TV MONITOR: Last night's 10:00pm ET 60-minute edition
of FSN's "The Keith Olbermann Evening News" led with his
apology to Dodgers P Kevin Brown for repeating an erroneous
L.A. Times story about Brown being rude to a woman reporter,
followed by Broncos-Raiders. The first report on the
Olympics, at 28:40 into the broadcast, was Olbermann asking,
"Is the Olympics still sport?" Olbermann had 12:19 of total
Olympic coverage. Last night's 11:00pm ET 60-minute edition
of CNN/SI's "Sports Tonight" led with Broncos-Raiders,
followed by Bills-Jets. The first non-NFL report, at 9:28,
was an update on Olympic results and "Sports Tonight" had
2:47 of total Olympic coverage. Last night's 11:30pm ET 60-
minute edition of ESPN's "SportsCenter" led with Bills-Jets,
followed by Bucs-Lions. The first non-NFL report, at 9:17,
was Indians-Yankees. The first Olympic report, at 16:18,
was coverage of the U.S. baseball team and "SportsCenter"
had 3:21 of total Olympic coverage (THE DAILY).
NFL NOTES: In Orlando, Jerry Greene calls the move by
CBS' "The NFL Today" to unveil "its own female dancers" as
"pathetic. ... Can you say 'desperate?'" Also, Greene
writes, "For whatever reason, the Fox halftime show was
awful as everyone involved piled one factual mistake upon
another. Perhaps their teleprompters were broken" (ORLANDO
SENTINEL, 9/18)....NFL Films "will put a small microphone on
one player and follow him with two cameras during the first
half" of each "MNF" game for a "two-minute piece to air at
halftime" of ABC's broadcast. The league has also talked to
CBS and Fox about the feature (AP, 9/16)....NFL Commissioner
Paul Tagliabue, on whether he has "enjoyed listening to"
"MNF" analyst Dennis Miller: "We've only had two weeks of
the regular season, but I think he's added a good element.
... I think Dennis will be good" (NFL.com, 9/14).
CBA DEAL WORTH $500,000: The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER cites
CBA President Don Welsh as stating that BET's one-year deal
to telecast 18 CBA regular- and postseason games this season
is valued at $500,000 (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 9/18). ...In
Detroit, Terry Foster writes "shame on" SI for its cover on
former IN Univ. men's basketball coach Bobby Knight, as it
showed a profile of Knight "in flaming red, making him look
like the devil" (DETROIT NEWS, 9/18)....In Houston, Michael
Murphy wrote that 21,000 fans "saluted" radio host Jim Rome
when he took the stage at Enron Field to do his show, "The
Jungle" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 9/17).
