== The PGA Tour's website capitalizes on interest in the TPC Sawgrass' 17th hole by offering up more than 35 hours of TV-quality video, co produced by the tour as well as Turner Sports New Media. Hosts Brian Katrek, Bill Kratzert and Jim Huber are on the Internet coverage, which includes a closest-to-the-pin update. The coverage online runs from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. today as well as 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. It's the eighth year that this online service has covered this hole at this event, but it's the first time every shot on the 137-yard, 17th for every round will be available to see. The service is free, clicking onto the LIVE@ icon. Windows Media Player version 9 or later is required. Following this week’s coverage, PGATour.com will do live coverage at the Memorial Tournament, The Barclays, Deutsche Bank Championship, BMV Championship and The Tour Championship.
As for the 17th hole as the star attraction this weekend -- and a hole that Tiger Woods has called "gimmicky" (even though he parred it Thursday) and NBC course reporter Roger Maltbie says has "an extremely high gag factor" -- NBC's Miller offered this analysis:
"Every course should have a hole like this. It's the final gut-check. Historically, the leaders of this event have played it fantastically and gone on to win. It won't impact anyone if they're playing good. If you're wobblying, you'll have trouble. I don't think it's a gimmick at all."
Of NBC's 42 cameras on the course, 11 are situated around the 17th island, including a microscopic lens embedded in the lip of the tiny front bunker. Another cameraman will be ferried to the island right of the 17th green where he can’t move for about eight hours as he gets reaction and operates a super-slo-motion camera.
Viewers who missed Thursday’s opening round can become accustomed to the angles covered by watching today’s second round, produced by NBC for The Golf Channel (10 a.m. to 4 p.m., replayed 6-to-9 p.m.)
“We want to show the emotions of the players before and after they hit on that hole,” said Roy. “You’ll never see players of this caliber go through the emotional ringer like they do here. It’s great television, great drama.”
Of the 25 winners of this event over the years, only two winners have made a bogey on the 17th hole on Sunday -- Steve Elkington in 1991 and Fred Funk in 2005. Of the others, 13 made par and nine made birdies. Maybe the most memorable collapse on the hole during an event is when Bob Tway posted a 12 in the third round of the 2005 Players. Winds were blowing about 30 miles per hour when Tway's tee shot flew the green. So did his second shot. His third and fourth shots hit on the front of the green and spun back in the water. His fifth attempt found the green, and he three-putted, going from four strokes out of the lead at 7-under par to 13 behind. Then there's the tale of Angelo Spagnolo, the 31-year-old grocery store manager from Fayette City, Pa., who posted a 66 on June 19, 1985, during a magazine-sponsored "America's Worst Avid Golfer" contest. He hit 27 balls in the water from the tee box and drop area. Rules officials finally directed him to putt around the hazard and down the narrow path that leads to the green.

==CBS actually does have an attempt at some golf counter-programming with a half-hour special "Inside the Ropes" with comedian George Lopez taped at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic back in January. The show (Sunday, 10:30 a.m.) follows Lopez around as he plays and clowns with the pros as well as celebs like Justin Timberlake, Oscar de la Hoya, Carson Daly and Samuel L. Jackson. After that, the best CBS can do to draw attention away from NBC's golf is air the "Toyota Texas Bass Classic (noon, taped from April 12). If you can't watch bass fishing live, why watch it at all?

==Miami Heat center Shaquille O'Neal has accepted a TNT invite to join Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson in the studiio for pre-game and both halftime shows during the network's coverage of Cleveland-New Jersey Game 4 (4 p.m.) and Phoenix-San Antonio Game 4 (6:30 p.m.).

==Following up on Fox's MLB coverage: Through the first five weeks, the network reports an average audience of 3.8 million viewers each Saturday, an all-time high. Expanding the regular-season coverage from 18 to 26 weeks, which gets into the April coverage more than joining things in progress in June, and changing the start time from 10:20 a.m. (PDT) to 12:55 p.m. (PDT) has also helped with the Eastern and Central time-zone audiences. Last Saturday, going head-to-head with NBC's Kentucky Derby, Fox held with 2.9 million viewers (2.1 rating) while the horse race had its best delivery in six years (7.5 rating). Through five telecasts, Fox says it is up 18 percent over last year. Future matchups include the New York Yankees-New York Mets (as well as the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs) on May 19; the Cubs at the Dodgers on May 26, Roger Clemens' projected first start of the season for the Yankees against Boston on June 2, Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants against Oakland on June 9, Bonds with a potential showdown against Curt Schilling and Boston on June 16 and Bonds facing the New York Yankees on June 23 as he closes in on Hank Aaron's all-time home-run record.

==CSTV announced at the National Cable TV Association Show in Las Vegas this week that it will create a video-on-demand channel dedicated to high school sports and powered by MaxPreps.com, now a division of CSTV, which is owned by CBS. The service is supposed to be available to about 35 million households with digital cable and will be tailored to each region and state. LRMR Innovative Marketing and Branding, a company founded by Cleveland Cavs star LeBron James, is part of the launch. Jeff Proctor, who co-founded the high school athletics website Vootage.com as an Internet vehicle to cover live games and keep them in archives, said he thougth CSTV's move was “a great thing. It gives credence to the fact we're on the right track, and as we expand and hope to do more things on the high-school scene, anything that gives more attention to that is good.”

==ABC, which will have the Indy 500 in high-def for the first time when it carries the race May 27, also plans for the super-duper viewing pleasure at this weekend's time trials. "One of the most frequent requests from our fans is a high-definition telecast of the Indianapolis 500, and we're thrilled to fulfill that demand,” said Joie Chitwood, Indianapolis Motor Speedway president and chief operating officer, in a statement through ABC. ESPN2 (9-to-11 a.m., then 3-4 p.m.) has Indy 500 pole day coverage Saturday, surrounded by ABC's coverage from noon to 3 p.m. ESPN2 is back Sunday from 9-to-11 a.m. and 2-to-3:30 p.m. for time trials. And did you know it'll all be sponsored by GoDaddy.com? Go figure.

== CSTV will try something called a ref camera to suppliment coverage this weekend (Saturday, 6 p.m.; Sunday, 7 p.m. and Monday, 6 p.m.) of the recent National Collegiate Boxing Championships taped in Reno, Nev. Randy Rosenbloom does the blow-by-blow with analyst Joey Gilbert, a three-time event winner at the University of Nevada, current WBO middleweight champ and a participant on "The Contender" reality show. The ref cameras are mounted on the heads of the referees as they do the dance with the boxers in the ring. We can invision what a ref cam might look like from the viewers' perspetive -- probably much more useful than those ump cams that ESPN uses on the Little League World Series -- but maybe this view from a 2006 Pride fight found on YouTube.com might offer something for the imagination (as long as the ref isn't jumping around like an idiot):

For more information about the Collegiate Nationals and boxing championships, and for a full television programming schedule, log on to www.thecollegiatenationals.com.

==The Tennis Channel hired Bill Macatee to host its French Open coverage starting next month (coverage includes John McEnroe and Martina Navratilova as match analysts), as well as produce original series and specials for the channel, which will soon be apart of DirecTV.

== Looking to make some cyberhead way on MySpace.com, the NHL has established a beachhead on the networking site and already says it has gobs of friends to talk to. It's a lot like what the league has already done with sites like YouTube, Google Video and Joost. The MySpace site will have official video clips from playoff games available to other MySpace users. TNT has already established a site on MySpace to air its wares.
Thursday, Fox Sports and the NFL announced it has put up a MySpace site that will give Super Bowl advertisers its first game-promoted online component for a network Super Bowl buy. Fox carries the Feb. 3, 2008 Super Bowl XLII game.

==The Kings relaunched their official website -- LAKings.com -- to include more of the new league-wide design elements. New features include Kings TV, which has streaming video of game highlights and interviews; archived video and audio, and an easier online ticket buying option.

==Next edition (episode 122) of HBO's "Real Sports" (Monday, 10 p.m., with various replays) includes a story on the complications related to NFL helmet-to-helmet concussions -- including brain injuries, memory loss, dementia and suicidal depression. ESPN's "Outside the Lines" did a piece on this in February that included how former UCLA offensive lineman Brent Boyd was dealing with many of these setbacks, including having to file suit against the league to have they pay his medical bills. Boyd said in an email that HBO didn't interview him for this piece but through him, his attorneys were contacted by segment producer Andrew Bennett so legal documents could be obtained in Boyd's legal fight. Correspondent Bernard Goldberg is the reporter on this piece. Among those interviewed are Harvard-educated medical consultant Chris Nowinski, who played for the Crimson and then entered the world of professional wrestling, enduring six concussions in his career; Pittsburgh area doctor Bennet Omalu, who examined the death of Andre Waters; Dr. Ian Casson, who led a study for the NFL; and former New England Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson, who, leading up to telling his story on camera, spent the previous 11 days in a darkened apartment. “I don’t shave. Don’t shower. Don’t brush my teeth. You don’t care," says Johnson, pictured here prior to announcing his retirement in July, 2005.

==The Sporting News will move its online operations to Charlotte, N.C., this summer, but the magazine itself will remain in suburban St. Louis, the company reported. SportingNews.com operations are split between St. Louis and New York. All of the online workers in the two cities — about two dozen in each location — are being offered transfers to the Charlotte headquarters of American City Business Journals Inc., the company said. The operations will be consolidated in July. About 60 people will continue to produce the weekly magazine out of the Sporting News office in west St. Louis County. In October, ACBJ purchased Sporting News and its online, book publishing and radio network units from Vulcan Sports Media Inc., which is owned by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen.

==Fox's coverage of the Angels-Rangers game from Arlington, Tex. (with Josh Lewin and Mark Grace) goes to only 15 percent of the country. Most will see the Chicago Cubs-at-Philadelphia game (76 percent, with Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver).

==As a follow up to the "What Smokes" item about ESPN's "Outside The Lines" special on college athletes who become pregnant, former U.S. women's soccer star Julie Foudy is a reporter for this piece (Sunday, 6:30 a.m.; 9 a.m. on ESPNEWS) that looks reveals how the Memphis women's track team requires members sign a document acknowledging that if they become pregnant they can lose their scholarship, which appears to be a violation of Title IX and Federal law. ESPN says Memphis and the NCAA declined requests for interviews for this story. The NCAA 's reply via e-mail: “The issue is primarily one involving individuals and their campuses, and all decisions related to financial aid and medical exemptions are institutional.” Foudy is shown here talking to Memphis triple jumper Cassandra Harding, who became pregnant and feared losing her scholarship. “I just was like, ‘I do not want to lose my scholarship, I don’t want to go back home and work at McDonald’s or work at Jack in the Box or something," Harding, pictured here with Foudy, says in the piece. "I need my education. I need this college degree to have a better life.’”

==Check out the latest posting by ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber, who does a pretty thorough job trying to get to the heart of the question: When the network owns game rights to a certain sport, such as NASCAR, Major League Soccer and Arena Football, does that mean it covers it more on "SportsCenter" and less of, say, the NHL, which it used to carry? The question seems to be both yes and not intentionally.

==According to the website The Sports Examiner, Pac-10 Associate Commissioner Duane Lindberg said that as a part of the conference's new five-year agreement with ABC, at least eight Pac-10 games per year will be shown on ESPN or ESPN2, with 12 more going to ABC, in addition to the 18-game package the conference has with Fox Sports Net.
The 2007 Pac-10 games set for ABC or ESPN include:
= Sep. 1: Tennessee at California, 5:00 p.m. on ABC.
= Sep. 15: Ohio State at Washington, 12:30 p.m. on ESPN.
= Sep. 22: Washington State at USC, 5:00 p.m. on ABC.
= Sep. 29: 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Sep. 29: USC at Washington, 5:00 p.m. on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.
= Oct. 6: Notre Dame at UCLA, 5:00 p.m. on ABC.
= Oct. 13: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Oct. 20: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Nov. 3: UCLA at Arizona, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Nov. 3: Oregon State at USC, 5:00 p.m. on ABC-ESPN-ESPN2.
= Nov. 10: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Nov. 10: USC at California, 5:00 p.m. on ABC-ESPN-ESPN2.
= Nov. 15: Oregon at Arizona, 6:00 p.m. on ESPN.
= Nov. 17: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Nov. 22: USC at Arizona State, 5:00 p.m. on ESPN.
= Nov. 24: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Nov. 24: open window, with a 12- or six-day selection, 12:30 p.m. on ESPN or ESPN2.
= Dec. 1: UCLA at USC, 1:30 p.m. on ABC.
= Dec. 1: Oregon State at Oregon, 1:30 p.m. on ESPN2.
= Dec. 1: Arizona at Arizona State, 5:00 p.m. on ESPN or ESPN2.
There's also two Thursday-night games -- November 15, Oregon at Arizona, and November 22, USC at Arizona State. And with crossover games, three more Pac-10 appearances will be made on Aug. 31 ( Washington at Syracuse, 5:00 p.m., on ESPN), Sep. 6 (Oregon State at Cincinnati, 4:30 p.m. on ESPN), and Dec. 1 ( Washington at Hawaii, 8:30 or 9:00 p.m., on ESPN or ESPN2_.

==Consider this a warning more than anything else so you can avoid it accordingly: ESPNU, ESPN2 and ESPN will somehow cover the entire Division I men's lacrosse championship, running Saturday through May 28, which involves 15 games and the usual preppy schools involved.

==Finally, a week in review concerning how ESPN is trying to mess more with your every-day existence: For those who don’t get enough “boo-yah” from their home TV, radio, website, podcast or cellphone, the Worldwide Leader in Branding expects to have some form of a 45-second “SportsCenter’ beamed to you through a 20-inch plasma TV on top of a gas pump as you wait to fill your tank at selected L.A. non-service stations lucky enough to have this starting next month. Something called Gas Station TV will make that happen, as it already has in several major cities across the country. You know, we already have to contend with Harold Reynolds offering to wipe our windshields with a greasy rag for a buck, but Chris Berman working the dipstick under the hood perhaps would be of some use. Another service that’ll be useful to ESPN (and ABC) advertisers is a new video-on-demand deal it worked out with Cox cable systems that will give viewers access to things like college football games – but only after it disables the fast-forward feature on digital recorder, forcing you not only watch the entire game (if you were hoping to skip to the end) but all the ads that go with it. That includes endless ESPN promos. Cox will experiment with this system for those unfortunate subscribers in Orange County this fall who may soon be looking into satellite dish options.

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What some other media writers around the country are hitting on (thanks to Bruce Allen of Boston Sports Media Watch):
==Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Bob Wolfley on how NBC's Johnny Miller is getting too cozy with sponsors
==San Diego Union Tribune's Jay Posner on the NFL's new media policy.
==New York Times' Richard Sandomir on the NFL Network losing a court ruling that allows Comcast to put the network on their sports tier on the systems they recently acquired from Time Warner