Fox Sports Online, www.foxsports.com, has created a new
All-Star Game area which will launch on Monday. The site
will "grade each team as they head" into the All-Star break,
"offer virtual coverage" of the game and daily reports and
photos as well as a historical look at past games and
players (N.Y. POST, 6/26)....In Boston, Howard Manly writes
that TNT "provided basketball junkies with solid coverage of
the NBA draft" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/27). In Detroit, Joe Falls:
"Surprisingly, I enjoyed the NBA draft on TV even if I
didn't know many of the players. The reason: Hubie Brown's
comments. A lot of people get annoyed with this man but he
knows his basketball and, even better, he knows how to talk
basketball" (DETROIT NEWS, 6/27)....In N.Y., Steve Zipay
writes that the "first fallout" from the Fox/Liberty-
Cablevision deal is that the July 9 launch of American
Sports Classics (ASC) "has been delayed until at least the
fall." The channel will now be "managed" by Fox/Liberty and
based in L.A., and Zipay reports that Fox "is unhappy with
ASC's library, which does not include replay rights from
some leagues" (NEWSDAY, 6/27)....After a seven week absence,
Titleist "has quietly" placed new ads in Sports Illustrated.
SI publisher David Long: "We're happy to have them back."
Titleist had pulled ads after an SI article around the
Dinah Shore LPGA Tour event (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 6/27).
...During the Padres-Giants game Monday, for the first time
each team used Princeton Video Image's L-VIS virtual
advertising system on their respective broadcasts. During
the game, SportsChannel Pacific viewers in S.F. saw an ad
behind home plate for the Bravo Card, S.D. viewers saw an ad
for the San Diego Zoo on Cox Cable 4 (PVI)....In Toronto,
Ken McKee writes that Global's ratings for the Maple Leafs
for the past season "plunged" more than 30% to 409,000
viewers per minute. The "largest single-game audience,
591,000, was lower than the per-game average over the entire
1995-1996 campaign (549,000)" (TORONTO STAR, 6/27).