SBJ Media: Astros Cheating Scandal Crosses Over

ESPN has 15 feeds available for tonight’s CFP National Championship -- everything from the Sounds of the Game on ESPN Classic to Coaches Film Room on ESPNU to the 4K Skycam/4K Field Pass on its 4K channel. Me? I’m hanging out with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit for the main telecast on ESPN, now in the second quarter of what looks like a good game. Let’s go Tigers!

ASTROS FALLOUT GETS NATIONAL NEWS COVERAGE

• When a big story takes over the sports world -- like the Astros cheating scandal did today -- I like to turn to network newscasts to see how it resonates outside the sports bubble. The Astros scandal is resonating, with all three network newscasts using words like "cheaters," "scandal" and "illegal." All three newscasts teased the story at the beginning of their shows and featured reports in the first half of their programs tonight. “Not a good day for sports,” NBC News anchor Lester Holt said at the end of his show’s report.
  
  
• “NBC Nightly News” got to the story nine minutes into the telecast, with correspondent Miguel Almaguer opening with, “After winning the World Series in 2017, tonight Major League Baseball says that the champs are cheats.” During his 107-second report, Almaguer also referenced former Astros bench coach Alex Cora, saying that he “went on to coach the Boston Red Sox, who won the World Series the very next year and who are now also under investigation for stealing pitching signs during the regular season.”
  
  
• “CBS Evening News” ran the story 14 minutes into its show, right before the first ad break. Correspondent Mark Strassmann opened his report by saying, “Houston celebrated when the Astros won the 2017 World Series. Not today. It turns out the team had been cheating for months.” Toward the end of his 80-second report, Strassmann said, “MLB isn’t done," referencing Cora and the Red Sox. 
  
  
• The scandal was the first story after the first ad break on ABC’s “World News Tonight,” about 15 minutes into the telecast. Correspondent Will Carr: “The team was revealed to be cheaters and is now hit with a historic punishment.”

THE WORLD'S GONNA KNOW YOUR NAME....

Bill Cowher's wife and daughter were on hand as he found out about his Hall of Fame honor

• The best TV moments this weekend did not come from a football field. Instead, they came from studios on opposite coasts on consecutive days when Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson found out on live TV that they made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The genuine emotion from both coaches, combined with the excitement from fellow announcers, resulted in memorable TV. I contacted CBS and Fox execs to find out how these ideas were hatched. They both said they started with a phone call late in the week from Hall of Fame COO & Executive Producer George Veras suggesting that Hall of Fame President & CEO David Baker make the announcement on set in New York.
  
  
• CBS Sports Chair Sean McManus: “I immediately had a meeting with Executive Producer Harold Bryant, VP/Studio Production Tyler Hale and producer Drew Kaliski and told them the idea. They loved it.” The group decided to keep the plan secret -- only a small group of people including President David Berson and Senior VP/Communications Jen Sabatelle knew what was planned. On Saturday, CBS sneaked Baker into a green room at the production house and hid Cowher’s wife Veronica and daughter Meagan in another.
  
  
• McManus: “At the last minute, David Baker was brought down from the third floor down to the second floor into the control room so that he could walk out from the front of the set to surprise Coach Cowher. From Thursday afternoon, it was a very tight circle because we wanted coach to be surprised on television and thought that the end result -- his reaction -- would be priceless. Indeed, that’s exactly what happened. For the first time ever, someone’s been notified of their induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on live television. It is one of the best moments that I have ever been associated with at CBS Sports.”

....AND YOU'LL BE ON THE WALLS OF THE HALL OF FAME

Hall of Fame t-shirts were passed around the Fox studio after Jimmy Johnson got his news

• The next day, anticipation was building on the Fox set in L.A. before its Divisional playoff game. The crew had seen Cowher’s announcement, and they figured that their Hall of Fame candidate had a good shot of hearing during the pregame show. During the second quarter of Chiefs-Texans on CBS, Fox execs made a decision to postpone Johnson’s announcement until halftime. Fox Sports Chair Eric Shanks: “We were at the mercy of the early game running long. Our pregame had the potential of maybe not having the maximum audience because there was an early game going into our window.”
  
  
• Fox Exec VP of Production Bill Richards: “We don’t usually do halftime from the field. ... The funny thing is that Jimmy doesn’t do a lot of halftimes, so he wasn’t sure what we do either way. It didn’t throw him that we were standing up. We rehearsed a halftime that didn’t air. We played the game really well.”
  
  
• Shanks said the delay to halftime added drama to the event. “Everyone in the building expected that if it was going to happen, it would happen a lot like it did the day before with CBS. In the second quarter of the game when we went on the stage and talked to Jimmy and the guys, there honestly was a little bit of a letdown. They kind of thought that if it hadn’t already happened, it’s not going to happen, which made the emotion even greater.”

SPEED READS

• The NFL’s four Divisional playoff games this past weekend averaged 33.2 million viewers on CBS, Fox and NBC – the highest Divisional round audience since 2017 (36.0 million viewers). CBS drew 35.4 million for Chiefs-Texans game in the early window yesterday, up from 29.2 million for last year’s Patriots-Chargers game in the same window. In primetime, Fox drew just under 38 million viewers, down slightly from 38.2 million for Saints-Eagles last year in a late afternoon window.
  
  
• The 25-year-old founder and creator of "House of Highlights," Omar Raja, was not the only one to join ESPN, where he will be the main voice behind the “SportsCenter” account on Instagram for at least the next five years. Sources confirmed to SBJ’s Mark J. Burns that at least four people who have worked on "HoH" with Raja joined him at ESPN, including Drew Corrigan and Arthur Kogan. Raja is represented by Matt Kramer and Matt Olson of CAA.

• Congrats to ESPN’s Jill Frederickson, who was promoted to Senior VP/Production & Content Strategy, a role where she oversees all daytime editions of “SportsCenter.” Frederickson, who started at ESPN in 2003, will oversee content creation and distribution strategy for studio production across “SC,” digital, ESPN+, event production and sport-specific studio shows.
  
  
• A former assistant director of the FBI’s terrorism division will oversee security for ESPN’s announcers and execs at the CFP National Championship tonight. I wrote a column on Mike Heimbach, who ESPN hired in 2009. As former ESPN exec John Wildhack emailed, “Mike knows what you’re going to do 5 minutes before you do it! Great guy.” 
  
  
• Adam Sandler couldn't score an Oscar nomination this morning for his sports gambling film "Uncut Gems," but he did take to Twitter to congratulate his "Waterboy" co-stars Bill Cowher and Jimmy Johnson on their selections to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Sandler wrote, "Love u guys and please don’t tell mamma about me playing foosball." Cowher responded with, "I wonder if @AdamSandler knew he had two future Hall of Famers in the stands watching Bobby Boucher."
  
  
  

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays for insights into all the latest news around the world of college sports. Also check out SBJ Football with Ben Fischer on Friday afternoons.

Something on the Media beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).