Media Notes
Former Mavericks coach Avery Johnson has joined ESPN as a studio analyst. Johnson will mainly work alongside Stuart Scott and Bill Walton on the net's "NBA Shootaround" pregame show during both the regular- and postseason. Johnson also will occasionally appear on ABC's "GMC NBA Countdown" studio show (ESPN).
 |
"Sports Soup" On Versus Essentially
Sports Version Of E!'s "The Soup" |
SOUP KITCHEN: SPORTINGNEWS.com's Chris Littmann wrote Versus' "Sports Soup," which debuted Tuesday night, is "essentially a sports version" of E!'s "The Soup." In the debut episode, there was a "lot of UFC/MMA/NHL/Outdoors stuff going on," and "whenever there was anything about any of the other mainstream sports, it didn't generally involve clips." Instead, it was "usually host Matt Iseman doing jokes with a still image over the shoulder." Littmann: "This sounds like it would be bad, but it worked in the show's favor." Littmann added, "If there was anything that occasionally bothered me, it was the clips that were extremely dated." One clip reportedly was from '06 (SPORTINGNEWS.com, 10/15).
OFF THE AIR: The Pac 10 Conference Tuesday "denied a request" by the Univ. of Oregon to broadcast the October 25 Oregon-Arizona State college football game, meaning the game "will not be televised." The request for a waiver of FSN's exclusive rights "came after Arizona State declined to move the kickoff" from 7:00pm PT to 3:30pm (Portland OREGONIAN, 10/15). Meanwhile, in Newark, Tom Luicci reported the October 25 Rutgers-Pittsburgh college football game will not be televised, ending a Rutgers streak "that will extend to 43 televised games" this Saturday. ESPN will not feed the game to SportsNet N.Y., and without ESPN's production, the game is "cost prohibitive for SNY." The game will only be shown on ESPN360 (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 10/15).
NOTES: Fox is in negotiations with non-Time Warner Cable operators "about televising Bobcats games." There is a "surcharge to do that, and it's still an open question how many Carolinas cable operators will agree to pay that surcharge by the time the regular season begins" (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 10/16)....FSN K.C. Royals analyst Paul Splittorff next season is "hoping to cut back on his schedule a bit." Splittorff, who worked "about 120 of the 140-game TV schedule" last season, said, "It'd be nice to get it to 100 or so" (K.C. STAR, 10/15)....Fox Sports Ohio this season will televise 70 regular-season Cavaliers games, starting with the team's October 30 home opener against the Bobcats. Sixty-five of the RSN's 70 games will be featured in HD, more than double last year's 32 HD games (FSN).
|
