TV MONITOR: Last night's 12:00am ET 45-minute edition
of FSN's "National Sports Report" and the 11:00pm ET 60-
minute edition of ESPN's "SportsCenter" (both late due to
NCAA men's basketball) led with Univ. of NC-MI State Univ.
NCAA men's basketball, followed by Univ. of MD-Univ. of WI.
The first non-NCAA men's basketball report for "NSR," at
3:02 into the broadcast, and "SportsCenter," at 10:54, was
Kings-Spurs. The first report on the meeting between Tiger
Woods and PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem was at 18:58 for
"NSR" and 29:31 for "SportsCenter." Last night's 11:00pm ET
30-minute edition of CNN/SI's "Sports Tonight" was pre-
empted by continuing coverage of Election 2000 (THE DAILY).
MLB ON THE WEB: MLB Exec VP Bob DuPuy spoke yesterday
at the eSportsWorld conference in Atlanta and said that
among his goals for MLB.com is to create a "semi-independent
editorial wing, which he said could make for interesting
situations regarding criticism of owners and labor" talks
(ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 11/30). The SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's
Bill King reports that the "hiring pace will accelerate
dramatically" at MLB.com with the naming of Bob Bowman as
Advanced Media CEO. The "selection of vendors and the
building of alliances aren't far behind." Sources say that
MLB has a $35M "powered by" deal in place with a "major"
tech provider (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/27 issue).
ESPN.COM LOOKS AHEAD: ESPN Internet Group Senior
VP/Programming Geoff Reiss, on the convergence of ESPN and
ESPN.com: "If there is a strategy it is to be incredibly
product-driven and not necessarily marketing-driven. We're
looking at all of our shows, our talent and the programming
on ESPN.com in a very deliberate fashion, saying, 'Where are
the opportunities here?'" (ELECTRONIC MEDIA, 11/27 issue).
NOTES: DAILY VARIETY's Mary Sutter reports that Pan-
American Sports Network's Latino sports Web site, PSN.com,
has teamed with European-based Sportal. The new alliance
will provide its users with "great access" to European
sports news and will make Latin American sports news
available to Sportal users (DAILY VARIETY, 11/30).
BUSCH WHACKED: Fox Sports TV Group Chair David Hill
envisions "improved performance" for NASCAR's Busch Series
when the network's TV partnership begins next year. Hill:
"The real sleeper is Busch. There haven't been a lot of
resources or focus put against it. I think we can see a 1.5
[rating] for FX with Busch on a Saturday afternoon. That's
great for cable" (CABLE WORLD, 11/27 issue).
TNN READY FOR XFL ON FEBRUARY 11: DAILY VARIETY's Paula
Bernstein reports that Viacom-owned The National Network
formally announced that it has landed exclusive cable rights
to the XFL, which will air on Sunday afternoons between
February 11 and April 8 (DAILY VARIETY, 11/30).
