The outtakes
Good enough to get into print, but not enough space to fit in the paper, in the aftermath of today's sports media column and notebook:
-- Women's skateboarders Cara-Beth Burnside, who eventually won the vert competition, and silver medalist Mimi Knoop, along with their agent, met with ESPN executive vice president for content John Skipper on Wednesday night, upset that the females were getting the short end on money and TV time during this weekend's X Games.
Through their talks, ESPN agreed toup the winning fees to $15,000 for gold, $10,000 for silver and $5,000 for bronze for competitors in the women's Vert and Street. The total purse for both events had been just $8,000.
They also got ESPN to agree to show some of the women's events on television next year. None of the women's vert competition made it on Thursday's broadcast.
"We had a very positive meeting and we listened to their feedback," Skipper said in a statement. "Just as we have grown women's sports in general and for Winter X, we plan to do so for Summer X."
And there's more ...
-- The X Games are slated to stay in L.A. through 2009. As long as Disney is committed to the Staples Center and Home Depot Center, ESPN's main producer for the event, Jamie Reynolds, sees the globally-warmed sky as the the limit for how the network covers it.
"As long as we keep tapping into the soul of the culture and people want to keep pushing their own disciplines, this could go on forever," said Reynolds. "It's not as if we have to keep manufacturing anything from a TV side. We just have to be in harmony with what they're doing and then do it justice."
-- The Anaheim Ducks' new radio deal starting this fall with KMXE-AM (830), which is owned by Angels bossman Arte Moreno, doesn't necessarily send up a flare that the Angels will soon go there also once their deal with KSPN-AM (710) ends after the 2007 season. The 50,000-watt 830 already has the Angels' Spanish-language games but is in the process of going to English-language programming and will change its letters to KLAA -- does that look familiar?
-- Apparently showing how serious the NFL Network is in establishing itself as a news-gathering service and not just a PR arm of the league, Thomas George, a Denver Post sports columnist who covered the league for 17 years for the New York Times, has been hired by the net as its first managing editor, overseeing all editorial content. He will work out of the NFL Network studios in Culver City.
-- While the second season of “The Contender� has launched to lukewarm response on ESPN, something they’re unofficially calling the “Anti-Contender� has been launched on Showtime: An eight-man super middleweight elimination tournament “with the aim of producing a true world-class contender, not a TV personality who also happens to box,� according to the network’s press release. Four 10-round fights took place last week on the Showtime’s “ShoBox� series from Las Vegas. The semifinals are Oct. 6 in Santa Ynez and the finals are set for early 2007.
-- What’s up with these crazy colored bowling shirts Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons are made to wear during this FSN Prime Ticket Dodgers road trip that’s messing with our TV screen’s contrast and brightness levels? One day, it’s jailbird orange; the next, it’s brickyard red. At least KCAL-Channel 9 has the next three games from Florida, otherwise we couldn’t begin to guess what kind of “Miami Vice� look they’d be sporting. Maybe this is why Vin Scully has cut back on roadies?
-- Trev Alberts, who bailed out on ESPN at the beginning of the college football season, upset over his lack of air time, has found new employment with CSTV. So, in reality, he's still looking for work.
-- And be sure to miss NBC’s anchor Stone Phillips attempt to grill / promote the new book of the Dallas Cowboys’ Terrell Owens on what they’re calling an “exclusive� interview that airs on “Dateline� Sunday at 7 p.m.