I’ll do some quick links tonight before I do the real time review of HBO’s Real Sports.
First a series of links from the Sports Media Watch blog. Here are the overnight ratings which tell us that the NFL rules the roost. Next, with Fox Sports basically airing the Dallas Cowboys the rest of the way, it’s already bearing the fruits for this week. And Paulsen says NASCAR ended the Chase for the Nextel Cup rather weakly.
Neil Best of Newsday has a blog post which tells us that MSG Network has put two Knicks games and two Rangers games on over the air TV. Also, Neil is not surprised to see Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter take cable’s side in the NFL Network dispute. Finally, we get Cablevision’s take on the NFL Network dispute. For the most part, it’s been quiet on the issue.
To show that this battle between the NFL Network and Comcast is getting serious, the cable provider has sent a Cease and Desist letter to the league telling it to back off on telling customers to drop cable. Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reports that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is willing to give the cable companies an equity stake in the NFL Network, similar to what MLB did with its channel. John Dempsey of Variety also has the story. And here’s Comcast saying it does offer the NFL Network … on its sports tier. And the Quad-Cities (IL) Online site offers a press release from a state legislator who wants to bring the two sides to arbitration.
Mike Reynolds also writes that the Disney Channel beat ESPN in the cable primetime ratings last week.
The Los Angeles Daily News’ Tom Hoffarth in his Farther Off the Wall blog, talks about the Dodgers deciding to enter a float in the Rose Bowl Parade for the very first time. Really.
Ok, review of HBO Real Sports coming up.
