TV MONITOR: Last night's 10:00pm ET 60-minute edition
of FSN's "National Sports Report" led with Red Sox-Yankees,
followed by Mets-Cubs and the Wizards hiring former Univ. of
Miami men's basketball coach Leonard Hamilton as their
coach. "NSR" gave a second quarter score of Game Four of
the Lakers-Pacers NBA Finals at 8:10 into the broadcast.
Last night's 11:00pm ET 30-minute edition of CNN/SI's
"Sports Tonight" led with Braves P John Rocker's return to
the team, followed by Braves-Pirates and Red Sox-Yankees.
The first non-MLB report, at 5:55, was yesterday's tribute
to Payne Stewart at the U.S. Open. "Sports Tonight" gave a
third quarter score from the Lakers-Pacers game at 11:52.
Last night's 11:30pm ET 60-minute edition of ESPN's
"SportsCenter" (late due to MLB) led with Lakers-Pacers,
followed by the Wizards hiring Hamilton and D'Backs-Dodgers.
ESPN IN ISRAEL: ESPN launched a 24-hour network in
Israel today, and the network will be distributed by all
three of the country's cable operators, as well as by
Israel's new DBS platform, YES. The sports network will be
telecast in English and reach 1,160,000 subscriber HHs, 100%
of all the HHs in Israel with cable TV (ESPN).
NOTES: Former ABC Sports golf analyst Mark McCumber has
signed with FSN and will begin his duties at the net this
week with the U.S. Open (FL TIMES-UNION, 6/15)....In
Chicago, boxing writer Larry Hamel reviews HBO's new series,
"KO Nation," and writes, "How bad is 'KO Nation? .... 'KO
Nation' hasn't been the bomb, it's been a bomb. The series'
second effort Saturday was the most inept boxing broadcast
I've seen in years" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 6/15)....Also in
Chicago, Jim Kirk notes that Fox Sports Net tried to cover
both the rain-delayed Cubs-Mets game and the White Sox-
Indians game last night. Kirk: "Fox Sports Net said it had
no choice but to bounce jarringly between both games so
often that the viewer got what amounted to a remote control
run amok. ... With the games overlapping, the station
flipped between them, with no warning to viewers at times,
sometimes in the middle of a play. At other times, the
station carried smaller split-screen boxes of both games."
FSN execs "defended the coverage" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 6/15).
...In Toronto, William Houston reports that Rogers
Communications will provide the NHL's Center Ice PPV package
to its customers next season. The only games not accessible
on the package are out-of-market games on CBC's "Hockey
Night in Canada." The Bell ExpressVu small dish system
offered NHL Center Ice last season and reported sales of
about 15,000 for 2000-01 from a total customer base of
150,000 HHs (Toronto GLOBE & MAIL, 6/15).
