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Weekend Plans With Fox Sports' David Neal: Parents Weekend, Catching Up On TV

L.A. is undoubtedly the center of the entertainment industry. To outsiders it is a far-off land filled with high-status celebrities and aspiring young actors. However, to those within the business it is a tight-knit family unit. For Fox Sports FIFA World Cup Exec Producer DAVID NEAL it is a literally a family affair, as his wife JEN is the Exec VP/Marketing for E! Entertainment. With a full slate during the week, the couple enjoys relaxing on weekends at their home in Santa Monica, Calif. Neal said, “I always try to make sure that I recharge my batteries. Sometimes it is as simple as just making sure that I spend an hour drinking really good coffee and reading the different Sunday papers. Other times, even though it is strenuous, working out helps recharge my battery and keeps me fresh from a creative standpoint.”

PANTHER PRIDE: When I am not working on weekends, I like to spend time with my family. I have two kids and they try to come into California as much as possible. So mainly it is golf and time with family and friends. On Friday, I’ll be at my first Parents Weekend at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina. It is a terrific school and in particular what President NIDO QUBEIN has done. It is spectacular. ... On Saturday, I am flying back home from Greensboro to L.A. My wife and I also recently went to the Four Seasons at Hualalai on the coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

BRITISH INVASION: I am a completely incompetent cook. I am a good consumer, not a good preparer. My favorite breakfast spot is Coast at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica. My favorite local restaurant is a place called R+D Kitchen in Santa Monica. We’ve got a really great group of friends, most of them in the industry, but some not. We love going out and either having a glass of wine or dinner with the friends to make sure we break out of our perspective of what is going on. We hear a lot of different opinions about things in the business and just the world in general. Nobu in London is a favorite restaurant of mine. It is funny because I know there is one in N.Y and in Malibu, but the one in London -- it is right on Hyde Park -- and I just enjoy the whole experience there.

NEWSIES: I still like the tactile experience of reading a newspaper or a trade publication that I can hold in my hand. I am a big reader, whether it is online or something that I brought with me. One of the go-to reads for me is The Week magazine, sort of a condensed version of national news. I will probably read more trade publications than I should on a weekend. But I’ll read the print edition of the Hollywood Reporter on weekends. Then on Sunday, I read the L.A. Times, the Sunday N.Y. Times and the Vancouver Sun. That is where we are going to be hosting the Women’s World Cup next year, so I like to keep current with things going on in Vancouver as well.

THAT’S A WRAP
: I follow particular writers on Twitter that interests me. I don’t tweet a lot myself, but I retweet stuff and I mainly use it as a news feed. TheWrap, which is an online entertainment website, has a segment they call “First Take.” It leads you into Monday and gives you a sense of ratings trends and things happening in the business as you head into the work week. The other thing I use particularly on weekends is my Nike FuelBand just to see how many calories I am burning. My wife and I have a trainer on the weekend because it is a little harder to fit it in during the week. So both days, Saturday and Sunday, we’ll have our trainer come by.

CALIFORNIA LOVE
: I am a big college football fan. I went to the Univ. of Southern California, so USC football is the one thing I make sure I see every weekend when they are playing. But I try not to watch sports all of the time, so I try to watch a lot of news as well, either network news or on cable. Readers would probably be surprised that I watch E! News. That is because my wife runs marketing for the E! Network. I’ve developed a habit of catching up with pop culture because that it what she does. My guilty weekend pleasure is bingeing on back series, particularly "SONS OF ANARCHY." It is a favorite of mine, but I always fall behind. I am more likely than not to watch three, four, five episodes back-to-back. On Sunday, my wife and I are going to see "ST. VINCENT," the new BILL MURRAY film.

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