Neal for its NBA coverage. Still no official comment from Turner.

John Eggerton of Multichannel News reports on an FCC Enforcement Bureau recommendation to an administrative law judge about carriage for Tennis Channel.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel recaps YES’ special postgame show on Yankees shortshop Derek Jeter after he achieved baseball immortality on Saturday.

Mike writes that YES saw a ratings season high for the Jeter 3,000th hit game.

From Advertising Age, Brian Steinberg asks if Wimbledon is willing to put its matches all under one TV roof, will other sporting events follow its lead?

Yahoo Sports’ Michael Silver talks with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen about how the channel is handling the lockout.

Stephen Douglas at The Big Lead wonders if the LPGA should be selling sex to help market its stars.

Marcus Vanderberg at SportsNewser says Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson has issued a statement about berating a caller with a gay slur late last month.

Marcus points out that CNN is no longer into sports.

Jesse Sawyer from the Avon (CT) Patch notes that ESPN’s Kenny Mayne will be hosting a football skills clinic this week. Before ESPN, Kenny was the starting quarterback at UNLV. The story also reveals that Kenny is moving back to Seattle, WA where he lived before hitting it big with ESPN.

Newsday’s Neil Best has the transcripts of both the radio and TV calls of the Jeter 3,000th hit.

Neil talks about a new era of TV coming into Wimbledon for next year.

George Vescey of the New York Times says the best way to view the Tour de France is from your TV.

Karen Crouse of the Times talks with an LPGA Tour rookie Ryan O’Toole who prepared for life on the tour through Golf Channel’s Big Break reality show.

Brent Briggeman of the Colorado Springs Gazette also spoke with O’Toole about her time on Big Break.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette says ESPN2 will have the replay of today’s dramatic USA-Brazil Women’s World Cup game which had a lot of twists and turns.

Adam Sichko of the Albany (NY) Business Review notes that a local company will help produce live horse racing from nearby Saratoga for NBC.

Jim Williams from the Washington Examiner talks about Showtime getting into the sports reality TV realm with the new MLB TV series, “The Franchise”.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman talks with ESPN’s Nomar Garciaparra about the Home Run Derby.

From the Dallas Morning News, Barry Horn discusses the Longhorn Network making some on-air hires.

David Barron of the Houston Chronicle tries to reassure readers about the availability of the Longhorn Network.

Kevin Benz at Culture Map Houston wonders if ESPN is making the Longhorn Network all about ESPN instead of University of Texas sports.

Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Bengals talks with ESPN Monday Night Football analyst Jon Gruden about the NFL lockout.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says TBS and MLB Network analyst John Smoltz still has a dream to be a professional golfer.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks with Fox’s Joe Buck about his recovery from an ailment that affected his voice. And many of you have either tweeted or e-mailed me about this and have noticed how he has sounded since the Super Bowl. Dan’s story pretty much explains what happened.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says Joe Buck didn’t mince words when it came to the Dodgers ownership debacle.

That’s going to do it for today.

Providing You With Tuesday Linkage

For some of you, it’s a back to work Tuesday after a three day weekend. Not for me as I was at the office until late on Memorial Day. But you don’t want to read my complaining, you want linkage so I’ll get it to right away.

Anthony Crupi from Adweek says expect LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Dirk Nowitzki to draw viewers to the NBA Finals starting tonight.

Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life Magazine writes about TNT’s record NBA ratings and the potential for a blockbuster NBA Finals for ABC.

Jeff Neff and E.J. Schultz of Advertising Age say NFL advertisers are getting nervous as the lockout is starting to effect grocery in-store displays.

Sports Illustrated editor Terry McDonell gives readers an introduction to investigative reporter George Dohrmann who wrote the expose on former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel.

Sergio Non of USA Today says UFC’s Dana White is looking to put more cards on over the air TV.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says soccer-centric Gol TV will air another edition of its signature reality show.

Carolyn Braff of Sports Video Group writes that Versus had to overcome massive mud puddles in order to bring the Tour of California to viewers.

Paul Meehan at ESPN Front Row says the network’s NBA Marketing team is spending a lot of late nights creating TV and radio promos for the Finals.

Over at Mocksession, a very interesting post on how Fox Sports Net and ABC deceived viewers in various ways.

Maggie Hendricks at Yahoo’s Cagewriter blog wishes the media would stop giving MMA fighter Quintin “Rampage” Jackson the time of day. It’s all over this video as Jackson pretends to motorboat reporter Karyn Bryant’s breasts.

The Big Lead goes into why Jackson is such a lightning rod with reporters.

MMA reporter Karyn Bryant who was the subject of Jackson’s attention last weekend tweets that she wasn’t offended.

I’ve now been told I have to run an errand. More later.

Some more links now.

Tripp Mickle and John Ourand from the Sports Business Journal report on the latest on the bidding for the US Olympic TV rights now that NBC’s Dick Ebersol is out of the picture.

Tripp teams with Terry Lefton on a story about sports marketers who plan to stay in Brazil after the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics are finished there.

And Kevin Sullivan of SBJ instructs athletes on how to tweet the right way.

Cam Martin of SportsNewser notes that ESPN/ABC NBA analyst Mark Jackson is a finalist for the Golden State Warriors coaching job.

Cam says the Sports Illustrated story on Jim Tressel caused a Twitter spat among sportswriters.

Brian Lowry of Fox Sports says the NBA’s TV partners should send thanks to LeBron James and the Miami Heat for increased ratings this season.

Gordon Cox of Variety notes that ESPN and the Tribeca Film Festival are teaming up to put three movies on Video on Demand.

Tony Barnhart of CBS Sports talks with SEC Commissioner Mike Slive about the BCS, college football TV contracts and his contract.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell cautions fans who think college football will change with Jim Tressel’s resignation.

Bill Gorman at zap2it’s TVbytheNumbers notes that Fox’s NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 zoomed past all network competition on Sunday.

Newsday’s Neil Best says former Yankees outfielder Paul O’Neill will now double his workload for YES.

Neil says NBC/Versus NHL host Liam McHugh appears to be on a fast track to stardom.

Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News looks at the ESPN book.

Former ESPN Radio host Mark Madden in the Beaver County Times feels the ESPN book doesn’t cover any new ground. How about bringing up your firing, Mark?

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog has his take on DC NFL team owner Dan Snyder making the local media rounds last week.

Jim Williams at the Washington Examiner says ABC expects to garner good ratings with the NBA Finals.

Shannon J. Owens at the Orlando Sentinel wonders why Urban Meyer would leave ESPN for Ohio State, especially at this juncture.

Ben Thomas of the Mobile (AL) Press-Register says a local station is dropping ESPN Radio programming in favor of Sporting News Radio.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News says national announcers have to deal with fans who feel they root against their teams.

Mel Bracht in the Daily Oklahoman says ESPN/ABC’s NBA crew denies that it was rooting against Oklahoma City in the Western Conference Finals.

WLWT-TV in Cincinnati notes that NBC’s Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth has taken a job coaching high school football until the NFL lockout ends.

And at his website, Football Pros Live, Cris explains why he took the job.

The Big Lead says it appears that ESPN2 First Take buffoon Skip Bayless was forced to apologize to Chris Broussard after yelling at him on Monday.

EPL Talk says the UEFA Champions League Final drew a 1.8 overnight rating for Fox, a 64% increase from the year before.

EPL Talk notes that Fox dumbed down its Champions League pregame show.

Sports Media Watch notes that Charles Barkley will be back in Miami for the NBA Finals working the games for NBA TV.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media looks at how Boston and Vancouver have fared in the ratings throughout the NHL Postseason.

Barry Petchesky of Deadspin notes that MLB.com is actually allowing some videos to be embedded! Hallelujah!!!

And we’re going to end it there for today.

The Friday Megalinks Are Here! Hurray!

Time for some megalink action. This is turning out to be a busy day, but let me try to give you as many as I can. This being Memorial Day weekend, there’s plenty of sports action. Primetime viewing is kind of slim, but you can check out my Weekend Viewing Picks for the action.

Let’s get to the links. I’ll do as many as I can. I do have to leave early.

National

From yesterday’s Sports Business Daily, John Ourand speaks with outgoing NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer who is retiring at the end of the summer.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable also writes about Ken Schanzer’s retirement from NBC Sports.

Multichannel notes that Time Warner Cable will have a presence to promote the Speed 2 channel at the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race in Charlotte this weekend.

USA Today’s Mike McCarthy and Michael Hiestand debate whether LeBron James as a villain is good for the NBA.

Mike McCarthy writes that former Chicago Bull Scottie Pippen caused an uproar on ESPN Radio this morning by saying LeBron James could be better than Michael Jordan.

Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg Times writing for the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center delves into the ESPN book.

Fox Sports notes that this week, Ken Rosenthal’s bowtie will honor our troops during this Memorial Day Weekend.

The Big Lead interviews New York Times NFL beat writer Judy Battista and talks about how she covers the lockout.

Dan Fogarty at SportsGrid notes that Nike tried to put the screws on TNT’s Charles Barkley to be nicer to LeBron James.

SportsbyBrooks says ESPN management told its hosts what to ask James Andrew Miller about the book he co-authored on the Alleged Worldwide Leader.

Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing has a review of “Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN”.

Alyson Shontell of the Business Insider Sports Page says former Versus host Jenn Sterger is now working for an internet TV startup company.

Sports Media Watch says the NHL on Versus saw a ratings high for Boston-Tampa Bay on Wednesday.

SMW notes that the NBA Finals gets its earliest start in 25 years.

And SMW says the NHL Stanley Cup Final avoided conflicting with the NBA Finals.

Dave Kohl at Major League Programs has some complaints on broadcasters not providing the starting lineups when they’re supposed to.

Len Berman has his Top 5 stories of the day.

East and Mid-Atlantic

Mark Blaudshun of the Boston Globe reports that the Big East Conference has rejected ESPN’s “Best offer” to continue their 32 year relationship.

Chad Finn of the Globe says Bruins fans are finally getting the media coverage they’ve been yearning for.

Bill Doyle of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette notes that the local minor league baseball team gets a new media distribution to fans and it’s not what you might think.

Fred Contrada at the Springfield (MA) Republican reports that ESPN.com writer Howard Bryant has been sentenced to probation stemming from a domestic assault case back in February.

New York Magazine talks with YES analyst David Cone about his use of advanced statistics on Yankees games.

Phil Mushnick from the New York Post wants to know what Mets owner Fred Wilpon knew about Ponzi scheme scumbag Bernie Madoff and when did he know it.

The Post has five questions for Fox Soccer Channel analyst Eric Wynalda about Saturday’s UEFA Champions League Final.

Pete Dougherty of the Albany Times Union says soccer continues to try to gain a foothold in the American psyche.

DCRTV’s Dave Hughes has his latest Baltimore-DC media roundup in Press Box.

In the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog, Dan Steinberg finds an interesting Tony Kornheiser-John Feinstein tidbit from the ESPN tome.

Dan also recaps a couple of interviews DC NFL team owner Daniel Snyder conducted on Thursday.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks about the retirement of NBC Sports President Ken Schanzer a week after his boss, Dick Ebersol resigned.

Jim speaks with Fox Sports’ Curt Menefee about hosting the UEFA Champions League Final on Saturday.

South

The Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson goes over some of the more interesting tidbits from the ESPN book.

Greg Augman of the St. Petersburg Times writes about ESPN’s Desmond Howard blasting black college athletes for a sense of entitlement.

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel laments the probable end of the long-term relationship between Florida State University and Sun Sports.

Jeff Wilson of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram says Texas Rangers TV voice John Rhadigan was replaced Thursday and will return to hosting the pregame show on Fox Sports Southwest.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle has his take on the ESPN book that has had the sports media talking.

In the Daily Oklahoman, Mel Bracht talks with ousted Rangers voice John Rhadigan.

Mel notes the local ratings for the series-clinching Game 5 of the NBA Western Conference Finals.

Mel despite losing the series, the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook impressed ESPN’s Jeff Van Gundy.

Midwest

Cincinnati Enquirer media writer John Kiesewetter says local sports talk show host Andy Furman is on the fast track for a possible new national gig.

John has a few more things on Furman in his blog.

The Waiting For Next Year blog loves Cleveland Browns voice Jim Donovan as do I.

Michael Zuidema at the Grand Rapids (MI) Press says ESPN/ABC is hoping some extra pomp and circumstance at the Centennial Indy 500 will draw viewers this year.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the Indianapolis 500 just ain’t what it used to be.

Ed Sherman in Crain’s Chicago Business has his usual winners and losers today.

Ed explains what Tiger Woods’ agent split from powerful IMG means for Tiger.

Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that ESPN/ABC is hopeful that the Indy 500 can finally beat NASCAR outright for the first time in over five years.

West

Jim Carlisle in the Ventura County Star talks with ESPN/ABC IndyCar analyst Scott Goodyear about Danica Patrick’s impact on this year’s Indy 500.

Jim reflects on Dick Ebersol’s tenure as Chairman of NBC Sports.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News says Jim Rome’s hiring in inaugural days of ESPN2 almost caused one network exec to quit.

Tom explains how ESPN/ABC will attempt to keep the Indianapolis 500 relevant with viewers.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail looks at how Gary Bettman decided to buck ESPN.

That’s going to do it. Finished it all in one shot!

A Very Busy Set of Monday Links

I spent the morning away from the office and after lunch, I’ve been dealing with crazy shit so I’m just getting to the links late this afternoon. I’ll put in as many as I can. This week is shaping up to be very busy so just bear with me as you may not see links for a couple of days. I will post press releases when I can.

The sports blogosphere has been abuzz with the release of the first excerpt from the new book on the Alleged Worldwide Leader, “Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside The World of ESPN” co-written by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. I am working on getting James as a guest for the Sports Media Weekly podcast for either next week or the week following.

In any event, the excerpt published in this week’s GQ Magazine looks at the tidal wave known as Keith Olbermann and his time co-anchoring SportsCenter with Dan Patrick.

Of course, Keith already has an opinion on the excerpt and has responded on Twitter. Dashiell Bennett of the Business Insider’s Sports Page recaps so I don’t have to.

At Sports Business Journal, John Ourand and Tripp Mickle report that ESPN parent company, Disney, is looking to sweeten the pot for its bid for the 2014/16 Olympic TV rights.

Also from the SBJ, John and Terry Lefton look at the impact of the old XFL on both the NFL and on the league’s TV partners.

Terry also writes about one particular XFL technical innovation that is gone, but not forgotten.

Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch has his Media Power List for April.

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand says the arrest of ESPN’s Matthew Barnaby over the weekend is another example in a long line of bad behavior among the network’s personalities.

Brian Clapp at Sports TV Jobs has some of the funniest typographical errors on sports TV.

Marcus Vanderberg at SportsNewser notes that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have turned down an invitation to appear on HBO’s Hard Knocks this summer, and say it with me, provided there is an NFL season.

Speaking of which, Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk says the NFL has confirmed that there is an option to shutdown the league if the lockout is lifted by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell reports that several NFL players have been told by their agents not to work out as they won’t be covered by the team if they get hurt.

Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe confirms that NESN’s Jerry Remy is back in the booth tonight.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times says there’s a high anticipation to read the new ESPN tome by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post feels YES’ Michael Kay is embellishing the truth when it comes to Yankee Stadium’s attendance.

Newsday’s Neil Best notes that the NBA’ Eastern Conference Finals Game 1 outrated Red Sox-Yankees in New York.

Evan Weiner in the New Jersey Newsroom says fans are getting the short stick.

Tom Jones from the St. Petersburg Times looks at the weekend that was in sports TV.

Doug Demmons of the Birmingham (AL) News was surprised to see Fox go split screen during yesterday’s NASCAR coverage.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman says the ESPN/ABC crew gave praise to the Oklahoma City crowd during Game 7 of the Thunder-Memphis Grizzlies series.

Bob Wolfley looks forward to the new ESPN book.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business says a new charity event will carry the legacy of the late Cubs legend Ron Santo.

In the Kansas City Star, Bruce Dancis reviews the 2nd DVD box set of the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary series.

Dusty Saunders from the Denver Post says April 18, 2011 will live forever in the annals of the National Hockey League.

Scott Terrell of the Tucson Citizen talks about the Pac-12 TV contract and what it means for fans.

Tom Hoffarth in the Los Angeles Daily News has the sports calendar for this week.

Tom looks at the first excerpt of the new ESPN book.

Bruce Dowbiggin at the Toronto Globe and Mail feels CBC did not do enough reporting on Derek Boogaard’s death.

Raju Mudhar of the Toronto Star tells aspiring sportscasters to be careful what they wish for if they want to enter a new Canadian TV contest.

Sports Media Watch talks about the record NBA ratings for TNT.

In the Huffington Post, Colorado University journalism student Weston Gentry responds to Rick Reilly’s speech to his alma mater.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media has the ratings for Versus throughout the NHL Conference Semifinals.

EPL Talk says with it being Survival Sunday, fans should tell both ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel what games they want to see.

I’m going to end it there.

Some Friday Night Links

I’m not going to go crazy with a full set of links, but some that are topical. I was all over the place today and could not do the megalinks and I’m not in the mood to gather a full set tonight. It usually takes over two hours to do the megalinks so I’ll do some national and regional links.

Sean Leahy of USA Today notes that the ratings for the first round of the NFL Draft were down double digits from last year.

Mike McCarthy and Michael Hiestand of USA Today debate who’s the real NFL Draft Guru.

Jeff Pearlman feels one of the more dramatic moments on ESPN’s NFL Draft coverage on Thursday was more exploitation than real.

Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter notes that ESPN’s NFL Draft coverage on Thursday beat The Office on NBC.

Kevin Iole at Yahoo talks about how CBS became a major part of the Manny Pacquaio-Sugar Shane Mosley fight.

From Multichannel News, Mike Reynolds says the NBC Sports Group set ratings records for its NHL Playoffs 1st round coverage.

Mike says NBA TV received its highest ratings ever on Wednesday.

Anthony Crupi of Adweek says stronger competition from the networks led to lower ratings for the NFL Draft this year.

From Every Day Should Be Saturday, Spencer Hall has this funny post on whether the late sportswriter Grantland Rice could ever work for the Captain Blowhard-led website, Grantland.

Marcus Vanderberg of SportsNewser notes that ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit has deleted his Twitter account over harassment from Ohio State fans.

Jason Dachman of the Sports Video Group says NBC and Versus have become a one stop shopping for the NHL.

Sports Media Watch says the overnight ratings for the Lakers-Hornets series-clinching game finished lower than last year’s comparable game, but still was strong.

Puck The Media has Versus’ complete game ratings for the entire 1st round of the NHL Playoffs.

Ryan Yoder at Awful Announcing reviews ESPN’s 1st night of NFL Draft coverage.

Chad Finn of the Boston Globe speaks with NESN’s Jack Edwards.

Newsday’s Neil Best has the best of his blog in his sports media column.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick says YES’ Michael Kay isn’t getting the job done.

Pete Dougherty from the Albany Times Union says there was no mention of the “L” word during the NFL Draft (and no, I’m talking about the Showtime TV series).

In Press Box, Dave Hughes from DCRTV.com looks at Daniel Snyder’s attempted lawsuit against the Washington City Paper.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner looks at ESPN celebrating the 50th anniversary of ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

David Neal of the Miami Herald says the late Jim Mandich was giving of himself whether it was as a player or as a broadcaster later in life.

Joe Rose of WQAM writes in his South Florida Sun-Sentinel blog about how much he misses his friend, Jim Mandich.

Tom Jones in the St. Petersburg Times has a Friday version of his sports media column.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press feels ESPN’s coverage of the NFL Draft goes on too long.

John Kiesewetter from the Cincinnati Enquirer would like to hear radio coverage of NASCAR in the Queen’s City.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a look at the local sports radio ratings.

And Dan has a breakdown of the ratings.

Iowa Tube Talk notes that Versus’ website is now part of NBCSports.com.

John Maffei from the North County Times says it appears the San Diego Padres have a rights deal in principle with Fox Sports Net for the next 15 seasons.

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star wonders how ESPN would have covered the Royal Wedding.

Jim says New York Jets coach Rex Ryan is making the media rounds.

Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times says Major League Baseball cannot approve the Dodgers’ deal with Fox Sports Net because Jamie McCourt has not signed off on it.

Tom Hoffarth from the Los Angeles Daily News says a panel discussion on sportscasting careers will be moderated by a Hall of Fame announcer next month.

Tom says Fox’s role in the Los Angeles Dodgers and in the McCourt ownership mess goes way back.

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail wonders if Winnipeg will get left at the altar in its bid to get an NHL team.

That’s going to do it.

Let’s Do Some Sunday Linkage

Time for the Sunday links. Quite a few to get to.

Dennis Dodd from CBSSports.com looks at the increasing rights fees for college football.

Erick Smith of USA Today says the University of Miami is in talks with ESPN about a “Hard Knocks”-type reality show for its football team.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News says Sportsman Channel and World Fishing Network have been picked up by Comcast systems in Philadelphia.

The Inside Track girls at the Boston Herald tells us that another non-sports show premiered on NESN last night.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post actually praises YES for using replays properly and advises Yankees radio analyst Suzyn Waldman to not cover for John Sterling’s shortcomings on play-by-play.

The Albany Times Union notes that Red Sox fans in the Capital Region can start asking for NESN National.

Kevin Cowherd from the Baltimore Sun talks with former CNN Sports Tonight co-anchor Nick Charles who is trying to hang on despite a vicious bout with cancer.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner notes that four networks are covering the NBA playoffs.

Scott Ferrall of the Shreveport (LA) Times talks about how ESPN changed the date for this year’s Independence Bowl making it hard for fans to attend.

Kevin Kelly of the Cincinnati Enquirer talks with ESPN/ABC’s Brent Musburger about his upcoming Sportscasting Hall of Fame honor.

Michael C. Lewis in the Salt Lake Tribune says Utah’s move to the Pac 12 could end up being financially beneficial to the school thanks to its new TV contract.

Diane Pucin of the Los Angeles Times says TNT and ESPN have different approaches to producing NBA games.

Sports Media Watch has some various ratings news and notes.

Steve Lepore at Puck The Media has Versus’ ratings for Night 2 of the NHL Playoffs.

And that’s going to be it. Not too many links today, but it’s all about quality, not quantity.

Some Monday Night Linkage Which Goes Into Tuesday Linkage

I was trying to post links last night and was making really good progress when, you guessed it, I fell asleep with the computer on again. That’s not good. So I’ll combine the full set of links that I found last night with this edition so you have a pretty good set of stories to sift through. That’s good for you. So let’s give you a lot of links today.

Joe Posnanski has a very thoughtful post on Tara Sullivan’s ordeal at The Masters, plus the really sexist and ignorant comments left at her story at NorthJersey.com.

Glenn Davis of SportsGrid notes that former Boston Globe columnist Jackie MacMullen weighed in on the Tara Sullivan controversy during ESPN’s Around the Horn.

Mike McCarthy of USA Today reports that Charlie Rymer of Westwood One was kicked out of Augusta National Golf Club while he was covering The Masters for violating a rule on cell phone usage.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today says the NFL Network will have extensive coverage of the NFL Draft later this month.

To John Ourand at Sports Business Journal who writes that the NHL has three strong bids for the US TV rights including a surprising one from Turner Sports.

At MediaPost, David Goetzl writes that ESPN was wise to take a wait-and-see attitude on iPad advertising for its app.

Toni Fitzgerald from Media Life says The Masters pulled decent ratings despite having a no-name winner.

Mike Florio at Pro Football Talk says Fox NFL Sunday co-host Terry Bradshaw says he is feeling the effects of the six concussions and numerous blows to the head from his playing days in the 1970′s.

Mike goes over the Jenn Sterger interview on Good Morning America and she doesn’t come off too well.

Mike talks about how a potential owner of a Los Angeles NFL team is predicting a huge TV rights windfall for the league in the next network negotiation.

To Yahoo’s Puck Daddy and Greg Wyshynski who writes that NBC/Versus have some heavy competition for the NHL TV contract.

Sports TV Jobs interviews YES Network host Nancy Newman about her experiences moving from Canada’s TSN to CNN Sports to YES.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell wonders if golf’s popularity has truly returned with Tiger Woods out of contention of many tournaments.

Ian R. Rapoport of the Boston Herald says Tom Brady cries over the memory of his sixth round pick by the New England Patriots in a new ESPN/NFL Films documentary.

Newsday’s Neil Best says YES will produce postgame shows for all Yankees games no matter which network airs them.

Neil writes that the NBA’s TV partners are happy to see the Knicks in the playoffs.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times notes that The Masters saw some ratings slippage.

Pete Dougherty from the Albany Times Union says MSG Network has set its studio and game announcers for Knicks playoff games.

Ken Schott at the Schenectady Gazette talks about The Masters’ TV ratings.

Shelly Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes that Root Sports will have the entire Penguins-Lightning series.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog notes that Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic has chosen its top story in the last ten years of local sports reporting.

Dan with the help of Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic recaps the last Capitals-Rangers playoff series in 2009.

Dan says one local DC radio personality is mocking the Washington Nationals’ radio deal.

Rusty Ray from the Pee Dee (SC) Morning News says a big crowd turned out for a live appearance by ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike.

David Barron and Joseph Duarte from the Houston Chronicle report that the Texas Bowl has a new sponsor.

Blair Kerkhoff from the Kansas City Star talks about a few college sports issues including the NCAA Tournament on CBS/Turner and the new Big 12 TV contract.

Scott D. Pierce of the Salt Lake Tribune says a local sports anchor doesn’t understand the distinction of an event airing on a local CBS affiliate while not being a network program.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News says once the Pac 12 TV contract is done, Commissioner Larry Scott will look to sign deals overseas, especially in Asia.

At Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Matt Maiocco says new 49ers radio analyst Eric Davis will have big shoes to fill.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says TSN Radio is debuting with guns locked and loaded.

Bruce Dowbiggin from the Toronto Globe and Mail also talks about TSN Radio’s debut.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog notes that TSN received good ratings for curling.

Sports Media Watch says NASCAR in primetime on Fox scored well.

To Steve Lepore at Puck The Media says NBC ended the NHL regular season on an upnote.

Steve also has the local rightsholders which will carry first round NHL Playoff games.

Joe Favorito says cricket is gaining in popularity not just worldwide, but also in the US.

Plenty of links today. Lots of good stuff. I hope you have time to look over all of the links.

Sounding Off On The Thursday Linkage

Let’s do the linkage on this Thursday morning. Some good stuff is already out.

The Financial Times has a look at how European TV money is now either catching up or surpassing US TV dollars for the bidding for certain global sports events.

Todd Spangler from Multichannel News reports that ESPN has released a new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch which allows Time Warner and Verizon FiOS TV subscribers to watch live TV on their devices.

Mike Reynolds at Multichannel notes that SNY is now taking shots at Dish Network after being dropped by the satellite provider.

Mike says YES Network and DirecTV continue their negotiations as a deadline that was extended to today is staring them in the face.

Lindsay Rubino from Broadcasting & Cable says ESPN’s E:60 is being nominated for an award that honors diversity in communications.

Louisa Ada Seltzer of Media Life writes that Tiger Woods appears to be an afterthought for ESPN’s and CBS’ coverage of The Masters^®.

At the Indiana University National Sports Journalism Center, the St. Petersburg Times’ Eric Deggans feels Mark Cuban’s idea to ban all internet writers to improve sports coverage is quite silly.

Ronald Grover, Brian Womack and Andy Fixmer of Bloomberg report that YouTube is in talks with several Hollywood companies to provide original content including sports.

Marcus Vanderberg of SportsNewser says DirecTV is all over The Masters^® this year.

Marcus says since ESPN’s Captain Blowhard promised not to tweet until the Red Sox won, an online betting site is taking wagers on whether he will indeed keep quiet.

Sports Video Group has provided a site that outlines how to produce live golf in the third dimension.

At the Biz of Baseball, Maury Brown says MLB isn’t serving its Extra Innings and MLB.TV subscribers well through its archaic blackout policies.

Dan Frommer of the Business Insider has a look at the new WatchESPN iPhone app.

Pete Dougherty from the Albany Times Union writes that a local sports TV anchor will be part of the online and DirecTV coverage of The Masters^®.

Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tells us that NFL Films visited the Steelers last week to film several interviews.

CBS Radio Baltimore’s Jen Royle talks with the Baltimore Sun’s Simon Habtemariam.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says former Nationals analyst Rob Dibble has come out stating that it was a letter from the father of pitcher Stephen Strasburg that led to him being fired from MASN last year.

Dan talks to a local man who came close to winning ESPN.com’s NCAA Tournament Bracket Challenge.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner says CBS and Augusta National Country Club have a unique partnership for The Masters^®.

Iliana Limon in the Orlando Sentinel talks with Conference USA Commissioner Britton Banowsky about the future of the league.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman discusses online coverage of The Masters^®.

John Kiesewetter of the Cincinnati Enquirer has an update on what happened with Fox Sports Ohio’s feed of the Astros-Reds game from earlier in the week.

Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes that the Bucks will be pushed to another radio station due to conflicts with the Brewers.

Neal Justin of the Minneapolis Star Tribune says four cable and satellite providers are not carrying the full schedule of Twins games from Fox Sports North.

Tim Engstrom in the Albert Lea (MN) Tribune writes that Charter Communications is at an impasse with Fox Sports North over 45 Twins games that Fox Sports North picked up.

Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times says while the Lakers will not bring back TV play-by-play man Joel Myers, they will bring back analyst Stu Lantz.

That’s where I’ll end it for now.

A Friday Megalink Post

I’m going to try to post some of the Friday megalinks. This won’t be an entire post. Unless something happens, I should be able to get most of them in.

Of course, you can find the Weekend Viewing Picks for your sports and primetime programs.

National

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand and Mike McCarthy debate whether ESPN’s harsh criticism over VCU’s selection to the NCAA Tournament was sour grapes over losing the games to CBS/Turner.

Mike McCarthy says ESPN has pulled NBA analyst Jalen Rose off the air following last month’s arrest on DUI charges.

Bob Velin of USA Today notes that boxing returns to network television on Saturday in the form of a new Showtime reality series on the Manny Pacquaio-Sugar Shane Mosley fight.

This being April Fools’ Day, we hearken back to 1985 and one of the greatest April 1 sports media pranks, The Curious Case of Sidd Finch, written by George Plimpton of Sports Illustrated which fooled many fans back in the day.

And Christopher Borelli of the Chicago Tribune has found the man who posed as Sidd Finch for SI, a retired Chicago-area schoolteacher.

Phil Orlins, coordinating producer of ESPN 3D, writes in ESPN Front Row about how watching The Masters^® in the third dimension is an experience unlike any other.

Mike Reynolds from Multichannel News writes that SNY has been pulled by Dish Network in the latest dispute among regional sports networks and a content provider.

Marcus Vanderberg of SportsNewser says ESPN Radio hack Colin Cowherd has set his target again on Washington Wizards rookie guard John Wall.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell wonders if nutrition chain GNC is a good stock buy as it went public today.

Darren has an extensive look at how going paperless could change the ticket industry.

At Digital Spy UK, Andrew Laughlin says ESPN Classic has obtained the BBC Sport archives.

The Big Lead speculates on the replacement for Josh Elliot at the morning SportsCenter anchor desk.

The metgrrl blog is the latest to take MLB to task for catering to the lowest common denominator at its Fan Cave.

The Sports Media Watch has various ratings news and notes.

And SMW has some sports media news as well.

East and Mid-Atlantic

The Boston Globe’s Chad Finn talks with Red Sox radio announcer Dave O’Brien about signing a new multiyear contract extension.

At the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Bill Doyle interviews NESN Red Sox voice Don Orsillo.

ESPN Boston says it will be launching an internet radio show next Friday.

Phil Mushnick of the New York Post for all intents and purposes calls Kentucky’s John Calipari and UConn’s Jim Calhoun crooks.

George Willis of the Post remembers former boxing trainer and CBS/MSG/HBO analyst Gil Glancy who died this week.

Justin Terranova of the Post has five questions for CBS college basketball analyst Clark Kellogg.

Pete Dougherty from the Albany Times Union says YES and DirecTV have a midnight deadline to keep the regional sports network on the satellite provider.

Pete says baseball should embrace technology to help make calls and speed up the game.

Tim Schooley of the Pittsburgh Business Times looks at FSN Pittsburgh making the transition to a new name.

Gary Haber of the Baltimore Business Journal says radio host Jen Royle is suing a competing radio station for defamation.

In Press Box, Dave Hughes of DCRTV.com also looks at Royle’s lawsuit as well as other DC-Baltimore sports media news.

Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Bog says the Nationals were the butt of Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last night.

Jim Williams from the Washington Examiner talks with CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus about this year’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament.

Jim says MASN is making a couple of programming changes.

South

Mitch Vingle of the Charleston (WV) Gazette says the ESPN lawsuit against Conference USA bears watching.

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald recaps the Sports Business Journal’s World Congress of Sports that took place in South Florida this week.

Laken Litman at the Dallas Morning News says ESPN will air Texas’ spring football game this weekend.

David Barron from the Houston Chronicle talks with CBS Sports director Bob Fishman about the Final Four’s he called from the production truck.

David has a story on ESPN’s lawsuit against Conference USA.

Mel Bracht of the Daily Oklahoman talks about the expanded announcing crews at the Final Four thanks to CBS/Turner collaboration for the NCAA Tournament.

Midwest

George M. Thomas of the Akron Beacon Journal says STO is ready to air the Cleveland MLB team’s season opener today.

Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids (MI) Press has CBS/Turner’s crew surprised about the VCU run during the NCAA Tournament.

Bob Wolfley at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says this year’s Final Four will be called by a three man booth as opposed to two over the last 29 on CBS.

Don Walker of the Journal Sentinel says MLB has unveiled an unconventional epic ad campaign.

Paul Christian at the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin writes about the Twins going all-cable this season and for the foreseeable future.

Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says Fox Sports Midwest screwed up the Cardinals’ Opening Day ceremonies for the second year in a row.

Evan Binns from the St. Louis Business Journal says the Cardinals season opener was the most watched ever on Fox Sports Midwest.

West

Jay Posner of the San Diego Union-Tribune has CBS/Turner’s Steve Kerr excited about calling his first Final Four tomorrow.

John Maffei of the North County Times says MLB’s national TV partners aren’t giving the Padres any respect.

Jim Carlisle at the Ventura County Star writes that this year’s NCAA Tournament has been a different viewing experience.

Jim has his sports media notebook which includes news about ESPN’s Josh Elliot’s departure for Good Morning America.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News gets comments from other announcers on the great Vin Scully.

Tom also handicaps the Pac 12 media rights negotiations.

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News says the Pac 12′s rights are now up for grabs as the conference let its exclusive window to negotiate with Fox expire last night.

Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times says FSN Northwest may have changed to Root Sports, but will be found on the same place on the cable dial.

Canada

Bruce Dowbiggin of the Toronto Globe and Mail says TSN has fired its first shots in its new sports radio war with Rogers.

The Canadian Sports Media Blog also talks about the TSN/Rogers Sportsnet radio war.

And that is all for today.

Thursday’s Links Are Here … Finally

Been doing some work and also keeping an eye on the Detroit-Yankees game online. It’s been a joy watching games online. It has been a lifesaver when I’ve been at work bogged down with stuff in the office. And MLB.TV is free for Apple iOS users via the iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

Anyway, let’s do some links.

John Ourand at the Sports Business Daily mentions that ESPN has filed suit in court his week against Conference USA for not bargaining its TV rights in good faith and awarding them to Fox instead.

Dan Fogarty at SportsGrid is calling MLB’s “Always Epic” ad campaign an “Epic Fail”. I have yet to figure out what the ad with San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson is all about.

However, SportsGrid’s Glenn Davis is amused at the new SportsCenter ad also featuring Brian Wilson.

Sheldon Spencer at ESPN’s Front Row talks about the launch of the corporate blog.

Todd Spangler of Multichannel News explains why ESPN is not included in the Time Warner Cable iPad app.

Anthony Crupi of Mediaweek notes that MSG Network has reupped with the MLS’ New York Red Bulls for another three years.

Kunur Patel at Advertising Age says a sponsor is coming through to allow Apple devices to have free access to MLB.TV for a month.

CNBC’s Darren Rovell says the NFL’s TV partners could stand to be the biggest loser of any prolonged lockout.

Alex Weprin at SportsNewser notes that SB Nation has launched a new baseball-only blogging site.

At TVNewser, Chris Ariens says ESPN was among those honored for a prestigious Peabody Award for its 30 for 30 documentary series. HBO also received a Peabody for Magic & Bird.

The Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam notes that two local sports radio stations brought in good ad revenue from last year.

Brian Stelter of the New York Times discusses ESPN’s Josh Elliot’s move to Good Morning America.

Newsday’s Neil Best notes that YES and DirecTV’s agreement runs out on Friday if a new carriage accord is not reached soon.

Pete Dougherty at the Albany Times Union also writes about the YES/DirecTV deadline.

Ken Schott from the Schenectady Gazette notes that a local radio station is bumping the Yankees on Saturday in favor of the Final Four^®? What happened to Most Favored Nation status for baseball on the radio?

Ken says a local NBC sports anchor is heading to Augusta to call The Masters^® on DirecTV.

Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record talks about MSG Network bringing the New York Red Bulls back into the fold.

Cindy Boren at the Washington Post’s Early Lead blog says a federal appeals court ruled against the DC NFL Team stating it must provide captions of all song lyrics and text public service announcements at the Stadium formerly known as Jack Kent Cooke for its hearing-impaired fans.

Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner notes that it’s MLB Opening Day not only for the sport and its fans, but for TV as well.

Kristi E. Swartz, Larry Hartstein and Alexis Stevens of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report on former Hawks star, current vice president and TV analyst Dominique Wilkins getting attacked by a former NBA referee following his broadcast spot last night.

Bob Wolfley from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that Fox’s MLB analysts are bullish on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Ed Sherman with Crain’s Chicago Business says the early start of the MLB season means a busy time at Wrigley Field and the Park formerly known as Comiskey.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News talks with announcers, young and old, local and national, about what Dodgers voice Vin Scully means to them.

Sports Media Watch says ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose has apologized for getting arrested earlier this month on DUI charges.

At Puck The Media, Steve Lepore finds the tentative Stanley Cup Finals TV schedule for NBC/Versus.

The NFL Chick pays tribute to women in sportscasting.

Cee Angi at Aerys Sports’ Essence of Baseball site gets on the MLB Fan Cave for reaching to the lowest common denominator.

Dave Kohl at Major League Programs likes seeing MLB Opening Day and the Final Four finally separated.

And that’s where we’ll end the links for today.