| | The Daily Insider
Morning News & Headlines
Thursday, March 27, 2003
9:00am ET | |
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| • | The Players Championships Begins Today At Sawgrass With Record Purse |
| • | NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Continues Tonight With Four Games |
| • | Hungarian Judge Removed From Skating Panel For Joining Rival Federation |
| • | With More Than 90% Reporting, HBO PPV Upping Roy Jones-John Ruiz Buys |
| • | DirecTV Reaches Deal To Continue Broadcasting ABC Family |
| • | Morning Briefs/In Other News/Laugh Track/TV Monitor/Final Jeopardy! |
RECORD PAYOUT AWAITS THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIP WINNER
The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass begins today in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, and the BOSTON HERALD notes that 47 of the top 50 players in the world rankings are set for the first round of "what is generally referred to as golf's fifth major championship." But Tiger Woods said, "I think it's probably the highest tournament in the world next to the majors. I don't think it ranks up there in the majors category now. I don't think (this will ever be a major) because there is so much history behind the others" (BOSTON HERALD, 3/27).
The FLORIDA TIMES-UNION notes that the purse for the event is $6.5M, "largest for a sanctioned professional golf event in history." The winner will receive $1.17M, "also a record for a professional event" (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 3/27).
PGATour.com will present live coverage of the course's famed 17th hole during the first two rounds for the fourth consecutive year. Through Live@17, Internet users will be able to watch and listen to coverage of the hole from 9:00am-6:00pm ET. ESPN offers coverage of the first two rounds from noon-6:00pm ET (THE DAILY).
USA TODAY runs a special eight-page supplement in today's edition around the tournament. Advertisers include TaylorMade, PGATour.com, Astra Zeneca, the trio of men's tours and the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau (THE DAILY).
HIGHER PROFILE TEAMS GRAB CBS TOURNAMENT COVERAGE
The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament continues tonight on CBS with the Midwest and West Regional Semifinals, and USA TODAY reports that the Wisconsin-Kentucky game in the 7:00pm timeslot will go to 34% of the country, while Notre Dame-Arizona will go to the rest. In the late game, Marquette-Pittsburgh "generally will be seen only by those attending in Minneapolis" as CBS' telecast of the game will reach only 12% of the country. The Duke-Kansas game in the same timeslot "will go to most of the country" (USA TODAY, 3/27).
JUDGE PULLED AFTER JOINING WORLD SKATING FEDERATION
The World Figure Skating Championships continue today in DC, and the N.Y. TIMES notes that Hungarian judge Judit Furst-Tombor was "pulled from the panel by her federation president, Ferenc Batho, because of Furst-Tombor's decision to become a founding member of the World Skating Federation." It was the "first fallout from the creation of the new group," which was started on Tuesday with the goal of replacing the ISU as figure skating's governing body (N.Y. TIMES, 3/27).
TODAY THE DAILY GOES ONE-ON-ONE WITH…
Which sports exec, a major player in the banking category, considers herself a Letterman girl, but usually watches "Nightline," and ranks Sarah Hughes' unexpected figure skating victory as her favorite memory from the 2002 Salt Lake Games? To find out, see today's Sports Industrialists section for "THE DAILY Goes One-On-One With..."
MORNING BRIEFS
USA TODAY reports that with "more than 90% of the USA's cable systems having reported sales of the March 1 Roy Jones-John Ruiz heavyweight title bout, HBO PPV's Mark Taffet says it will settle at about 560,000 buys, up from the initial 525,000" (USA TODAY, 3/27).
Following indications that the MLBPA would conditionally agree to the All-Star Game plan that determines homefield advantage in the World Series, the N.Y. TIMES reports that the MLBPA Exec Board is "moving closer to a decision on the owners' plan and could make it by tomorrow" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/27).
LPGA player Sherri Turner, on LPGA Commissioner Ty Votaw's relationship with LPGA player Sophie Gustafson: "A lot of players aren't saying anything – it's a tough situation. But I don't feel like it's appropriate, I really don't. I think it's a conflict of interest, and I think he knows how I feel" (GOLFWEEK, 3/29 issue).
The Newark STAR-LEDGER reports that Cowboys coach Bill Parcells yesterday at the NFL Owners Meetings in Phoenix "disclosed for the first time that 'had (late owner Leon Hess) been alive, I would have still gone forward' with coaching the Jets in '00" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 3/27).
The N.Y. TIMES reports that Jennifer Capriati advanced yesterday at the Nasdaq-100 Open in Key Biscayne, FL, "although she chose not to warm up as she did Monday to the 1999 rap song 'Bombs Over Baghdad' by Outkast." Capriati: "I guess it was just made into being a big deal. I just said, 'Forget about it'" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/27).
The CP reports that the "deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome has prompted the Canadian Hockey Association to delay sending the national women's hockey team" to the 03 IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship in Beijing April 3-9 (CP, 3/27).
ATTENDANCE WATCH:
- The AKRON BEACON JOURNAL reports that 18,728 attended last night's McDonald's High School Boys All American Game at Gund Arena in Cleveland (AKRON BEACON JOURNAL, 3/27).
- The Newark STAR-LEDGER estimates that 10,000 people attended last night's Knicks-Nets game at Continental Airlines Arena, not "the team's liberal estimate" of 13,734 (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 3/27).
- The TORONTO SUN reports that a crowd of 16,852, "the smallest turnout of the season," attended last night's Cavaliers-Raptors game at the Air Canada Centre (TORONTO SUN, 3/27).
- The second WUSA exhibition at Houston's Rice Soccer Stadium in five months, this time between the Spirit and Beat, was played "before a smaller crowd than the throng of 5,000-plus that braved a rainy Saturday evening last October" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 3/27).
A LIGHTER BUZZ
The PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER reports that the Atlantic City Council failed to pass a resolution to "rename the block of Mississippi Avenue between Pacific Avenue and the Boardwalk as Don King Plaza" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 3/27).
The L.A. DAILY NEWS reports that the NBA Kings have "concluded that a courtside fan – and not a team employee – was responsible for defacing" Lakers C Shaquille O'Neal's game ball last week. After scoring the 20,000th point in his career, Lakers PR Dir John Black retrieved the ball to give to O'Neal and "discovered the profane message – 'Shaq is an (expletive)'" written on it (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 3/27).
THE BACK PAGES
The Morning Buzz offers today's back page sports covers from some of the nation's major metropolitan tabloids:
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| N.Y. Post | N.Y. Daily News |
TODAY'S EVENTS
The Star-Telegram Speedway Children's Charities Celebrity Golf Tournament begins today at TOUR 18 Dallas. The tournament officially kicks off RPM Week-TX at TX Motor Speedway (THE DAILY).
The Indians will host "What's New in 2003," a news conference to discuss the club's changes for the '03 season. Indians VP/PR Bob Dibiasio, SportService GM Charlie Hennigsen and Jacobs Field Maintenance Manager Brandon Koehnke will attend (THE DAILY).
Marlins President David Samson will present General James Hill of the U.S. Southern Command with 150 tickets to the Marlins' opening day game against the Phillies March 31 at 4:00pm ET. The Marlins will also unveil their "Stars & Stripes" ticket program that gives all active military personnel free admission to Marlins regular season games (THE DAILY).
The Saints will present New Orleans Police Superintendent Edwin Compass with 500 ticket vouchers for the National Association of Basketball Coaches All-Star Game during a 4:00pm CT press conference. The game will be played April 6 at New Orleans Arena (THE DAILY).
IN OTHER NEWS….
The BOSTON GLOBE reports that opposition to the U.S.-led war on Iraq has spread throughout Europe as a "small but vocal number of restaurants have stripped their menus of all things American, while some Europe-based websites list American products to boycott" (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/27).
The N.Y. POST reports that McDonald's "intends to sell Boston Market, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Donato's Pizza in hopes of retiring some of its $10[B] in debt" (N.Y. POST, 3/27).
The L.A. TIMES reports that DirecTV will continue broadcasting ABC Family, "backing down from a threat to drop the network." The deal gives ABC Family "long-term contracts with 70% of its pay-TV providers" (L.A. TIMES, 3/27).
The AP reports that A-B "plans to buy back 100 million of its shares – or about 12[%] of its outstanding stock – as it nears completion of an identically sized repurchase effort." A-B said that it "still expects earnings-per-share growth at 12[%] for 2003 and at double-digit percentage rates yearly over the long term" (AP, 3/27).
The N.Y. POST reports that AOL Time Warner's "long talked about plan to stop some of its big magazines from offering free Web access goes into play" Sunday, at which time People and Entertainment Weekly will become the first to go "behind the curtain." Right now, the company "has no plans to stop offering free Web access to Time, Sports Illustrated, Money or Business 2.0." (N.Y. POST, 3/27).
FINAL JEOPARDY QUESTION
Last night's "Final Jeopardy!" category was "2002 Pop Stars."
"In September 2002 she set a billboard record with her first-ever single, jumping from its debut at number 52 to number one."
LAUGH TRACK
THE MONOLOGUES:
Luke Wilson was the guest host for last night's edition of CBS' "Late Show." Wilson: "I'm really excited to be here tonight. Hi, I'm documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, and I'm here to talk to you about the miracle of Weight Watcher's. ... I'm Luke Wilson. You'll be happy to hear I'm a Hollywood actor who doesn't have an opinion about anything that doesn't affect me personally. ... I've never done this before, and it's a little chilly here in the Ed Sullivan Theater, and I just have one question: what are the symptoms of frostbite? ... I'm guest hosting tonight's show, which means we're getting into the second-tier of 'Late Show' guest hosts and that specifically is guys Dave owes money to. ... Dave and I have been close friends for quite awhile now, ever since we met on Match.com" ("Late Show," CBS, 3/26).
NBC's Jay Leno: "I'm Jay Leno. Connie Chung is off tonight. ... Connie Chung got fired. It was so cruel how she found out. She was watching Fox News. ... President Bush is now asking Congress for $75(B) to fight the war and that's just for gas money. ... Have you noticed lately there a lot of these retired military officers giving their analysis on all the TV shows, and the bigger the network, the bigger the analyst. Like NBC News has General Norman Schwarzkopf. CBS has General Terry Smith. I feel bad for some of the smaller stations like Channel 11 here in L.A. They have Colonel Klink. Food Channel has Cap'n Crunch and Colonel Sanders. These are not viable military men. ... There is now talk that the (U.S.) wants to spray the poppy fields of Afghanistan in effort to destroy the drug crop before it can be harvested. ... You thought Bush was unpopular in Hollywood before. ... Oscar-winner Michael Moore made another impassioned anti-war speech. He went on and on and then finally the woman at the McDonald's drive-thru took the mic back and said, 'Look, you want the Big Mac combo or not? Please, make up your mind'" ("Tonight Show," NBC, 3/26).
LATE NIGHT LAUGHS:
During last night's edition of NBC's "Tonight Show," comedian Mitch Fatel, wearing an Angels jersey, reported from the Angels spring training camp. Fatel: "Baseball is right around the corner and nothing says excitement like a meaningless preseason game." Fatel asked Angels 1B Scott Spiezio, "Can we practice adjusting ourselves? ... This is fun, dude. Now I know why you guys do it all the time" ("Tonight Show," NBC, 3/26).
WEDNESDAY NIGHT'S TV MONITOR
ESPN's 11:30pm ET "SportsCenter" led with Lakers-Rockets, followed by Suns-Grizzlies.
FINAL JEOPARDY ANSWER
"Who is Kelly Clarkson?"
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