In San Diego, Bill Center reports Mark Grant has "signed a multiyear contract with the Padres to remain as the club's primary color analyst and Andy Masur will alternate between the radio and television booths, handling television play-by-play when Dick Enberg is off." Grant has been with the Padres since '96, but his past contracts have "always been with the network carrying the Padres." With Bob Scanlan "joining the radio booth as analyst, the team of Ted Leitner and Masur will be working fewer games in tandem" (SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE, 2/14).
COMING TO NETWORK SOON? YAHOO SPORTS' Kevin Iole writes fans should not be "surprised if boxing winds up on CBS at some point" in '12. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer did not identify a network, but recently said of getting boxing on network TV in the near future, "I am optimistic, very optimistic." Showtime Sports Exec VP & GM Stephen Espinoza said that he "thought boxing could come to network television this year." But Iole notes there is "no fight lined up, there's no date, and there's not even a deal" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 2/14).
BREAKING GROUND: The Pac-12 "held the groundbreaking for the Pac-12 networks" yesterday in S.F., about six months "before it will hit the air with a national cable-television network, six regional networks and a digital network." Conference Commissioner Larry Scott said, "It's truly a seminal moment for the conference." About 100 more employees "need to be hired, infrastructure needs to be put in place to allow events to be broadcast from the campuses and a library of historic footage needs to be created" (AP, 2/14).
GOING BACK HOME: Deadspin Founding Editor Will Leitch “will be writing for the Gawker Media sports site on a regular basis once again" with his "The Projector" film blog. The blog had been part of Yahoo put was shut down in December. The “resurrected Projector will take the form of four to five film reviews or essays per week, to be posted to Deadspin and cross-posted to Gawker.com” (OBSERVER.com, 2/13).
