Flex to rescue again: NBC wins with Carolina-New Orleans moved to Sunday night on Dec. 8

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Ah yes, it is good to be NBC.

On Dec. 8, the schedule called for the network to air Atlanta at Green Bay. What looked to be an attractive game before the season now is largely forgettable thanks to the Falcons’ disaster at 2-9.

However, don’t despair NBC, it’s flex scheduling to the rescue. Last night while NBC was pulling in what is sure to be a huge rating for Denver-New England, the NFL announced it will move Carolina-New Orleans to Sunday night on Dec. 8. Atlanta-Green Bay gets thrown back to Fox.

How great is this for NBC? The game in the Superdome should be a battle for first place in the NFC South with Drew Brees facing Cam Newton and the upstart Panthers.

Fox and CBS are allowed to protect a certain number of games, but Carolina-New Orleans wasn’t on the list. Instead, Fox sealed up Seattle at San Francisco for the doubleheader slot on that Sunday.

It’s hard to argue with that decision given that Seattle might be the best team in the NFL. However, it would help the marquee value of the match-up if the 6-4 49ers win tonight against Washington and then next Sunday at home against St. Louis.

NBC, meanwhile, will give thanks to the God of Flex again for Carolina-New Orleans on Dec. 8. So will fans, who will get to see a much better game.

 

 

Football card: Howie Long; What is over-under of shots of dad at Bears-Rams game?

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With Howie Long going to watch his sons, Chris and Kyle, play in Sunday’s Bears-Rams game, it seems appropriate to recall how dad looked as a player. Actually, not that much different.

Dad definitely could play, eventually making his way to the Hall of Fame.

Now he’s the proud papa of two pretty good NFL players. While listening to WSCR-AM 670 in Chicago yesterday, Matt Spiegel and Lawrence Holmes were talking about an over-under for the number of shots of Long during Fox’s telecast of the game.

They put the number at 4.5.

What’s your bet?

 

Weekly wrap: Deciphering ARod’s media strategy; new producer for golf on Fox?

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Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media….

ARod: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times writes about Alex Rodriguez’s media strategy.

Rodriguez’s publicist, Ron Berkowitz, said Thursday that there was no campaign plan, no scripted rollout of television interviews that would reinforce the dual messages of his 40-minute Francesa interview: first, that Bud Selig is the cowardly commissioner of baseball for not testifying at the arbitration hearing over the 211-game suspension that Selig has imposed on him, and second, that he is not guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs (in the particular case Major League Baseball is waging against him), obstructing justice or intimidating witnesses.

“Yesterday was a spur-of-the-moment event,” Berkowitz said of Rodriguez’s appearance on WFAN (and consequently the YES Network). “We gave Mike a ring about 20 minutes before, to tell him we were coming over.”

Kennedy assassination: Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News speculates on how sports leagues would react today.

Red Smith, writing for the New York Herald Tribune, also railed against the New York Giants’ game to be played at Yankee Stadium:

 “In the civilized world, it was a day of mourning. In the National Football League, it was the 11th Sunday of the business year, a quarter-million day in Yankee Stadium, a day for selling to television a show which that medium not always celebrated for sensitive taste — couldn’t stomach.”

Dan Dierdorf: The veteran analyst tells Richard Deitsch at SI.com why he is retiring after the season.

“The reality is, from a physical standpoint, it’s too much for me, especially the travel,” Dierdorf told SI.com from his home in St. Louis. “I have two artificial knees, two artificial hips, nerve damage in my legs, and it’s a struggle for me to walk. That’s the reality of it. Ask anyone who has seen me go through a press box.”

Fox golf: Geoff Shackelford is pleased that Mark Loomis looks to be in line to oversee Fox Sports’ coverage of golf. Jason McIntyre of Big Lead broke the news via his Twitter feed.

Loomis helmed ABC’s golf coverage during the Tirico-Azinger-Faldo years and more recently started ESPN’s coverage of The Open Championship. A single-handicap golfer who grew up playing Winged Foot, Loomis widely respected in the television industry with both on and off-camera people. Considering Fox’s inexperience in televising golf, and the pressure to be “fresh and innovative,” a Loomis hire would provide a much-needed credibility injection for both Fox and their new partners in Far Hills.

Mike Tirico: Brad Gagnon at Awful Announcing praises Tirico for his candid call of the controversial finish to Monday’s game.

Monday night in Carolina, we had the most controversial finish of the 2013 NFL season. If that holds up, it’ll be the second consecutive year in which ESPN’s Monday Night Football will broadcast the season’s most controversial game, because Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden were also in the booth when Seattle beat Green Bay on the now-infamous “Fail Mary” last September. 

Tirico and Gruden handled both moments extremely well, and it only reinforced for me how much better ESPN’s national NFL product has become than most if not all of its competitors.

Peyton-Brady: Richard Deitsch of SI.com has a preview of NBC’s coverage of the 14th meeting between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.

NBC is billing it with a title befitting a Super Bowl:

Manning-Brady XIV.

Next week’s Sunday Night Football telecast will be the 14th time Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning meet on a football field as pros. It is one of the signature games on the 2013 NFL schedule, and given the historical significance of the game, the core staff of SNF held a three-hour meeting last June 20 at NBC Sports Network’s headquarters in Stamford, Conn. specifically to discuss ideas on how they could make next Sunday night’s production special for viewers.

“I think what makes these games special is they play the position with an acumen not seen by many players,” said SNF producer Fred Gaudelli. “Yes, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers fit there, too, but the command of everything around Manning and Brady is uncanny. We will have some nice, historical material, but I’m also looking for things in the game to showcase why these guys are two of the greatest to have ever plated this game.”

Bad sports talk radio: Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing says it has been a year filled with many not-so-great moments for the sports talkers.

There are many great sports talk radio hosts throughout the country that don’t need to rely on shock jock antics to draw an audience.  They should be applauded for not taking the easy way out and diving into the gutter.  Nevertheless, there is a pervasive attitude that exists in the industry that produces the likes of Damon Bruce.  He is far from alone.  Here is a list of the notable controversies, suspensions, and firings to emerge from sports talk radio in the last 13 months…

Heidi Game: Neil Best of Newsday reflects on the 45th anniversary of when NBC switched from a football game to a movie about a young girl.

Forty-five years ago (last) Sunday I was worried some silly football game would delay the beginning of “Heidi,’’ which I and many of my fellow 8-year-olds were very much looking forward to watching.

Happily, NBC executives left the Jets-Raiders game right at 7 p.m., and all was well! Kind of.

College hoops TV first: Classic Sports Media and TV has a look at who was on the crew for networks’ first college games.

first on ABC 
    Sat 12/15/1973, UCLA vs NC State (at St Louis), 5 pm, Keith Jackson, Bill Russell 
        (Note: not part of a package, but a single-game deal arranged by ABC after losing NBA rights)

first on NBC as part of the national package it began in the 1980s
    Sat 11/29/1975, Indiana vs UCLA (at St Louis), 11:30 pm, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer
        (Note: this was a live telecast – the game started at 10:30 local time)

 

 

Russo on Francesa: ‘Mike is smarter than this, to be duped by A-Rod’

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That’s two back pages in a row for sports talk radio in the New York Daily News. Naturally, Bob Raissman gets Chris Russo’s reaction to Mike Francesa’s interview with ARod:

Even the Dog is hard-pressed to explain why his former WFAN partner is so infatuated with Alex Rodriguez, why he’s become the man’s top chef in charge of soft-boiled questions.

“I can’t understand. Mike is smarter than this, to be duped by A-Rod and fall into this trap,” Dog barked over the telephone Thursday. “This is the guy you’re going to defend — A-Rod? He knows A-Rod did steroids. What do you think, Mike’s stupid? He knows.”

And there’s this:

Francesa is on a crusade. He’s trying to convince the Free World Rodriguez has been singled out for cruel and unusual punishment by Bud Selig, who he claims is the mastermind behind MLB’s “persecution” of Rodriguez.

“And I know Mike doesn’t like Selig,” said Russo, who has a long-strong relationship with the commissioner. Is that good enough reason for Francesa to throw A-Rod a Bootlicker’s Ball disguised as an interview? Reason enough to ignore the most obvious of questions while poor, picked-upon Alex displayed his defiant side?

“I know Mike is down on baseball. (He calls) Selig a used car salesman. Fair point. Fair opinion. I don’t have a problem with that,” Russo said. “But for Mike to go down this path constantly with A-Rod when he knows deep down A-Rod is a cheat — he knows it.”

 

Long on watching his sons Sunday in Bears-Rams game; ‘It’s exciting. It’s scary’

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Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports how Sunday will be a vastly different day for Howie Long:

Howie Long spends his fall Sundays in the Fox Sports compound in Los Angeles, working as an analyst on the network’s NFL studio show.

But this Sunday, he plans to be about 1,800 miles to the east, in St. Louis for an interesting football family reunion. Long, who had a Hall of Fame career as a defensive end with the Raiders, will be in town to watch the first matchup in the pros between sons Chris and Kyle. Chris is in his sixth year as a defensive end for the Rams. Kyle is a rookie offensive guard for the Chicago Bears, who face the Rams at noon.

Dad sees his sons play in person when they have a weeknight game, and there is no mistake as to the team he is rooting for then. But this situation is much different, as they not only will be on the field at the same time but figure to be going against each other at times.

“I’m sure there will be some range of emotions,’’ dad said this week. “I’m not sure what that will be, we’ll have to see when we cross that bridge. … It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s a lot of different emotions.’’

Meanwhile, back in LA, Randy Moss will sit in for Long on Fox NFL Sunday. It could be an audition of sorts for Moss, who has been outspoken in his new studio role for Fox Sports 1.

Nov. 22, 1963: Lundquist never got to hear Kennedy speak in Austin; his memories

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It loomed as a memorable day for Verne Lundquist when he went to work at an Austin, Tex. TV station on Nov. 22, 1963. He was looking forward to seeing President John F. Kennedy speak later that day in town.

Fifty years later, Lundquist remembers vividly how his day and the nation’s suddenly changed.

“I was on an earlier shift, working the board,” Lundquist said. “I had been invited by a good friend of mine to hear Kennedy speak. Her dad was the general manager of the station, and he gave me permission to not do the show that night so I could take her to hear the president’s speech.

“I was on the phone with her 12:25 p.m. (going over the details), when the news anchor broke into the control room and said, ‘Give me the microphone. The President has been shot.’ That’s how I heard about it.”

Then Lundquist recalled things got surreal.

“I swear to God, within an hour, we had secret service people blanketing the building. Nobody knew at the time if there was some kind of coup going on. Because the president was destined to come to Austin, and because (Lyndon Johnson) owned the only station in town, they were all over the building just in case.”

Only 23 at the time, Lundquist suddenly found himself assisting in CBS’ coverage. He was assigned to drive around a network correspondent to Johnson’s home town of Johnson City.

“We spent 8 or 9 hours there collecting information on the new president,” Lundquist said. “Television was in its infancy back then. The idea of going live (from a remote location) was not that easy. It required land lines. We shot all the film, and then they flew it back on an overnight flight to New York to so they could use it over the weekend.”

Looking back, Lundquist said, “I was a witness to history, absolutely.”

There are a couple of postscripts, he said.

“You remember Pete Rozelle allowed the NFL to play games on that Sunday (following the assassination,” Lundquist said. “Well, on the following Friday night, I was on the sidelines with my 16 mm. camera covering state high school football playoff game. The juxtaposition of priorities was really extraordinary.”

Once Johnson settled in as president, Lundquist received an unexpected education from some of the top journalists in the business.

“When Johnson would come home for the summer, the White House press corps would stay in Austin,” Lundquist said. “There was a hangout that they all went to in town. I was 24-years-old and I got to mingle and meet these guys. Here I was having a beer with George Herman. I was in their world. To sit and listen at the feet of those fellas is something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.”

 

 

 

NPR says Ernie Banks played for White Sox; Cubs fans not amused

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As a White Sox fan, I only wish Ernie Banks hit some of those 512 homers at Comiskey Park instead of Wrigley Field. If he had played for those strong Sox teams in the 50s and 60s, he definitely wouldn’t have gone his own career without playing in a World Series.

Of course, everyone knows Banks as “Mr. Cub.” Well, almost everyone.

Apparently, NPR’s Ari Shapiro needs to brush up on his baseball history. Mark Memmot wrote the mea culpa on NPR’s site.

The words were barely out of our friend and correspondent mouth just after 7:30 a.m. ET this morning when the phones started ringing and emails started arriving.

Among those receiving at the White House, Ari said on the NPR Newscast, would be baseball legend Ernie Banks.

Then Ari got into trouble. Banks, he said, “played for the Chicago White Sox, President Obama’s favorite baseball team.”

Error on Ari.

Cubs fans weren’t amused.

Emails filled our inboxes. Here’s a sampling:

— “Ernie Banks played for the Chicago White Sox??? Next NPR newsflash: Derek Jeter named captain of the Boston Red Sox.”

— “Isn’t it bad enough that Cubs fans have had virtually nothing else to cheer about in over 100 years besides being Ernie Banks’s team, and now this!”

— “Tragedy struck today at around 7:30 EST … across the nation Cubs fans’ heads suddenly exploded.”

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Finebaum show to air on SiriusXM, beginning Nov. 25

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Just in time for Alabama-Auburn on Nov. 30.

From ESPN:

Beginning Monday, Nov. 25, ESPN Radio’s The Paul Finebaum Show will be available on Sirius XM, part of the ESPN Xtra channel, no. 85, daily lineup. The four-hour program, which airs weekdays from 2 – 6 p.m. ET, made its ESPN Radio debut on August 12, 2013.

The complete weekday lineup on ESPN Xtra (all ET):

12 a.m. – 10 a.m. SportsCenter

10 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Mike & Mike re-air

2 – 6 p.m. The Paul Finebaum Show

6 – 6:30 p.m. – Around the Horn (tape delayed from earlier that day)

6:30 p.m. – 7 p.m. Pardon the Interruption (tape delayed from earlier that day)

7 p.m. – 12 a.m. – ESPNEWS or event coverage

The Paul Finebaum Show, produced by ESPN Radio, showcases Finebaum’s compelling opinions and deep knowledge of the SEC as well as his interaction with his passionate callers, many of whom have followed him for years.

Paul Finebaum on ESPN

Since August 2013, Finebaum has appeared on a variety of other ESPN shows and outlets, including SportsCenter, College Football Live, College GameDay and in ESPN The Magazine. Starting in August 2014, when the SEC Network launches, a television simulcast of Finebaum’s radio show will anchor the network’s afternoon lineup.

New ESPN SportsCenter app: Enables for more personalization, easier access to favorite teams

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It’s just a matter of time before you push a button and Chris Berman is standing next to you reading scores. Now there’s an interesting, if not scary, thought.

Anyway, here’s the latest from ESPN on its new app:

******

ESPN Digital Media today launched the SportsCenter app, an all-new, next-generation app for iPhone and Android handsets designed to provide sports fans a comprehensive, personalized mix of the ESPN content they want, anytime, anywhere. Users will receive the SportsCenter app as an update to ESPN’s ScoreCenter, the most popular free sports app of all time with more than 43,000,000 downloads.

The SportsCenter app delivers live scores, breaking news, video highlights, feature stories, native social integration, in-line alert settings, GameCast access, and more. Taking full advantage of iOS7 and Android functionality, the SportsCenter app presents an entirely new experience for fans, with an elegant design that makes it easy to access unprecedented levels of ESPN content most relevant to them.

Navigation is designed around three content pillars: Scores, News and ESPN Now.

Enhanced Scores – With live scores from favorite teams and the day’s best games, the Scores screen allows fans to set alerts and access expanded information for each game with a simple tap.

Enhanced News – Curated by SportsCenter, the News screen presents the best and latest headlines of the day with a mix of breaking news, features, video and highlight clips.

ESPN Now – Integrating contextual live scoring and social updates for a personalized set of teams and leagues from ESPN Twitter handles, the ESPN Now screen enables fans to reply, retweet, favorite, share, and email each post.

Other key features include:

Favorites and Clubhouses – The Favorites screen provides quick access to favorite teams and upcoming or current games. Tapping a team allows access to the all-new Clubhouse feature, which provides a team-specific theme that mimics the SportsCenter app’s main navigation, with Scores, News and ESPN Now tabs for each team.

Inbox – A personalized collection that enables fans to catch up on relevant alerts, scores, video highlights, and news based on their preferences and activity.

“The unique challenge for us is taking all of the content that only ESPN can produce and making it simple and easy for fans to find what’s important to them on a mobile screen,” said Ryan Spoon, senior vice president, Product Development. “Optimizing for iOS7 and Android allowed us do that, developing functionality that is true to the device but also consistent across devices with the familiar look and feel of ESPN and SportsCenter.”

Launch of the SportsCenter app comes as the demand for mobile sports content continues to grow. Last September, a month in which ESPN Digital Media set a sports category record with 72,700,000 unique users, more sports fans consumed ESPN content via mobile devices than online computers for the first time ever.

Advertisers for the SportsCenter app at launch include MillerCoors, Kay Jewelers and Bud Light.