Update: Simmons on Magic: “GREAT GUY”; denies Deadspin story about Johnson departure from Countdown

Update: Bill Simmons, through ESPN, issued this statement:

“I loved getting to know Magic these past 12 months and was saddened to hear about his decision. We genuinely liked working with one another. Last night Lon Rosen and I were already talking about other possible projects that Magic and I could do together down the road. He’s my friend. And a GREAT guy.”

From Lon Rosen, Johnson’s agent.

“Magic and Bill Simmons got to be very close and continue to be close.  Bill Simmons and Earvin Johnson are friends. Earvin’s close to Bill. We called Bill before the release went out. Bill has been to parties at Earvin’s house. He’s been to Dodgers game with Bill. He likes Bill a lot.”

********

Bill Simmons issued a tweet, refuting a Deadspin story that he is responsible for Magic Johnson’s departure from ESPN’s NBA Countdown.

 

 

 

In the post, John Koblin bases his information on ESPN sources.

ESPN sources tell us that Johnson’s departure was the result of an old-fashioned power war, with one very clear winner: Bill Simmons. “It’s Simmons’s show now,” said one source.

Magic apparently was not at all happy when ESPN told his buddy Michael Wilbon that his role on NBA Countdown would be diminished. He was “booted,” according to one source. Another ESPN insider also said that Magic was “privately seething over the Wilbon thing and in general did not like that Simmons held all the power and influence.” Magic didn’t necessarily need the power, our sources explained; he just didn’t feel like kowtowing to Simmons when he’s, well, Magic Johnson.

“The bottom line is they turned that show over to Simmons,” said our source. “That’s why Doug Collins got hired and why Wilbon was out.”

Simmons obviously isn’t buying that account.

 

More Notre Dame: NBC SN signs on to cover 12 Irish home hockey games

It appears as if college hockey is going to be a big winner as all these cable networks scramble to air live programming. Earlier this week, NBC SN announced it would air five Big Ten game this year.

Today, the network stretches its exclusive relationship with Notre Dame to hockey.

Here are the details NBC SN:

********

NBC Sports Group and Notre Dame announced a three-year agreement to annually telecast 12 Notre Dame Hockey home games on NBCSN. In addition, NBC Sports Live Extra will live stream all 12 games telecast on NBCSN and eight additional Notre Dame Hockey home games.

NBCSN will present more than 20 college hockey games this season including 12 Notre Dame home games, five Hockey East games and five Big Ten games. The network’s 2013-14 college hockey schedule is highlighted by more than 10 appearances by pre-season Top 15 teams. NBC Sports Live Extra will live stream more than 30 college hockey games this season.

“We are excited to begin our third season of college hockey on NBCSN, which will feature more Top 15 teams than ever before,” said Jon Miller, President, Programming NBC Sports and NBCSN. “In addition to presenting 12 Notre Dame home games, we are also proud to deliver five Hockey East games and coverage of Big Ten hockey’s inaugural season.”

The 2013-14 NBCSN college hockey schedule will feature 12 appearances by No. 7 Notre Dame, and two appearances for No. 3 Wisconsin and No. 5 Minnesota. In addition, No. 6 North Dakota, No. 10 Michigan, and No. 13 New Hampshire will also play games on NBCSN.

NBCSN’s coverage of the 2013-14 college hockey season begins tonight at 8 p.m. ET with Western Michigan at No. 7 Notre Dame, live from Compton Family Ice Arena in South Bend, Ind. The game will also be available online via NBC Sports Live Extra.

*All rankings based off USA Today/USA Hockey Men’s College Hockey Poll

2013-14 NBCSN COLLEGE HOCKEY SCHEDULE

DATE GAME TIME
Friday, October 11 Western Michigan – Notre Dame 8 p.m.
Friday, October 25 Massachusetts – Maine 8 p.m.
Friday, November 1 Northeastern – Boston College 8 p.m.
Friday, November 8 Minnesota – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 15 Merrimack – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Friday, November 22 North Dakota – Boston University 7:30 p.m.
Friday, December 6 Massachusetts – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, December 7 Massachusetts – Notre Dame 6:30 p.m.
Friday, December 13 Colorado College – Wisconsin 7:30 p.m.
Friday, January 10 Alabama Huntsville – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Friday, January 17 Lake Superior State – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Friday, January 18 Penn State – Michigan State 6:30 p.m.
Friday, January 24 Northeastern – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Friday, January 25 Northeastern – Notre Dame 7:00 p.m.
Friday, January 31 Boston University – Massachusetts 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 1 Wisconsin – Michigan 6:30 p.m.
Friday, February 7 Maine – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, February 8 Maine – Notre Dame 8 p.m.
Friday, February 14 Boston University – New Hampshire 7 p.m.
Saturday, February 15 Wisconsin – Ohio State 8 p.m.
Friday, February 21 Boston University – Notre Dame 7 p.m.
Saturday, March 1 Penn State – Minnesota TBD

*All times listed are ET and subject to change.

2013-14 NBC SPORTS LIVE EXTRA COLLEGE HOCKEY SCHEDULE

DATE GAME TIME
Friday, October 18 Michigan Tech – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 9 Minnesota – Notre Dame 7 p.m.
Saturday, November 16 Merrimack – Notre Dame 7 p.m.
Friday, November 29 Alabama Huntsville – Notre Dame 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, November 30 Shillelagh Tournament 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, January 11 Alabama Huntsville – Notre Dame 7 p.m.
Saturday, January 18 Lake Superior State – Notre Dame 7 p.m.
Saturday, February 22 Boston University – Notre Dame 7 p.m.

*All times listed are ET and subject to change.

 

Your next Hard Knocks team: 49ers; Harbaugh says he is open to doing series

Jim Harbaugh definitely will be getting a call from HBO and NFL Films during the off-season.

From Taylor Price of 49ers.com:

Jim Harbaugh likes to keep things close to the vest.

But that doesn’t mean the 49ers coach is against his team being featured on NFL Films’ “Hard Knocks” reality show.

“If that’s something we were in position to do, then we’d certainly do it,” the 49ers coach said on Wednesday.

And more.

He also understands that the popularity of the show will keep it around for a long time.

“There’s going to be teams that are going to be on ‘Hard Knocks’ and that seems like a popular thing and something people want to see,” Harbaugh said. “So, I don’t see it going away. You could stamp your feet and say I don’t want to do it, but I don’t know how productive that is for anybody concerned.”

Harbaugh said the 49ers haven’t been “tempted” to do the show during his three seasons with the club.

But he did admit to watching the reality show.

“I find it quite entertaining,” Harbaugh said.

Harbaugh definitely would be entertaining on Hard Knocks. However, don’t pencil in the 49ers just yet.

Under the new criteria, teams that make the playoffs two years in a row can’t be forced to do the show.

 

 

Posted in HBO

Yes, it can be done: Last 2 Cardinals-Pirates games finish in 2:36, 2:40

As part of our on-going series monitoring the clock during baseball’s postseason, it is duly noted that the Cardinals and Pirates showed it is possible to play baseball at a brisk pace.

All but Game 2 of the series (3:03) came in under 3 hours. Game 4 was completed in 2:36. Last night, the Cardinals advanced in Game 5 in 2:40.

So you say, the last two games featured good pitching, right? Well, there was good pitching in Game 2 of Oakland-Detroit with the A’s winning 1-0. Time: 3:24.

You say, the National League plays faster than the American League, right? Quickest game in LA-Atlanta series was Game 4 at 3:19.

It was refreshing to watch last night’s game. Adam Wainwright, a pro’s pro, gets the ball and throws it. Yes, it definitely helps that he throws strikes, a novel concept.

The Pirates pitchers also worked quickly. And the game kept moving at a nice pace.

Yes, it can be done.

 

 

 

Posted in MLB

Rich Eisen, former Chicago Tribune stringer: ‘Couldn’t have done it without watching Wheeling High School football’

My latest Chicago Tribune column is on Rich Eisen. He explains why Chicago always will have a special place in his heart. He also discusses the impact of NFL Network on its 10th anniversary.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed.

From the column.

********

Everyone starts somewhere. If you played high school football and basketball in Chicago in 1993-1994, there’s a chance Rich Eisen, long before he became the Rich Eisen, reported on one of your games.

As a graduate student in journalism at Northwestern, Eisen covered high schools Fridays and Saturdays for the Tribune.

“It helped put a few bucks in my pocket,” Eisen said. “I’d go to Palatine, Schaumburg, wherever they sent me. Collect the stats, get a quote and then phone it in to the desk.”

Eisen has fond memories of his short Tribune stint; there’s even a line about it in his NFL Network biography.

“I’m proud of it,” Eisen said. “I couldn’t have done it without watching Wheeling High School football.”

Thursday, Eisen returns to Chicago to cover another football game. He will anchor NFL Network’s pre- and postgame coverage of Bears-Giants from Soldier Field. Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock will be on the call for the game.

NFL Network is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. It was Eisen who brought the network on the air in November 2003.

The notion of a 24/7 channel dedicated to the NFL seemed ludicrous back then, especially since it didn’t have any live games. People also thought Eisen was crazy to leave a terrific gig at ESPN to hook up with the fledgling network, which opened with only 11 million subscribers.

Now in 70 million homes, Eisen believes NFL Network changed the sports landscape.

“Ten years ago, the NFL was not considered a year-round venture,” Eisen said. “Right before I left ESPN, someone suggested doing a NFL story in the spring. The person was laughed out of the room. Now you have live football shows daily on multiple networks. There’s no question in my mind, without this network, there would not be the sense that football is talked about every single day. There was no idea to do it. People didn’t think it would work. We showed that it can.”

Outrageous: A 3-1 game takes 3 hours, 49 minutes

Yet another one for the broken stopwatch file. And this time, Clay Buchholz wasn’t pitching.

Last night’s Boston-Tampa Bay game went 3 hours, 49 minutes. And this was for a 3-1 Red Sox victory.

Yes, that was an improvement over Monday’s 4:19 affair. Many people blamed the slow moving Buchholz for that one.

Well, who was at fault for Tuesday night’s drip-by-drip game? I tried to make it to the end, but with the game moving so slow, it proved to be a wonderful sleep aid. I didn’t see the final score until this morning.

In the other game Tuesday, Detroit’s 8-6 victory over Oakland went 3:25, which now seems swift compared to Boston-Tampa Bay.

As I said, I’ll continue to monitor the game times during the postseason. Assuming I can stay awake.

 

 

 

Posted in MLB

CBS’ Nantz: Denver-Dallas had ‘feel of a Super Bowl’

I interrupted Jim Nantz during our conversation yesterday.

“Jim, you missed it. Denver just scored another touchdown,” I said.

“That’s right,” Nantz laughed. “Manning to Welker.”

Like everyone else, Nantz still was buzzing about Denver’s 51-48 victory over Dallas. On the call for CBS with Phil Simms, it was his job to keep up with the track meet.

“I’ve done almost 250 NFL broadcasts, and I can’t think of any game that had that kind of tempo, pace,” Nantz said. “It did feel like a Super Bowl. There was tremendous star power; the glorious stadium on a beautiful afternoon. There were two teams running up and down the field. It was exhilarating.”

Nantz’s only regret is that he didn’t have another Denver game Monday.

“There were so many plays that stood out on their own,” Nantz said. “Romo spinning around, Peyton’s bootleg out of nowhere. It was a great game to be there as an eyewitness. It was the kind of the game where you wish you could go back right away and call another one like it.”

With the way the schedule breaks, Nantz won’t have another Denver game until Nov. 10 when the Broncos visit San Diego.

 

 

Posted in NFL

NFL to compel teams to do ‘Hard Knocks’; Failure to make playoffs could make teams a candidate

Well, this should create some interesting conversations.

Obviously, the league had to do something after it was forced to go with Cincinnati this year for the second time since 2009. While the series had its moments as always, nobody was clamoring to see the Bengals again.

Daniel Kaplan of Sports Business Daily reports:

NFL owners at their meeting in DC today agreed to compel teams to take part in the HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series, though with conditions. Teams that made the playoffs two years in a row, have a new head coach or were on the show in the last five years are exempt. Currently teams are not obligated to be part of the series, and the new process will only occur if no team volunteers.

Obviously, Hard Knocks is an important franchise for the NFL. The series has to get more teams to cooperate to move it around and keep things fresh.

Love the stipulation excluding teams that make consecutive playoff appearances. Yet another incentive to win.

Losing now means you could get a visit from 30 cameramen at your next training camp.

 

 

 

Posted in NFL

Reviews for PBS concussion documentary: New York Times says ‘oddly unsurprising’; much praise elsewhere

Tonight is the big night for PBS. Not so much for the NFL.

League of Denial, the Frontline documentary on concussions, is set for 9 p.m. ET. Based on the book by Mark Fainaru-Wada and his brother, Steve Fainaru, the film examines how the NFL looked the other way for a long time before acknowledging that it had a problem.

I did not get an advance screening of the documentary, although I am anticipating it will be excellent.

Here are some reviews, including an interesting assessment from Neil Genzlinger of the New York Times. He appeared uninspired by the documentary.

Much of this has already been reported, with Alan Schwarz of The New York Times often leading the way, but the program will certainly be eye-opening for anyone — especially parents with children of Pop Warner league age — who hasn’t followed the subject closely or seen “The United States of Football,” a documentary released in August.

Eye-opening, but at the same time oddly unsurprising. The N.F.L. is a huge entertainment industry (one with gigantic contracts with ESPN). Tobacco and other big businesses have already shown that when health concerns threaten a business model, a head-in-the-sand approach is often the first line of defense.

Yes, let’s assume not everyone read every word of the NY Times’ reporting on the issue. It will be eye-opening.

Brian Lowery, Variety:

How bad does “League of Denial” look for the NFL? Put it this way: Whenever you are compared with Big Tobacco in the 1960s, your PR department has every reason to be concerned.

Verne Gay, Newsday:

But what “League of Denial” does well is set this up for the average viewer — someone who may not know that for years there has been a raging controversy in the NFL over concussions. “Denial” only hints at the ramifications, but here’s at least one: What if a mom somewhere decides she doesn’t want her son to get chronic traumatic encephalopathy some day? Where, then, will the NFL get its players?

Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times:

Television is indicted too, specifically “Monday Night Football,” which, from its premiere in 1970 increased the popularity of the sport and the money it generated. Emphasizing the game’s gladiatorial, human-demolition-derby side, the broadcasts helped change the way the game is played.

We get a lot of slow-motion footage of butting heads, some of it from the NFL’s own home videos, with titles like “Big Blocks and King Size Hits,” “Crash Course” and “Moment of Impact”: “The meek will never inherit this turf,” a narrator intones.

Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post:

Doctors express amazement at what they saw through the microscope, sometimes involving horrible damage to chronologically young brains.

Through each scientific finding, the NFL is shown to have reacted with denials, demanding retractions of scientific papers, discrediting researchers who made the findings public and spending heavily to shut down evidence that football was responsible for the brain damage to players.

Erik Malinowski, Buzzfeed:

Powerful anecdotes put the consequences of brain trauma in human terms. One of the most chilling is told by super-agent Leigh Steinberg, who describes meeting his client, Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, in a Dallas-area hospital after the 1994 NFC Championship. Aikman had been knocked from the game with a knee to the head, and Steinberg informed him in the dark — the lights in the hospital were too bright for Aikman’s concussed brain — that he had been concussed but that his team had won the game and that he was heading to his second straight Super Bowl. Five minutes later, Aikman asked him why he was in the hospital and what had happened in the game, and then asked the same thing again five minutes after that, his frontal cortex little more than a skipping vinyl record.

 

 

 

Posted in NFL

NBA Countdown: Doug Collins signs on; replaces Michael Wilbon

This just in from ESPN.

As expected, Doug Collins is back in broadcasting. This time with ESPN.

The move also means Michael Wilbon won’t be bagging as many frequent flier miles. The grind of doing both Pardon The Interruption and Countdown was excessive. Wilbon, though, still will be a featured performer on ESPN’s NBA coverage.

The details from ESPN:

******

ESPN today announced it has reached a multi-year agreement with veteran NBA head coach Doug Collins. Collins will serve as an analyst on NBA Countdown – ABC and ESPN’s NBA pre-game show – with Basketball Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Jalen Rose and Bill Simmons. In addition, he will serve as a game analyst for select telecasts on ESPN.

Collins will also make regular appearances across ESPN entities, including SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, ESPN.com and additional news and information programming.

“ESPN’s NBA coverage plays a leadership role in the way fans experience the sport, so I’m eager to share my basketball insights with our viewers,” said Collins. “Working with Magic, Jalen, Bill and the rest of my new ESPN colleagues will be a lot of fun.”

In addition to more regular in-studio appearances on Pardon The Interruption, veteran ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon will continue to have a significant presence on ESPN’s NBA coverage across platforms. Wilbon will regularly contribute to ESPN news and information programming, including SportsCenter, where he will provide reports, analysis and offer essays on pertinent NBA topics. Wilbon will also be on site for the NBA Conference Finals and NBA Finals.

John Wildhack, ESPN Executive Vice President, Production:

“Doug Collins is a one of the most respected NBA voices and we’re thrilled to have him join NBA Countdown. Collins brings a contemporary coaching perspective, which will enhance the diverse discussion on Countdown. Additionally, Michael Wilbon will remain a leading authority for the NBA on ESPN while maintaining the flexibility to increase his in-studio appearances on our important Pardon The Interruption franchise.”

Collins has enjoyed successful coaching and playing careers in the NBA. He served as NBA head coach for 11 seasons, most recently with the Philadelphia 76ers, and reached the NBA Playoffs seven times. In addition to his coaching success, Collins played eight seasons combined in the ABA and NBA and is a four-time All-Star. He has also made a significant impact as a television analyst. Collins has contributed to NBC’s NBA game coverage and Olympics coverage and has worked as a game analyst for Turner Sports. In 2009, he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, receiving the prestigious Curt Gowdy Media Award.

NBA Countdown will debut Friday, Nov. 1, at 7 p.m. ET during a special one-hour pre-game telecast, preceding ESPN’s season-opening doubleheader: Miami Heat/Brooklyn Nets at 8 p.m.; San Antonio Spurs/Los Angeles Lakers at 10:30 p.m.