==In a somewhat hokey way of getting its point across that it supports anti-global warming initives -- but bless their hearts for at least doing something -- NBC Sports will participate in an exercise in darnkess during its Sunday night studio coverage before the Dallas-Philadelphia game by turning out the lights on Bob Costas, Keith Olbermann and company.
A press release sent out Thursday said NBC Universal -- which is owned by General Electric, no less -- is trying to do 150 hours of environmentally-themed content from Nov. 4-10 as part of a "Green is Universal" campaign that sounds awfully bandwaggonish. As a result, "Football Night in America" will turn out the lights in Studio 8G after Costas explains the whole deal at the top of the show at 5 p.m. The lights in the studio will stay off through the halftime show, where Costas will talk to "Today" show host Matt Lauer, who for some reason will be near the North Pole.
As a result, NBC says studio analyst Jerome Bettis will be referred to as "The Hybrid Bus."
"This is going to be the first time a show deliberately shut out the lights," said FNIA producer Michael Weisman. "The point being, if you can get even 10 percent of our audience of 20 million to turn out a few lights in their homes, that's impactful. We're also going to practice what we preach. While we can't do a show without lights each week, we are going to turn out the lights in the studio during the game when it's not in use, which will save enough energy to power a typical family's home for a month."
Nice to know all that waste was taking place before this exercise was announced. And whatever it takes to draw attention from the New England-Indianapolis game on CBS, which could be in OT by the time NBC's show starts.

==CBS Sports announced that it will be the first network to use Sportvision’s FreezeCam technology in an NFL telecast during Sunday's New England-Indianapolis telecast. How will you know it's the FreezeCam? Look for a replay where the action is frozen, then zoomed in and out of frame. It can show if a foot went out of bounds, for example, then "un-freeze" and go back to where the play left off. Sounds like the kind of stuff ESPN uses in its studio shows.

==The Onion Sports headline of the week:

Slow Month In Baseball Saved By A-Rod

==A weekend TV football watchers roster:
Sunday's NFL:
==10 a.m.: Green Bay at Kansas City, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, Channel 11 (up against Washington-NY Jets, Carolina-Tennessee, San Francisco-Atlanta and Arizona-Tampa Bay on Fox in this time slot)
==10 a.m.: San Diego at Minnesota with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf, Channel 2 (up against Cincinnati-Buffalo, Denver-Detroit and Jacksonville-New Orleans on CBS in this time slot)
==1:15 p.m.: New England at Indianapolis with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, Channel 2 (up against Houston-Oakland on CBS and Seattle-Cleveland on Fox).
==5:15 p.m.: Dallas at Philadelphia with Al Michaels and John Madden, Channel 4
Monday's NFL:
==5:30 p.m.: Baltimore at Pittsburgh with Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski, ESPN

Saturday's local college football (with BCS rankings)
==12:30 p.m.: UCLA at Arizona with Dan Fouts and Tim Brant, Channel 7
==5 p.m.: Oregon State at USC with Terry Gannon and David Norrie, Channel 7

The rest of Saturday's college schedule:
==7 a.m.: ESPN "GameDay" returns to Eugene, Ore., before the Oregon-ASU contest. Kirk Herbstreit then has to fly against the clock to make it to an 8 p.m. (EDT) kickoff at Boston College.
==9 a.m.: Purdue at Penn State, with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware, ESPN
==9 a.m.: Iowa at Northwestern, with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley, ESPN2
==9 a.m.: North Carolina State at Miami, with Clay Matvick and Larry Coker, ESPNU
==9 a.m.: Wisconsin at No. 1 Ohio State, with Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson, Big Ten Network (also offering Ball State at Indiana on the second network feed)
==9:30 a.m.: Nebraska at No. 8 Kansas with Bill Land and Dave Lapham, FSN West
==9:30 a.m.: Kansas State at Iowa State with Ron Thulin and Kelly Stouffer, on Versus
==11:30 a.m.: Navy at Notre Dame, with Tom Hammond and Pat Haden, Channel 4.
==12:30 p.m.: No. 12 Michigan at Michigan State, with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Bonnie Bernstein, ESPN (also availalbe on PPV in this time window: Cincinnati at South Florida and No. 15 Texas at Oklahoma State)
==12:30 p.m.: Army at Air Force, with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts, CSTV
==12:45 p.m.: Maryland at North Carolina with Doug Bell and Charles Arbuckle, ESPNU
==2 p.m.: No. 3 LSU at Alabama with Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson, Channel 2
==3:30 p.m.: No. 9 Missouri at Colorado with Joel Meyers and Gary Reasons, FSN Prime Ticket
==3:40 p.m.: No. 4 Arizona State at No. 5 Oregon, with Trey Bender, Juan Roque and
Jody Jackson, FSN West
==4:15 p.m.: Rutgers at No. 13 Connecticut, with Dave Armstrong and Mike Gottfried, ESPNU (also carried in L.A. on ESPN)
==4:30 p.m.: Tulsa at Tulane with Carter Blackburn and Brian Jones, CSTV
==4:45 p.m.: Florida State at No. 2 Boston College with Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit and Texas A&M at No. 6 Oklahoma with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham are available only on PPV.
==5 p.m.: South Carolina at Arkansas with Mark Jones and Bob Davie, ESPN2
==5 p.m.: Illinois at Minnesota, Big Ten Network
==7 p.m.: Washington State at California with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Jim Watson on FSN Prime Ticket

==As for that No. 1 Ohio State game stuck on The Big Ten Network, and upstart UConn getting some run on ESPNU, check out this New York Times take on the situation.

==For those who've wondered about how No. 14 Hawaii would fare against the mainland's elite, ESPN2 announced it has worked a deal with the Western Athletic Conference to carry the Warriors' Nov. 10 home game against Fresno State at 8 p.m. PDT (11 p.m. in the East, and 6 p.m. local time) using a production from the Fresno State Bulldog Sports Network. Originally, it was only going to be shown in Hawaii and Fresno. Either ESPN or ESPN2 will also have Hawaii's final four games, including at Nevada (Friday, Nov. 16) and home against Boise State (Fri., Nov. 23) and Washington (Dec. 1)

==The NFL Network makes another awkward leap into live college football coverage Saturday, carrying something called the “Fountain City Classic” between Fort Valley State (8-2) and Albany State (7-2) at 11 a.m., and forcing Fran Charles and Sterling Shapre to earn their paycheck on the call from Columbus, Ga. Earlier this season, the NFL Net had the “Circle City Classic” between Winston-Salem State and Florida A&M. Later this fall, it has the Texas Bowl and Insight Bowls.

==A blogger known as One More Dying Quail scored a Q-and-A with ESPN's Erin Andrews, which includes the now-classic shot of the sideline hostess eating a sub sandwich.
"I've seen some stuff, but over the past year, it's gotten worse with me. Every little thing I do, whether it's eating a sandwich to, you know, anything, it's just all over, or who I'm talking to on the sidelines so that must mean I'm dating them, who I'm having a drink with at the bar, so that must mean I'm dating him, it's turned into, ... almost like a mockery, so I've stayed away from it."
She ends the interview:
"I just kind of look at myself as your typical chick next door. That’s how I look at myself," she says, repeating the thought to make sure the guy on the other end of the phone knows that she does, in fact, look at herself in some relevant way.

==A follow up story in the New York Times about Jonathan Wiener, a 20-year-old sophomore English major from Mississippi who had the call on the 15-lateral play that ended Saturday's Division III college football game between Trinity and Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss.
The Trinity University website has two video clips of the play that's been shown on many sports and news outlets, with this being the best:

==Our UCLA inside blog reports that former UCLA sharpshooter Tracy Murray is taking Lou Riggs' broadcasting class at Santa Monica College and will fill in for Don MacLean on UCLA radio broadcasts this season when MacLean is needed to do TV games on FSN. Another UCLA blog posting explains why coach Karl Dorrell seemed to be yelling "Just do it!" at FSN reporter Michael Eaves as they were leaving the field at halftime during Saturday's contest at Washington State.

==The live final of the third season of “The Contender” goes Tuesday at 6 p.m. from Boston on ESPN. Jaidon “The Don” Codrington faces Sakio Bika, who scored a split decision over Sam Soliman this past Tuesday, in the final for the $750,000 prize.

==NBCSports.com and NBCOlympics.com has live, free coverage of the U.S. Olympic men's marathon trials -- the first time an Olympic Trials has been streamed live online -- Saturday starting at 4:35 a.m. NBC's "Today" show will cut in for the start and the network has a half-hour highlights show at 11 a.m. Then on Sunday, starting at 6:30 a.m., NBCSports.com has the New York Marathon live (charging $4.99 for the service), as well as NBC's TV coverage from noon to 1 p.m. with Jimmy Roberts hosting.

==ESPN reports it averaged 1.1 million viewers between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. (PDT) for its coverage of the Breeders’ Cup last Saturday, which is an increase from the 994,000 viewers it had a year ago, but still a far cry from NBC’s draw of 2 million viewers the last time it had the vent in 2005.

==HBO, meanwhile, has no problem pond-hopping for its next boxing event – super middleweight champions Joe Calzaghe vs. Mikkel Kessler, airing Saturday live at 6 p.m. from Cardiff, Wales. Jim Lampley, Max Kellerman and Emanuel Steward are on the call.
The hyper hyperbolic Lampley offered this amusing analysis via HBO’s media relations department:
“In a world where Appalachian State beats Michigan on merit and the Colorado Rockies run roughshod through the National League, it's only fitting that for one night, a Welshman and a Dane command the attention of the global gloved fistfight cult. The 168-pound weight class is an annoyance for old schoolers, perched as it is somewhere between the grace of middleweights and the gristle of light heavies … (but) it may be the most eagerly-anticipated all-European matchup in the 116-year history of the sport.
“Calzaghe has held his title belt for more than 10 years, the longest-such tenure in the sport, and has a long list of defenses that approaches numerical standards established by fighters like Joe Louis and Bernard Hopkins. But for years his opponents were European and therefore largely anonymous. He wasn't accorded icon status in the sport until his annihilation of American Jeff Lacy a year-and-a-half ago. Long, aggressively left-handed and usually eager to square up and throw, Calzaghe has developed a unique style. Somewhere on the march to 43 straight wins, 32 by knockout, he became his nation's biggest star.
“As a swashbuckling, tattooed Dane in a sport note worthily short on Scandinavians, Kessler would be under any circumstances fresh. But as he has built his recent record through an impressive series of knockouts and a sledgehammer assault on indestructible Librado Andrade, the excitement has grown from round to round. Kessler has a quick left hook, a stern right cross, consummate boxing skills, fast footwork and a winning style. And now he adds the proven self-belief to agree to fight Calzaghe on his own turf, in a crowd where the Danes might be outnumbered twenty-to-one and the combatants won't enter the ring until past 1:00 a.m. (local Wales time). Winner of 39 in a row, 29 by knockout, Kessler hasn't yet discovered doubt.
“It's a matchup Shakespeare himself could proudly have conceived: Cool Danish ferocity vs. battle-tested Welsh willpower on an overcrowded soccer pitch at the witching hour, with ales to be guzzled and stories to be told until dawn. It promises to be one of HBO's most memorable and dramatic boxing telecasts in what has already been an unusually memorable and dramatic ring year.”
Wish we were there. Have an ale for us.

==Spike TV officially announced a new three-year contract extension worth a reported $100 million-plus with the Ultimate Fighting Championship to remain the basic cable home of the pugilistic group through 2011. This means there will be three more seasons of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series (the first five seasons were pretty darn successful for the network) and 12 live cards (four per year) on Fridays hosted by Joe Rogan (pictured here, strangling UFC head Dana White) and Mike Goldberg.
A batch of statistical analysis served up by the Spike TV media relations people: In 2007, seven live UFC fights on Spike TV have averaged more young men in the coveted 18-34 demographic (869,000) on cable than the basketball, baseball, football, hockey, and NASCAR including -- 62 percent more than the NLCS on TBS, 143 percent more than the NBA playoffs on ESPN, 24 percent more than the NBA playoffs on TNT, 123 percent more than MLB Sunday Night baseball on ESPN, 48 percent more than NASCAR on TNT, 31 percent more than NASCAR on ESPN, 81 percent more than the NFL on NFL Network and 595 percent more than the NHL Stanley Cup Finals on Versus.

==Versus breaks away from its exhaustive NHL coverage to carry the end of the Pro Bull Riders World Finals from Las Vegas. The network, which began its 15 hours of coverage last Friday, goes from 6 to 8:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday live before it has same-day delayed coverage Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m.

==The gem of the week from the Arboblog at WeAreSC.com:
I ran into PC yesterday in a HH stairway and we talked briefly about the team being able to open things up a little bit this week. I spoke, coach to coach, about how most people (writers, fans, etc) don’t realize how it’s just a few plays a game that make the difference between winning and losing, in most sports and in most contests in those sports.
Arbogast didn't just use the phrase "coach to coach," did he? Implying that ...
Never mind.
Someone make sure the tool is put back in the shed before the next game.

==Final damage from Fox’s coverage of Boston’s four-game sweep of Colorado in the World Series – the network forced to cram five games worth of ads into that series will probably win the adult 18-49 demo for the week and win the prime-time audience on each night. It even beat ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday. But its 10.6/18 overall rating (17.1 million viewers) is only about a five percent increase from the all-time lowest-rated series from last season (St. Louis over Detroit in five).

==And finally:
NBC late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien explains this 3 minute clip how he coersed Fox baseball play-by-play man (and potential late-night talk-show host) Joe Buck to work the phrase "Jub Jub" into a World Series telecast last week, which earned Buck a $1,000 donation in his name to the Gateway of Hope charity:

Feel free to refer to Chris Myers from here on as "Jub Jub."
Later on the Monday show, O'Brien put the offer up to guest Charles Barkley to do the same on a TNT NBA studio telecast, offering up $2,000 this time:

“What is jub jub?” Barkley asked.
"Nothing," said O'Brien.
It's gotten to a point where Steve Mason and John Ireland and Steve Mason even discussed with ESPN "Monday Night Football" sideline reporter Michele Tafoya that "jub jub" could be the next thing she tries to work into a telecast. Considering the slump she's been in lately -- maybe it's that SI-stealing-a-Daily-News-story-idea-Jinx -- Tafoya hasn't even been able to create her own word to get into the telecast and make everyone happy.
There's always the second half of the season.