PRO FOOTBALL TALK's Michael David Smith notes the screen "suddenly went blank for ESPN2 viewers" late in last night's broadcast of the Redblacks-Stampeders CFL Grey Cup. A crawl across the bottom of the screen eventually "informed viewers that ESPN was having technical difficulties." An ESPN source said that the lost feed "was a result of a vendor issue which caused an outage between the Canadian network that produced the game and ESPN2, which aired the Canadian production." It "did not affect Canadian viewers." Fans "missed only a few minutes before the game came back on" (PROFOOTBALLTALK.com, 11/28).
LISTEN CLOSELY: In Chicago, Phil Rosenthal reported the Cubs' 10-inning victory in Game 7 of the World Series averaged around 145,600 listeners on WSCR-AM, "at least double what a regular-season broadcast averaged this year." It is estimated that close to 643,000 people in the Chicago area "listened to at least some of Game 7 ... despite the fact an average of more than 3.2 million television viewers in the Chicago market were reportedly watching the game on television in any given quarter-hour." WSCR "rose to second place in the Chicago market for the survey period" between Oct. 6 and Nov. 2 (CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com, 11/23).
GO YOUR OWN WAY: SI.com's Richard Deitsch noted reporter James Mirtle "left the Globe and Mail to become the editor-in-chief" of TheAthletic.com's new Toronto-focused site. He joins a staff that includes Sean Fitz-Gerald and "other talented reporters" (SI.com, 11/27).
