Media Notes
Just weeks after NBC televised the final two rounds of the U.S. Open in the evening, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said that next year's Presidents Cup at Harding Park in S.F. will "conclude in the evening on the East Coast." Finchem: "We haven't quite figured out the details on the schedule, but we won't be a 10 o'clock finish in the East" (WASHINGTON TIMES, 7/3). Meanwhile, the U.S. Open is again scheduled to be held on the West Coast in 2010, 2012 and 2015, and USGA Exec Dir David Fay said of playing into primetime in the East, "I think it was great -- not just for the U.S. Open, but for the game of golf. So why not?" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/3).
SOCCER NOTES: German-language newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung indicated that Germany's Federal Cartel Office may "push for some television coverage of Bundesliga soccer to be shifted to free television from pay-TV, a move that could hurt pay-TV operators such as Premiere AG." Most Bundesliga matches currently are shown on pay-TV, as German soccer league DFL can "fetch a higher price than from free TV operators." The DFL receives US$699M a season for the rights to broadcast live Bundesliga matches on Premiere (THOMPSON FINANCIAL, 7/3)....DAILY VARIETY's Patrick Frater reports ESPN STAR Sports has "won rights for the Indian sub-continent through 2010" to FIFA-controlled int'l soccer matches, including the 2010 World Cup. Terms of the deal were not disclosed (DAILY VARIETY, 7/3).
HE GONE? In Chicago, Teddy Greenstein reports the White Sox hold an option on TV announcer Darrin Jackson, and they "don't plan to let him know their intentions until late in the season or after the season." Sources said that the team is "biding their time" because it may be interested in a deal with current radio announcer Steve Stone. If Stone "doesn't join a Cubs ownership group, the Sox would strongly consider moving him ... to TV to pair him with Hawk Harrelson." The move could open a radio position for Jackson alongside Ed Farmer (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/3).
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