Time for Friday linkage.
The Weekend Viewing Picks have your sports and entertainment suggestions. Let’s get cracking.
National
Michael Hiestand from USA Today looks at TNT’s plans to go mostly split-screen during breaks for Saturday’s NASCAR race.
Tom Perrotta of the Wall Street Journal reports that the one Wimbledon souvenir the players want is the towel.
Alex Sherman at Bloomberg Businessweek talks with NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus about the Olympics.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk says enhancing the NFL fan experience might bring more people to games.
Ed Sherman of The Sherman Report is happy to learn that Jeremy Schaap’s ESPN Radio show is now available as a podcast.
Bob Pockrass at The Sporting News says NASCAR hopes that NBC Sports will be a bidder for the sport’s TV rights.
Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News says ESPN Deportes scored with the EURO 2012 Final last Sunday.
Mike says Golf Channel has selected the venue for the next season of “Big Break”.
Christopher Heine of Adweek says MLB’s allowing Twitter votes for the All-Star Game for the first time may have had a hand in deciding which league hosts the World Series.
Jason Del Ray of Advertising Age says the impending Turner Sports purchase of Bleacher Report makes sense.
Wayne Friedman at MediaPost says the NFL easing requirements on local TV blackouts shows the league wants to reach the casual fan.
Dan Daley at Sports Video Group says ESPN will be utilizing plenty of microphones at the MLB Home Run Derby.
Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder has a screengrab of a Canadian TV station messing up the Steve Nash trade to the Lakers.
And Matt has found an episode of Judge Sapp. Yes, that’s Warren Sapp.
The Big Lead soaked up the latest Twitter battle between ESPN’s Darren Rovell and Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch.
MediaRantz looks at the top 5 ESPN plagiarism scandals.
Nick Bromberg of Yahoo’s From the Marbles blog wonders what is the big deal with the TNT/truTV simulcast of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup race on Saturday.
Joe Favorito likes how MLS has adopted “Food Week” to get fans to explore its markets’ restaurants.
East and Mid-Atlantic
At SB Nation Boston, Bruce Allen says it was time for Erin Andrews to leave the ESPN Mothership.
Jerry Barmsah of Fishbowl NY says CBS Radio’s WFAN could be headed to FM and could take the Yankees with it.
Yes, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post, we know you hate ESPN.
Justin Terranova of the Post has five questions for ESPN tennis analyst Brad Gilbert.
Ken McMillan from the Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record says the MLB Extra Innings pay per view package will be free next week.
Don Laible of the Utica (NY) Observer-Dispatch talks with the NHL on NBC’s Dave Strader about calling Olympic basketball.
Ken says a local minor league baseball team has found a new radio home.
Dave Sottile of the Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News says there are no plans to bring Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic to the local area.
Tim Richardson in Press Box looks at the differences between the Washington Nationals and MASN over the team’s TV rights fee.
Jim Williams of the Washington Examiner talks with MLB Network’s Chris Rose.
South
Kyle Veazey of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal says a popular local sports radio host is changing stations.
At the Houston Chronicle, David Barron writes that the new Comcast SportsNet Houston will air Conference USA football featuring the University of Houston.
Midwest
Bob Wolfley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says MLB feels it has restored integrity to the All-Star Game. It’s an exhibition game!
Paul M. Banks of the Chicago Sports Media Watch wonders who had the best mock NBA Draft?
Paul Christian at the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin says the new TV voice of the Minnesota Wild will have an exciting team to call this season.
Dan Caesar from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch talks about Erin Andrews making her Fox debut next week.
Dan writes that Blues analyst Darren Pang turned down a full-time offer from TSN and will remain in St. Louis.
West
Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News has this harsh takedown of Erin Andrews.
Here’s Tom’s column which has a little more on the last post.
Tom also links to reaction to his Erin Andrews column.
Matt Rudnitsky of SportsGrid replies point-by-point to Hoffarth.
John Maffei of the North County Times writes about Erin Andrews joining Fox.
Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star talks with Fox’s Joe Buck on the challenges of calling the MLB All-Star Game.
Jim has his Weekend Viewing Picks.
Matthew T. Hall at the San Diego Union-Tribune wonders where’s the fan outrage in the Fox Sports San Diego-Time Warner Cable dispute leaving Padres games off TV.
Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News tries to clear up some confusion over the Pac-12 Network.
And that will conclude our links for today.
