All miked up for more media
(Hans Gutneckt/Daily News Staff Photographer)
More open mike media notes after today's column in the Daily News about how Phil Jackson's worst nightmare has begun to unfold as TNT, ESPN and ABC televises four of the next eight Lakers games, beginning with Thursday's game against San Antonio:
==Highlights from Jackson's "Inside Trax" segment performances Thursday included, with about 8 minutes to play in the second quarter, a montage of him in the huddle telling his players: "We're not having any penetration, we're settling for jump shots." And then coaching from the bench: "Get penetration, get penetration. ... There you are."
Jackson got some real face time with sideline reporter Craig Sager just before the start of the fourth quarter, when Jackson had to do the obligatory live interview.
Sager: "Doug Collins said moments ago he hated to coach against other teams that were shorthanded. How frustrating is it for you tonight, particularily with your team trailing going into the fourth quarter?"
Jackson (with a smirk): "Well, they short-handed us ... they threw out Andrew Bynum so we're even now in that department .... What's with this tie, by the way? What's with this tie?"
Sager: Looking down at it, saying nothing.
Jackson: "Did this come from Costa Rica with you?"
Sager: "Uh, yes it did."
Jackson now gets in his face and is smiling even more.
Sager: "You mentioned they threw out Andrew Bynum ... were you upset he got kicked out?"
Jackson: "He lost his cool. He got upset because (Fabricio) Oberto was getting away with grabbing him ... you gotta play to that with San Antonio."
Sager: "OK, thanks."
Jackson: "Bye" and he walks away as play starts.
Later in the fourth quarter, the Lakers' Jordan Farmar, who was also wearing a mike, was shown on tape calling "Sacha, Sacha" to get a pass while he was open in the corner, making a jumper; then back on defense, saying "Talk to me, talk to me ... Sacha LEFT, LEFT!"
It caused analyst Doug Collins to say how important it is to communicate with your teammates, both on offense and defense.
==Headline of the week from The Onion Sports (and please don't try this at home):
==Maybe the craziest thing about the release of the 409-page Mitchell Report to the media on Thursday was that, according to someone at MLB.com, more than 2 million people downloaded it to read what it actually had to say. Please, not everyone print it out at the same time. The other bizzare angle: The MLB station on XM satellite radio Channel 175 , which usually includes Charley Steiner and Kevin Kennedy as hosts, had sportscasters reading the report live during the "MLB Home Plate" show. The station also had a link to download the report. You'd think they could have hired James Earl Jones do at least give it some dramatic presence.
==Your weekend football viewing:
Saturday:
9 a.m.: NCAA Division II championship: Northwest Missouri State vs. Valdosta State, with Dave Pasch, Andre Ware and Holly Rowe, ESPN2
1 p.m.: NCAA Division III championship: Mount Union (Ohio) vs. Wisconsin-Whitewater, with Pam Ward, Ray Bentley and Rob Simmelkjaer, ESPN2
Thursday:
5 p.m.: Denver at Houston with Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth, NFL Network
(Oooops, again, you've already missed this)
Saturday:
5 p.m.: Cincinnati at San Francisco with Bryant Gumbel, Marshall Faulk and Deion Sanders, NFL Network
Sunday:
10 a.m.: N.Y. Jets at New England with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, Channel 2 (by picking this one, CBS can't deliver Indianapolis at Oakland in the 1 p.m. window since Fox has the doubleheader this weekend. Nor will you be able to see CBS' coverage of Jacksonville-Pittsburgh, Baltimore-Miami, Tennessee-Kansas City or Buffalo-Cleveland)
10 a.m.: Green Bay at St. Louis with Kenny Albert, Darryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa, Channel 11 (as opposed to St. Louis-New Orleans, Atlanta-Tampa Bay or Seattle-Carolina on Fox)
1 p.m.: Philadelphia at Dallas with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, Channel 11 (instead of Detroit at San Diego, also on Fox)
5:15 p.m.: Washington at N.Y. Giants with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer, Channel 4
Monday:
5:30 p.m.: Chicago at Minnesota with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser, plus Michele Tafoya and Suzy Kolber, ESPN
==Flex alert: The Dec. 23 Week 16 Washington-Minnesota game finds itself in NBC's grubby paws and moved to a 5:15 p.m. kickoff, replacing the Tampa Bay-San Francisco stinker that was part of the network's original lineup. That game now goes back to Fox at 1 p.m. Also, the Miami at New England game moves back to the 1:15 p.m. window that day on CBS in what could be the unbeaten Patriots against the unvictorious Dolphins.
For the last week of the season (Dec. 30, Week 17), NBC has a Kansas City-N.Y. Jets game on its schedule that its sure to dump as well. For that one, it has up until six days prior to decide what other game to swap out with Fox or CBS.
All in all, according to the math, NBC's Sunday night package and ESPN's Monday night package aren't tracking to perform as they did in 2006. NBC is averaging a 10.2 Nielsen rating, down 9 percent from last year (the all-time low is 10.8 by ABC's "MNF" in 2005). ESPN, which had a miserable 6.7 rating for the equally miserable Saints-Falcons game last Monday, is averaging an 8.7 rating this season, down 12.1 percent from last year's 9.9. That included a 13.0 rating from the Dec. 3 New England-Baltimore game, which was the most watched cable broadcast ever.
Meanwhile, Sunday’s CBS coverage of Pittsburgh-New England was viewed by 30.3 million fans, making it the most-watched TV show of the week (topping "CSI" by 11.5 million viewers) and second-most watched show of the TV season (after the Patriots-Colts drew 33.8 million on Nov. 4).
==ESPN "SportsCenter" has been conducting its own ESPNU college football playoff system, otherwise known as Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit picking the teams that they think would advance in a head-to-head battle to get to the next round. Starting with No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 LSU getting byes in a 10-team tournament that includes No. 3 Virginia Tech against No. 6 Missouri, No. 4 Oklahoma vs. No. 5 Georgia, No. 8 Kansas facing No. 9 West Virginia and No. 7 USC against No. 10 Hawaii, Corso and Herbstreit has debated it down to USC and Oklahoma advancing to the title game.
An update on the ESPNU site elicited this response from someone named "kdrouth":
"Stop talking about a playoff and do it. You pick any two people and they come up with different results. Can I remind you that the national championship predictions did not include LSU or OSU just over a week ago. Your predictions mean nothing. Your rankings mean nothing. Thats why all those number one and two teams lost this year (Including LSU twice, once to an unranked team)."
==Recently retired Galaxy star Cobi Jones is the analyst for ESPN's coverage of the NCAA men's soccer semifinals today, teamming with Glenn Davis on the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest game (ESPN2, 2 p.m.) and then the Massachusetts-Ohio State game (ESPNU, 4 p.m.). Jones will also do the final that airs on ESPN2, Sunday at noon.
==Former UCLA star and beach volleyball legend Karch Kiraly, partnered with Beth Mowins and Cathy Nelson on the NCAA women's volleyball national semifinals carried on ESPNU and ESPN2 on Thursday, will also do the final that airs on Saturday at 6 p.m. on ESPN2.
==USA Today deputy sports managing editor Lee Ivory, NBA writers Roscoe Nance, David DuPree and Greg Boeck and boxing writer Chuck Johnson are among the 43 staffers who took a voluntary buyout, according to Maynardije.org (The Robert C. Maynard Institute of Journalistic Edcutation), via the Sports Business Daily. Four of the five are black, which is why Maynardije.org took interest in the news.
==Kevin Kiley, who once pitched an idea to KSPN-AM (710) to do a midday show with former fired ESPN NFL analyst Michael Irvin, actually was paired with the former Dallas Cowboys star during a tryout recently at ESPN's 103.3 FM affiliate in Dallas. Kiley has been filling in with former NFL running back Greg Hill in the midday slot as part of rotating hosts since the station has an opening to fill.
==Among the issues ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber discusses in her latest online entry was how Kirk Herbstreit got caught in the middle of the Dec. 1 "College GameDay" exclusive when he reported that Les Miles would be leaving LSU to take the job at Michigan. Miles later that day, just prior to the SEC title game, denied the "misinformation" that came out "on ESPN" and ABC aired several times during its college football game coverage halftime shows. The reports that circulated that morning were: "Sources have told ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Michigan will announce early next week it has reached an agreement with LSU coach Les Miles to be its next head football coach." Herbstreit eventually said the information came not from "sources," but from a single, anonymous, uncorroborated source. Herbstreit eventually was forced to concede his error the next day when LSU said Miles signed through 2012.
"Given an anonymous source, who to judge by repeated on-the-record denials was not Miles, his agent or Michigan athletic director Bill Martin, and given the degree of at least slight doubt implied by 'barring any unforeseen circumstances,' why did ESPN go with a story that risked affecting outcomes -- the championship game and the job negotiations -- by itself becoming an unforeseen circumstance?" Schreiber wrote.
She then quotes Vince Doria, ESPN senior vice president and director of news: "As to how breaking a story might impact events, unless those events are life-threatening or equally monumental -- we don't consider coaching job negotiations or preparation for a football game in either category -- we wouldn't withhold information."
Schreiber follows: "That is fine, but only if ESPN consistently holds its sports journalism to the same standards applied in good non-sports journalism when using anonymous sources. To my mind, Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback and not an experienced reporter, was less to blame for this ill-founded scoop than the senior College GameDay producers who should have advised him against going on air with such shaky information instead of convincing him it was his journalistic obligation to share with viewers what 'a source' had told him.
Adds Doria: "In hindsight, we should have said something like, 'A source has told ESPN that Miles and Michigan have agreed on money and length of term, but no contract is signed, and Miles has to go to Michigan for a face-to-face interview with AD Bill Martin.' "
Back to Schreiber: "That would have been better, but we have been given no reason to believe it would have been any more true. All we know for sure is that ESPN's reputation as a reliable source of 'scoops' has taken another blow. When viewers respond to the phrase 'a source has told ESPN' with a 'we'll see' attitude, as many who write me say they now do, it undermines the efforts of ESPN's entire staff of producers, editors and reporters."
==ESPN's Jeremy Schaap was named winner of the Dick Schaap Lifetime Achievement Award, named for his father, last week at the greater N.Y. chapter of the Cron's & Colitis Foundation of American benefit dinner.
==HBO replays Floyd Mayweather's 10th-round knockout of Rick Hatton on Saturday at 10:15 p.m.
==As ESPN's deal with the International Skating Union ends after the 2008 World Figure Skating Championships, concern that the '09 World Championships from Staples Center could be jeopardized caused ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta to say he would give away the TV rights if it meant U.S. viewers wouldn't miss that event, according to the Chicago Tribune. "The (U.S.) and U.S. television stations have been very good to us, and we are not going to turn our back on them," Cinquanta told the paper. "I will let them have (the '09 event) free if there is no other solution." The ISU has been asking for about $5 million per year in a new TV deal, talking to ESPN, NBC and Fox, but so far has no takers. ABC once paid $22 million a year in a five-year deal that ended in 2004.
==Second headline from The Onion Sports worth tossing out there for consideration:
==Sirius Satellite Radio extended a deal with ESPN Radio to include a new weekly ESPN The Magazine talk show on Channel 121, hosted by Gary Hoenig, the GM and editor in chief of ESPN Publishing, and Gary Belsky, the magazine's editor. The first show launched Tuesday with a roundable of magazine staffers talking about stories of the week and taking calls.
“As ESPN Radio moves beyond the traditional AM and FM radio distribution, we are pleased to expand our programming – both radio and television -- with Sirius,” said Traug Keller, ESPN senior vice president, production, business divisions in a press release.
==ESPN reports that its coverage of the Heisman presentation last Saturday drew 2.972 million households and 4.2 million viewers, even though the 3.1 rating matched last year's.
==The final days of the PRCA National Finals Rodeo from Las Vegas climaxes with the live championship round Saturday on ESPN at 6 p.m. Included are tonight's ninth round (ESPN2, 9 p.m., repeated at midnight Sunday)
==During ESPN’s hour-long special Tuesday called “The best of ‘This Is SportsCenter’ commercials,” a new “This Is SportsCenter” promo was sandwiched in during a regular block of advertisements, right between ones for Geico and a Chyrsler minivan, about 45 minutes into the broadcast. Overkill?
==And finally: As we're reading the Dec. 17 issue of Sports Illustrated and the eight pages of the "Third annual The Year in Sports Media" collections of bite-sized tidbits from the 2007 media, the question arises again: Is it just us, or is there something not right these days with Sports Illustrated? And can it be fixed?
It's from a piece by Josh Levin on Slate.com that's more than a month old, but it touches on so many pertinent topics, worth a quick read if you're among us who can't figure out why we still anticipate the magazine's arrival every Wednesday only to find ourselves flipping through it and, after about 10 minutes, tossing it in the stack of newspapers headed for recycleville.
"Sports Illustrated used to distinguish itself by writing better, and securing better access to its subjects, than anyone who wrote faster," Levin writes. "Now, with a few exceptions ... the magazine's reported pieces don't offer original details. They just come out three days later than everybody else's."