The AP's Beth Harris noted NBC's Larry Collmus "has five Triple Crown races under his belt" since replacing Tom Durkin last April. Collmus said that he "expects to be nervous" during the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. Collmus: "That's natural. You need to be on edge a little bit. I should be able to control those nerves enough to make the race call I want to make." Collmus is not "giving away any signature lines" that might be used if I'll Have Another wins the first Triple Crown since Affirmed did it in '78. He said, "There is definitely something in my mind that if the horse wins hopefully will come out the way I want it to come out." Among Collmus' challenges is "mentioning all the other horses in the race knowing that I'll Have Another is the most recognizable." He said, "They're all going to get a call and they're all going to be followed, but he will be given priority because the majority of people watching will be seeing if he can win the Triple Crown. He definitely is the most important thing" (AP, 6/5).
NEW ASSIGMENTS: ESPN's Jay Crawford and John Buccigross will have new assignments in the anchor lineup of "SportsCenter" effective Monday, July 9. Crawford will co-host the 12-3pm ET edition of "SportsCenter" with Chris McKendry. He replaces Buccigross, who becomes part of the 11pm rotation which includes Scott Van Pelt, Steve Levy, Stuart Scott, Linda Cohn and Robert Flores. Buccigross will also become the voice of ESPN's NCAA Frozen Four coverage (ESPN).
AND IN THIS CORNER: HBO PPV VP & GM Tammy Rosssaid said that truTV on Saturday "will air a four-hour block of HBO Sports' documentary series '24/7: Pacquiao-Bradley' before the PPV event is set to begin." MULTICHANNEL NEWS' Thomas Umstead writes HBO is "using the documentary series as advertising that it hopes will generate incremental PPV revenues on fight night." In a unique agreement, HBO is "giving the content to truTV and allowing the network to keep the ad revenue." TruTV gets "free, quality sports programming, which it can sell ads against" (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 6/4 issue).
I'LL TAKE TWO: In DC, Dave Hughes reported Tony Kornheiser has "signed a two-year deal to continue doing his 10AM to noon show" on ESPN Radio 980 DC. He will also "continue doing the 'Official Pre-Game Show' on the Washington Redskins Radio Network" as well as "PTI" on ESPN (DCRTV.com, 6/4).
