MLB COO Paul Beeston, on ESPN's possible switch of its
Sunday Night Baseball games to ESPN2 once the NFL season
begins: "Games on ESPN2 are a non-starter for us. We're
discussing it internally. It has to be resolved. It has an
end-time" (Richard Sandomir, N.Y. TIMES, 7/31)....USA
Networks reported revenues from the 2Q of $689.9M, up 15%
from '97's 2Q. USA came within $1.3M of breaking even
overall, driven by the Home Shopping Network's 9% jump in
sales, to about $263M (ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, 7/31)....Fox
Sports News will contribute two daily bulletins on the
latest North American sports news to BSkyB's new 24-hour
sports channel, set to launch August 10 (DAILY VARIETY,
7/31)....ABC's Al Michaels said former MNF broadcast team
partner Frank Gifford "was comfortable" with the net's
decision to move him to the pregame show and move Boomer
Esiason into the booth. "MNF" studio host Chris Berman, on
the decision to originate the pregame show from Baltimore's
ESPN Zone: "Hosting from the game site would have made Frank
uncomfortable" (MIAMI HERALD, 7/31).
