Matt Winer is serving as host of TBS' coverage of the Cardinals-Brewers NLCS after having worked at ESPN from '01-10. Winer joined Turner's NBA TV last year and said, "Turner is such a different operation than ESPN, it's relatively smaller so you're working with the same people over and over and I think there's value in that. My role is a lot more specific. At ESPN, by necessity, you pretty much have to be a jack of all trades. You're going to wind up doing the NASCAR show eventually even if you don't do NASCAR year round. ... And obviously during 'SportsCenter' you're going to touch on virtually anything.'' In St. Louis, Dan Caesar notes Winer “has had a mixture of assignments at Turner, too.” Last fall he “began anchoring postseason baseball shows and this spring he hosted NCAA Tournament coverage" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 10/14).
TRACK TV: SCENE DAILY’s Erik Spanberg reported Speed’s weekend news and highlight show, “SpeedCenter,” will include analysis from former NASCAR team owner Ray Evernham “for the rest of the current NASCAR season and perhaps into 2012.” Evernham will be “featured on the Sunday night version, a 1-hour edition wrapping up the major racing events.” Evernham said, “It puts me in a position to be back on television, which I enjoy.” Appearing on a news show “shouldn’t cause conflicts of interest with his role as consultant” to team owner Rick Hendrick. Evernham, who left ESPN in January after three years, was “quick to say the move had nothing to do with happiness or unhappiness at ESPN” (SCENEDAILY.com, 10/13).
BITING THE HAND THAT FED YOU? In N.Y., Bob Raismann writes former NFLers “now paid for their opinions by a TV network or radio station, are verbally pounding their former teams.” Since Antonio Pierce joined ESPN, he has “showed his mouth runs in multiple directions,” and the Giants are “very much on his radar.” Raismann notes traditionally, players and coaches “fresh off the field, came into TV and radio self-programmed.” But ESPN analyst and former Jets OT Damien Woody took a shot at the team after he “emphasized that he wanted the Jets offense to start running the ball more often.” SportsNet N.Y.’s Kris Jenkins also “presented what amounted to a laundry list of what ails” the Jets (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 10/14).
FIVE TIMES OUT OF SIX: In Toronto, Joseph Hall notes CBC’s Ron MacLean’s “on-air job is largely to rein in” partner Don Cherry’s “volatility and invective.” But MacLean said that he is “only successful about five times out of six.” MacLean: “We both have a really good chemistry and we can almost tell with or without the words whether we’ve gotten so far off track that somehow we’ve got to get this under control. And it doesn’t always happen as this past (episode) exhibits.” MacLean said that he “might have tried to ‘straighten out a couple of things’" during the segment where Cherry accused former NHL enforcers of being “pukes” and “hypocrites” for suggesting that hockey fighting might contribute to substance abuse. But MacLean indicated that he “ran out of time.” Meanwhile, he said that Cherry “is responsible for much of his television success.” MacLean: “He carried me for two or three years as I got my feet under me” (TORONTO STAR, 10/14).
