| | The Daily Insider
Afternoon News & Headlines
Monday, March 25, 2002
4:00pm ET | |
| • | YES Expands Offerings With Deal To Televise Manchester United Games |
| • | OCSN Takes The Place Of FANSonly Network In Rebranding Initiative |
| • | Fox Assigns Sternberg To Lead Pan American Sports Venture |
| • | Will Latinos Drink In New Pepsi/Gatorade Product? |
| • | A New Goodwill Game? AOL Takes $54B Charge |
| • | Buzzer Beaters/In Other News/Daily Stat/Channel Surfing |
YES NETWORK TO SHOW UP TO 20 UNITED MATCHES THIS SEASON
BLOOMBERG NEWS reports that the YES Network has "signed a contract with Manchester United Plc to show taped telecasts of the English soccer team's games." YES will show about 20 matches a year, beginning with ManU's April 20 game against Chelsea. YES "will sell advertising to the soccer telecasts and share an undisclosed percentage" with ManU (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 3/25).
FANSONLY NETWORK ANNOUNCES REBRANDING INITIATIVE
Student Advantage's FANSonly Network today announced that it is changing its name and logo to the Official College Sports Network (OCSN). The OCSN currently has 122 official relationships and partners, with 55% of all Div. I-A schools. Meanwhile, OCSN has launched a new Web solutions service for college and university athletic departments called OAS Basic, which it will market to Div. I-AA, I-AAA, II and III university athletic departments (THE DAILY).
FOX SPORTS WORLD PROMOTES STERNBERG TO SENIOR VP POST
Fox Sports World announced this afternoon that David Sternberg, formerly VP & GM of Fox Sports Int'l, has been promoted to Senior VP/Network Operations & Business Development and GM of the Fox Sports World and Fox Sports World Espanol U.S. networks. Sternberg will also handle day-to-day management of Fox Cable Networks Group's interests in the new Fox Pan American Sports venture announced last month. Sternberg will report to Fox Sports Cable Networks and Fox Sports Int'l President Bob Thompson (THE DAILY).
PEPSI SEEKS TO CRACK LATIN MARKET WITH NEW GATORADE LINE
After an Ad Age report last week, the L.A. TIMES reports that Gatorade "is thirsting after the U.S. Latino market." PepsiCo is "introducing a new line of Gatorade brand drinks into the highly competitive beverage market, which is being sliced into ever smaller segments. … PepsiCo is looking to broaden Gatorade sales among the nation's 35 million Latinos, who make up about 12% of Gatorade's market" (L.A. TIMES, 3/25).
AOL'S ANNUAL REPORT SHOWS $54B GOODWILL CHARGE
REUTERS reports AOL Time Warner Inc. "will take a $54 billion quarterly charge, likely to be the largest on record, to reflect a steep decline in the value of AOL's purchase of Time Warner." AOL is taking the charge "due to new accounting rules about goodwill." By taking the charge all at once, AOL "will add about $6.3 billion to its future net income" (REUTERS, 3/25).
BUZZER BEATERS
The AP reports the Univ. of Pittsburgh has called a press conference for today to announce a new contract for men's basketball coach Ben Howland. The new deal calls for Howland to receive "a total of about $400,000 a year, or toward the lower end of the pay scale for Big East Conference coaches" (AP, 3/25).
FLW Outdoors announced that Newell Rubbermaid Inc., a global marketer of consumer products whose brands include Sharpie, Rubbermaid and Little Tikes, is the newest member of its sponsorship team (THE DAILY).
TODAY'S ARTICLES OF INTEREST
The Toronto GLOBE & MAIL's William Houston examines women broadcasters posing for Urban Male Magazine.
The FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM's Todd Mason on the fall of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst's Pan American Sports Network.
The N.Y. DAILY NEWS' Filip Bondy profiles Spalding, which produces the Official NBA basketball.
NEWSDAY's Laura Price-Brown's examines sports team doctors.
The Cleveland PLAIN DEALER's Susan Vinella profiles Greater Cleveland Sports Commission President David Gilbert.
The DALLAS MORNING NEWS' Richard Alm examines athlete's salaries.
The PALM BEACH POST's Hal Habib on the dangers facing fans at sporting events.
IN OTHER NEWS…..
Preliminary Nielsen ratings show that last night's broadcast of the "74th Annual Academy Awards" on ABC earned a 30.0/46 preliminary Nielsen rating, up 2% from the major market measurement of 29.2/43 in '01 (AP, 3/25).
In DC, Tom Shales writes the record-long Oscar show "was rife with highlights and powerful emotional moments, and yet there was something sodden and leaden about the whole seemingly endless ordeal" (WASHINGTON POST, 3/25).
In Boston, Matthew Gilbert writes, "As usual, the technical awards formed a Bermuda triangle in the middle of the show, and the film-clip fests and production numbers numbed our brains. Cirque du Soleil is spectacular, but could we take a rain check?" (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/25).
The AP reports that "officials from the ailing Kirch media empire met Monday with creditors to consider a rescue plan that sources said could see the companies of media tycoons Rupert Murdoch and Silvio Berlusconi take control of its five commercial television channels" (AP, 3/25).
TONIGHT'S EVENTS
Former MLB P Jeff Brantley makes his debut on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" this evening. Brantley will work Wednesday night games as a color analyst and appear every other week on Thursday through Saturday nights on "Baseball Tonight" (Jackson CLARION-LEDGER, 3/25).
The PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE reports the Hanson Brothers "get immortalized tonight inside the Hockey Hall of Fame," as the trio attends the Toronto premiere of their new "Slap Shot II: Breaking the Ice," which is due in video stores tomorrow (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 3/25).
Former NHLer Pat LaFontaine "will be at the [Nassau] Coliseum tonight to present the Pat LaFontaine Trophy to the winner" of the Islanders-Rangers game. The trophy is "awarded to the winner of the season series," and heading into tonight, the teams have won two games apiece. The losing franchise "sends a donation to the charity of the winning team." LaFontaine's foundation "works to create interactive playrooms at children's hospitals" (NEWSDAY, 3/25).
THE DAILY STATS: N.Y. TIMES BESTSELLING NONFICTION
The following presents best selling nonfiction books from the N.Y. TIMES for the week ending March 16, 2002 (N.Y. TIMES).
| THIS
WEEK | | HARDCOVER NONFICTION |
| 1) | | STUPID WHITE MEN, Michael Moore (ReganBooks/HarperCollins) |
| 2) | | BIAS, Bernard Goldberg (Regnery) |
| 3) | | SHAKEDOWN, Kenneth R. Timmerman (Regnery) |
| 4) | | LOVE, GREG & LAUREN, Greg Manning (Bantam) |
| 5) | | SHADOW WARRIORS, Tom Clancy with Carl Stiner and Tony Koltz (Putnam) |
| 6) | | DRIVER #8, Dale Earnhardt Jr. with Jade Gurss (Warner) |
| 7) | | SACRED CONTRACTS, Caroline Myss (Harmony) |
| 8) | | ONE NATION, Life Magazine (Little, Brown) |
| 9) | | THE BUREAU AND THE MOLE, David A. Vise (Atlantic Monthly) |
| 10) | | THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL, Stephen Hawking (Bantam) |
| |
CHANNEL SURFING
ESPN2 will air the NCAA women's college basketball tournament East Regional Final, Univ. of SC-Duke Univ. at 7:00pm ET and West Regional Final, Univ. of CO-Univ. of OK at 9:30pm ET.
ESPN will air the NCAA women's college basketball tournament Mideast Regional Final, Univ. of CT-Old Dominion Univ. at 7:30pm ET and Midwest Regional Final, Univ. of TN-Vanderbilt Univ. at 9:30pm ET.
ESPN Classic's "SportsCentury" will profile Barry Bonds at 8:00pm ET.
Univ. of IN coach Mike Davis and OK State Univ. coach Eddie Sutton will be on ESPN's "Unscripted."
Univ. of South FL coach Seth Greenberg and Kent State Univ. coach Stan Heath will be on FSN's "The Last Word."
A&E's "Biography" will profile Jezebel: Queen of Infamy at 8:00pm ET.
HEADLINERS
Here are tonight's headline guests on the following talk shows:
| "The Late Show" | Adam Arkin |
| "The Tonight Show" | Arsenio Hall |
| "The Late Late Show" | John Leguizamo |
| "Late Night" | Sir Ian McKellen (r) |
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please let us know at:
dailyinsider@sportsbusinessdaily.com
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