Why not a Saturday afternoon World Series game?

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Trivia question: When was the last afternoon game in a World Series?

Answer: Game 6 of the Minnesota-St. Louis World Series in 1987.

I get the idea for having night games in the World Series during the week and even on Sunday, a prime TV viewing night. However, nobody stays home on Saturday night to watch TV.

Indeed, a late Saturday afternoon game would be a prime opportunity to capture some of those younger viewers, especially on the East Coast, for whom the World Series has become a rumor. The 8:07 ET first pitch for all the games means most of them are in bed by the fourth inning.

Check out this tweet from the TV Sports Ratings guy:

Baseball is losing a generation of young fans, who likely won’t grow up to become old fans, by playing all these World Series games at night.

I would bet that the ratings for a late afternoon Saturday World Series game would be comparable to an 8:07 ET start. Even if they were off slightly, so what? Consider it an investment in the game’s future.

Time to let the sun shine, baseball. At least for one game.

Update: It has been pointed out to me that Game 3 of the 2010 World Series started at 6:57 ET, the earliest since 1987. MLB actually made a big deal of it.

From the release back then:

“I am extremely pleased we are able to provide our fans the earliest World Series start time since 1987 with Saturday’s Game Three,'” said Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig. “The changes we made with FOX last year to start the World Series games earlier helped increase viewership including more young fans and we are optimistic that the earlier start time for Saturday’s Game Three will keep us moving in the same direction.”

Key to the earlier scheduled start time for Game Three is an additional level of advertising support from Chevrolet, the official vehicle of Major League Baseball, and a perennial sponsor of MLB on FOX.

“Starting the game earlier will allow more families to watch together,” said Chris Perry, vice president U.S. marketing, Chevrolet. “This fits perfectly with our commitment to baseball which stretches from youth teams across the country to MLB.”

“We’ve said over the years that if advertisers were willing to support earlier starts at prime time levels, we’d be able to begin games earlier,” said FOX Sports president Eric Shanks. “We’re excited to be working with MLB and Chevrolet, along with our FOX-owned stations and affiliates to make this happen.”

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Hmm. Wonder why baseball abandoned the concept?

 

 

 

 

 

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Weekend wrap: Weir won’t make statement about gay rights in Russia: Olbermann on World Series ratings

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

Johnny Weir: Juliet Macur of the New York Times reports Weir, who is gay, won’t press Russia’s controversial laws in Sochi, where he will be working as an Olympics analyst for NBC.

Now, Weir, not for the first time, may surprise everyone. Despite his sexual orientation, despite his marriage to a man in 2011, despite his long track record of (not always wisely) saying what is on his mind, Weir said Wednesday that he planned to hold his tongue in Sochi, at least when it comes to speaking out against the Russian law.

“I risk jail time just going there, but the Olympics are not the place to make a political statement,” he said. “I’m not a politician and I don’t really talk about politics. You don’t have to agree with the politics, but you have to respect the culture of a country you are visiting.”

World Series: Keith Olbermann pulls out some interesting numbers and offers his views of why World Series ratings have sagged dramatically since the 1970s. As usual, he does it in his own unique way.

Tim McCarver: Richard Sandomir of the New York Times gets perspective from his many broadcast partners during his long career.

Al Michaels (ABC): “He never thought he was in the ex-jock business — where a lot of guys come off the field and get the job and they theoretically understand things the average person does not. But Tim thought of himself as a broadcaster.”

Two weeks before the 1985 World Series, McCarver replaced Howard Cosell at ABC, joining Michaels and Jim Palmer.

Michaels: “Howard was sour and dour and took all the joy away from everybody on the crew. He had an ‘I-don’t-want-to-be-here’ attitude. When Roone Arledge made the switch, I said, ‘I’ve got McCarver?’ This was the greatest trade of all time.”

Concussions: Richard Deitsch at MMQB discusses how the networks are handling the concussion issue.

“I know three hours for a broadcast seems like a long time, but I really think the topic is so deep that it would take 10 minutes of a broadcast while a football game is going on to try and give that topic any depth whatsoever,” says NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth. “It is something I really care about. I have kids who play the game, and I’ve done a lot of studying and discussing the issue with a lot of people. But I think in my case, the [Showtime] ‘Inside The NFL‘ show is a better format for discussion.”

Scott Van Pelt: Jeff Barker of the Baltimore Sun writes about Van Pelt being a proud Maryland alum.

But nobody really expects that to happen. Not to Van Pelt, who is treated on campus as Terrapins royalty. Students often greet the instantly recognizable, bald, 6-foot-6 broadcaster by standing and applauding, chanting “SVP” and asking to pose with him for pictures. He’s their link to the national spotlight, a celebrity they love to call their own.

“The reception I have gotten when I go back there is one of the more remarkable things I have ever experienced,” Van Pelt, 47, says. “It might sound corny, but it’s the truth. It’s an emotional thing to be welcomed back so enthusiastically by them. They know I am one of them and they know I won’t hide from that.”

Thursday night football: Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center looks at the possibility of the league adding another game to that night.

With the league locked into its current TV deals, there is no forthcoming increase in revenues. The opportunity to offer some games to another network (Turner? NBC Sports? Fox Sports 1?) is almost too much to resist. With broadcast rights fees’ soaring, the NFL would like to ride the wave, especially since no one can predict when prices may moderate. The only certainty in all of this is that NFL programming is hugely popular, and any rumor or comment about expansion triggers significant interest.

Jimmy Traina: Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing does a podcast with Traina on moving to Fox Sports.

In this week’s podcast, we invite one of the sports blogosphere’s favs, Jimmy Traina, who is on the move from Sports Illustrated to Fox Sports. In the last several years, Jimmy has taken Hot Clicks at SI to one of the most popular features not just at the magazine, but across the web in sports. In this podcast, AA chats with Jimmy about the move, the evolution of Hot Clicks, and the media, and an assortment of topics.

Pat Summerall: Classic Sports TV and Media provides a timeline of legendary announcer’s career.

Summerall had a unique career in the NFL TV booth, beginning as an analyst in 1962 on CBS where he eventually ascended to the lead analyst position alongside the likes of Ray Scott and Jack Buck. Midway through the 1974 season, he shifted to play-by-play and formed a memorable tandem with Tom Brookshier as they called 108 games together over 6.5 seasons. In 1981, he started a 22-year run with John Madden including a move to Fox in 1994. Altogether, Summerall worked 400 games with Madden as his lead analyst with 171 of these coming at Fox. In 2004, Summerall filled in for 4 weeks on ESPN Sunday Night Football as Mike Patrick was recovering from a heart attack.

 

 

Garagiola Jr. on long games: ‘You have to cut teams a little slack’; Why?

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Jerry Cransnick of ESPN.com talked to Joe Garagiola Jr., who reports to Joe Torre as baseball’s senior vice president of standards and on-field operations, about the long games in the postseason.

“These are the most important games of the year, so you don’t want to ask teams to start doing things that really impact how they approach the game,” Garagiola said from Fenway Park, where Boston is hosting St. Louis in the first two games of the World Series. “That said, the umpires will encourage teams to try to maintain a good pace, because I think everybody likes that.

“But if people are taking a little more time between pitches, or batters are stepping out because they want to compose themselves, it’s because somebody is going to be the world champion at the end of the next eight or nine days. You can’t lose sight of that.”

Later, Garagiola added:

“You have to cut the teams a little slack,” Garagiola said. “If you’re seeing more trips to the mound and looking in the dugouts, this is not the time to be confused or unclear or have the pitcher and catcher not be on the same page. One swing and everybody goes home.”

Obviously, everyone knows where I stand on this issue. My questions to Garagiola Jr.: Why is it different now than when your dad played in the 40s and 50s and called games in the 70s and 80s? Weren’t the stakes just as high back then? How come they were able to finish games in 2:15-2:30?

Even if you add the additional 20 minutes for commercials, the 2:30 game only is 2:50. Prior to last night, the average game during the postseason was 3:22. While last night’s Game 2 was a relatively quick 3:05, that’s still too long for a 4-2 game.

Please Joe Jr., do something about the pace.

 

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Assessing Tim McCarver’s legacy: Record-setting longevity, candor, and critics

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana examines the legacy of Tim McCarver. This year’s World Series marks the end of an unprecedented run in sports broadcast history.

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Fox Sports held a teleconference for its World Series coverage earlier this week. Naturally, one of the first questions was directed at Tim McCarver, who will be calling his last series for the network.

“I don’t mind answering a couple (personal) questions, but the emphasis should be on the Series and the players involved,” McCarver said.

McCarver then went on to praise Fox Sports executives and began to get sentimental about his long-time partner Joe Buck.

When it came time for his turn, Buck, trying to lighten the mood with perfect timing, said, “I can’t wait for this to be over.”

Everyone laughed, and Buck paid tribute to McCarver. Then after a couple more baseball questions about the Red Sox and Cardinals, McCarver was asked again to reflect on his career.

McCarver answered and then made another plea: “I would prefer this be the last question about my final World Series, please. I respectfully request that.”

Indeed, if this whole thing feels awkward, it’s probably because it is. It gets to the core of a somewhat complicated broadcast legacy for McCarver.

I’m not so sure McCarver, 72, wants to walk away from his duties at Fox. He continues to emphasize that he isn’t retiring from the booth.

Last week, he told Chad Finn of the Boston Globe, “I’m not retiring. I’m cutting back on what I’ll be doing. I won’t be doing the World Series, playoffs, All-Star Game, but I’ll be doing something, stuff that will feed my passions. Plural.”

So why not just stay at Fox? The network could have reduced his regular-season workload, allowing him to be its signature analyst during the postseason.

It didn’t work out that way.

With McCarver’s contract set to expire this year, perhaps he had enough of hearing from critics who haven’t always been kind in recent years. There’s also the sense that Fox wants to bring in new blood in the analyst’s chair to freshen up its baseball broadcasts.

At some point, it’s just time to move on.

So whenever the final out is made next week, McCarver likely will be wrapping up the portion of his career that is unmatched in baseball broadcast history. This marks his 24th World Series as an analyst, a record. Remarkably, he did it for three different networks, beginning with ABC in 1985, when he teamed with Al Michaels and Jim Palmer for the St. Louis-Kansas City series. He followed the national TV baseball package to CBS and then Fox.

You don’t become the lead analyst for a generation without having some considerable talent. Once moving to the broadcast booth, McCarver quickly became known for an uncanny knack of anticipating what would happen in a game. Buck says there’s nobody better.

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Here’s the link for the rest of the column.

 

 

Shackelford: Tiger should accept Chamblee’s apology and move on

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At his site, Geoff Shackelford weighs in on my view that Brandel Chamblee should have appeared on Golf Channel to explain his controversial column on Tiger Woods.

Shackelford doesn’t think that would have been a good idea.

There is nothing more obnoxious than the media exploiting itself in these instances. While you can quibble with Chamblee’s questionable decision to roll out the cheating analogy, if you’ve met him or watched him work long enough you know he’s not the limelight hog that many have portrayed him as in this little first golfing world saga. He’s opinionated, paid for his views and generally backs up his positions as well as anyone in sports television.

Then Shackelford adds:

Tiger, meanwhile, has a chance to capitalize on Chamblee’s apology. Traditionally, he would (and will) dig in, exerting behind-the-scenes influence to get revenge. But a wise Tiger would let Chamblee off the hook with a simple “we all make mistakes.” He would end the spat the bigger man, moving the discussion off of the cheating allegation toward an act of forgiveness, shifting focus off his disturbing number of 2013 rules gaffes.

It’ll never happen.

Shackelford is right about that.

I still expect Chamblee to address his column at some point on the Golf Channel.

His post included some interesting comments from readers.

So when a player says something stupid is OK for GC to flesh it out for a week or more, but when Brandlel says something stupid, later stands by his words, then flops and apologizes he should get a pass? And we wonder why some players don’t like the media.

And.

Oh, and Geoff has it right. This is a beautiful, a golden opportunity for Woods to show that he’s magnanimous, easy-going and forgiving. But — true to the form he learned at the knee of master grudge-holder Michael Jordan — he will remain silent, stoic and seething. A small man with a petty outlook on life.

And.

I agree, Geoff. It’ll never happen. Tiger’s s*#t list has a half-life approximately that of carbon-14.

And.

Much ado about nothing…. aren’t all apologies now issued via twitter?

CBS Sports Network’s Aaron Taylor will be careful about wardrobe in calling first Notre Dame game

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Aaron Taylor will be paying special attention to his tie Saturday.

Taylor, an All-American offensive tackle at Notre Dame in the early 90s, will be on the call for the Irish-Air Force game on CBS Sports Network. It will be his first time working as an analyst for a game involving his old school.

So Taylor is acutely aware of not wanting to play any favorites.

“I know I have to be more careful,” Taylor said. “I remember once doing a San Diego State game. I happened to wear a tie with red in it. Well, I heard about it on Twitter and Facebook, and this was just from doing the open to the game.

“No question, the level of scrutiny will be up Saturday. I’ll be very careful with my tie. Definitely, no blue and gold.”

Taylor hardly is the first former player to work as an analyst for his former team. He knows the drill.

“I’m not going to be crying on the air if my alma mater is losing,” Taylor said.”I know I’ll be walking a fine line.”

However, make no mistake, Saturday’s assignment is special for Taylor. He said it will be “coming full circle” for him.

“There was a time when Notre Dame might as well have been England to me,” said Taylor, who grew up in the San Francisco area. “I had no idea where South Bend was when the recruiting letters started to come in. Notre Dame is on my Mt. Rushmore of the choices I’ve made in my life along with my wife and kids. It was paramount to what I’ve become.”

Taylor experienced the last truly sustained period of excellence at Notre Dame. From 1990-93, his teams went 41-8-1 under Lou Holtz.

Taylor believes Brian Kelly has a chance to replicate what Holtz did.

“They both have the vision and a specific way to execute that vision,” Taylor said. “Holtz was a little more hands-on. Kelly tried that in the beginning, but he got back to letting his coaches do their thing.

“Holtz was very methodical. Every week we had a game plan. We knew as players if we executed the plan, we’d win the game. Kelly strikes me the same way. You don’t enjoy the kind of success he’s had without having a plan.”

 

 

Olbermann on impact of Bill Mazer: Sports talk pioneer ‘changed lives of sports fans’

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Keith Olbermann opened this piece by saying, “Bill Mazer died today. You probably didn’t know him. Your life as a sports fan, however, was utterly changed by him.”

Find out why from Olbermann, who worked as an intern for Mazer, and others.

Neil Best in Newsday:

Perhaps Mazer’s greatest historical claim to fame was as host of the first regularly scheduled sports call-in show — which premiered on WNBC radio on March 30, 1964.

In what is believed to be his final interview, with Newsday in 2011, Mazer looked back at that day and how it all began.

“The first call was a kid, and he said, ‘I just want to ask you one question,’ ” Mazer said. “I said, ‘OK, go ahead.’ He said, ‘Who’s better: Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle?’ “

It was a question that launched countless more, leading eventually to the first full-time sports talk station, WFAN, in 1987, and eventually hundreds of others around the country.

Bob Raissman in the New York Daily News:

There’s this notion that there was no sportstalk radio before Bill Mazer hit New York City in 1964 to stake his claim as the Christopher Columbus of yakk when he started taking calls on WNBC-AM. That’s sort of a myth, but who’s counting? A cat named Benny the Fan had done a show. Marty Glickman, too.

Mazer did it differently. He perfected and personalized it. The man absolutely made a one-on-one connection, especially with kids. It didn’t matter where you were listening or calling from — Mazer was speaking to nobody else but you.

 

From Richard Goldstein’s obituary in the New York Times:

Mr. Mazer had been covering sports at radio and TV stations in Buffalo for 16 years when he was hired by WNBC-AM in March 1964. It was unveiling an innovative talk format.

“Here, Go Nag WNBC!” the station said in a March 1964 advertisement. “Listen to the Newest Sound in New York — your own voice and your neighbor’s — on WNBC Radio, 660 on the dial.”

The station invited listeners to pick up their phones and “talk sports with Bill Mazer from 4:30-6 p.m.”

Mr. Mazer held down the sports call-in spot while others, including Brad Crandall, Long John Nebel and Big Wilson, fielded calls on just about anything else.

From the New York Post:

“He had the ability to take sports facts and trivia and relate it to the here and now,’’ his son Arnie told The Post. “He combined the experience of seeing sports of the 1920s and related it to the present day. He could easily relate the past to the present and the present to the past and the past to the future.’’

Mazer’s last stint was as a radio host for WVOS in Westchester until he was 88. His funeral service will be held Sunday in White Plains.

“He was the pioneer of sports talk radio, and what I remember most about Bill was his passion for what he was doing,” broadcaster Marv Albert said. “He just loved being around people talking about sports all the time.”

 

Why did Chamblee tweet apology to Tiger? Why hasn’t he appeared on Golf Channel to address matter?

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Shortly after defending his Golf.com on Tiger Woods and cheating in an Associated Press story yesterday, Brandel Chamblee sent out the following tweets last night.

Why the sudden retreat from Chamblee?

Did the Golf Channel and NBC, which owns the Golf Channel, put pressure on Chamblee to stop throwing gasoline on the fire here? Yesterday’s comments were far more damning than what he wrote in the original piece, where it actually was buried in his season-in-review.

There’s definitely a good chance Chamblee received a series of calls from Golf Channel officials about this matter. The last thing it wants is the No. 1 player in the world boycotting the network. Not a good situation if you’re a channel dedicated to golf.

Also, the Golf Channel likely heard from the PGA Tour about this matter. Having your top player accused of being a cheater isn’t good for business or the game. Considering the network’s heavy menu of tournaments and relationship with the highly-image conscious Tour, yet another reason to try to put out this fire before it becomes an inferno.

It is curious to note that Chamblee has not appeared on the Golf Channel to address his comments and the fallout. It definitely is the biggest golf story of the week. Chamblee works for the Golf Channel. Why not put him on the air to address the matter?

I can’t believe Golf Channel thinks this is just going to go away. At some point, Chamblee will have to discuss the whole affair in front of a Golf Channel logo.

I suspect the Woods camp will want more than a Twitter apology from Chamblee. Even then, I think the damage might already be done. Woods, who definitely knows how to hold a grudge, will want to make Chamblee pay, and his main employer, Golf Channel, still could be impacted.

Also, regarding last night’s tweet, I think that Chamblee found himself way out on the limb here, much further than he imagined. Perhaps he underestimated the intense reaction to his comments, forcing him to find a way to get back to safer ground.

The key line in the tweets is Chamblee saying, “golf is a gentleman’s game.” Indeed, I’ve been covering golf since 1997, and I can’t recall an incident of a player calling out another player as a cheater. Help me out if I’m wrong here.The Vijay Singh thing happened in the ’80s.

“A gentleman” doesn’t label a player as a cheater in public. Instead, it is handled internally, away from the cameras.

Labeling a player as “a cheater” is the worst allegation in golf. Chamblee knows that. Perhaps he realized what he wrote violated the “gentleman” code of the game.

However, notice that Chamblee didn’t apologize for his comments. He apologized for “this incited discourse.”

Clearly, Chamblee thinks Woods crossed the line this year, especially with the penalty he incurred at the BMW Championship. Chamblee is dogged in his beliefs. His views about Woods here haven’t been altered one bit.

All in all, it should make for must-see viewing when Chamblee does appear on Golf Channel again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicago Bears up broadcast ante: move to forefront with new state-of-art multimedia center

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I did a big piece in Wednesday’s USA Today on the Bears’ new multimedia center at their team headquarters in Halas Hall. It really is extraordinary, showing how NFL teams now are diving in even deeper as content companies.

This isn’t about controlling the message; it is about monetizing the message.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

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LAKE FOREST, Ill. — It is late Monday afternoon, and the shade starts to hover over the idle practice field. Halas Hall, the Chicago Bears headquarters, is relatively quiet the day after a tough and costly loss to the Washington Redskins, a game that saw the team lose quarterback Jay Cutler and linebacker Lance Briggs to injuries.

But in another part of the facility, activity is ramping up. Bright lights flash on, and men test four cameras positions in the shiny new broadcast studio. Host Chris Boden and analyst Dan Jiggetts go over their notes for the last time in preparation for Bears Recap, which will air shortly on Comcast Sports Net Chicago.

Jiggetts, an offensive tackle for the Bears from 1976 to 1982, takes a long look at his lavish surroundings, which went live last week. He has memories of playing in relatively spartan digs during an era when owner George Halas, who died in 1983, kept a firm grip on his wallet.

“This is such a huge leap forward,” Jiggetts said. “I wonder what the old man would think of this.”

The Bears, a franchise once accused of being stuck in the 19th century, have taken a bold move into the 21st century by building the most advanced in-house multimedia facility in the NFL. Much of the 40,000-square-foot addition to Halas Hall features state-of-the-art TV and radio studios; deluxe new interview rooms for use by the team and network studio shows; and a technical center, Bears director of broadcasting Greg Miller says, capable of operating a network. There also is event space, allowing the team to bring in studio audiences for shows.

When asked if any team in the NFL has a similar facility, Miller said, “No, but they will.”

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The in-house setup, though, does raise the question of whether teams such as the Bears are trying to control the message. Is this an attempt to provide a more sanitized perspective to fans?

Phillips denied that media control was the motivation.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 30 years with the Bears, it’s that you can’t control the message,” he said.

Jiggetts, who does analysis for several Bears-produced shows, says the team hasn’t tried to censor him. He discussed Monday the Bears’ shortcomings in their loss to the Redskins, especially with a defense that gave up 499 yards.

“When I played, we used to say, ‘The eye in the sky don’t lie,'” Jiggetts said. “Everyone is sophisticated enough to appreciate the truth.”

Yet there is an element of trying to frame the coverage beyond what the team receives locally and from the networks.

Phillips notes Bears-produced content allows the team to showcase community initiatives and go behind the scenes for features that spotlight a player away from the field.

Irving Rein, a communications professor at Northwestern who has written extensively on sports marketing and media, says in-house production enables the Bears to control and monetize the content.

“I think it definitely is both,” Rein said. “If you are producing the product, you have control over the message. Part of it is in response to what’s going on with the Internet. It’s difficult to get a message through unadulterated. You’ve got a lot of clutter. They couldn’t control the message if a third party was doing it.”