Spinning more media notes on their axis

==Tim Scanlan, ESPN's VP of even production, explained further why ESPN may have been better served by having their broadcasters do the live play-by-play from the Bristol, Conn., studios rather than the game site:
"It's really not relative to budgets, but the advatage for us is to have Andy and Tommy Smyth join ESPN in Bristol and serve all our platforms, not just the games, but also the highlight shows, ESPNEWS, ESPN.com ... that is the strategy. Also, since there is no U.S. team in the tournament, they award the stadium booth broadcast spots first to the host country, then to teams playing in the event, then to the closest nations. There was no guarantee we'd even have a booth spot if we sent our talent. That factored into the strategy of the cost, travel, and maximizing our time with Andy and Tommy and bringing Adrian and Derek in."

UPDATE at noon:
**THE INTERNET:
==A fine way for Will Leitch to go out as editor of Deadspin.com: An exchange of emails with Buzz Bissinger, considering their last head-to-head matchup on HBO's "Costas Now" was pretty much a circus. It's all here in a lengthy take.

**OLYMPIC TRIALS:

==The NBC schedule for the next week-plus of the U.S. trials:
-Bob Costas, Dan Hicks, Rowdy Gaines and Andrea Kremer are in Omaha, Neb., for the U.S. swimming trials. For the record, Michael Phelps is trying to qualify for the Beijing Games in nine individual events -- 100, 200 and 400 meters freestyle, the 200 and 400 individual medley, the 100 and 200 backstroke and the 100 and 200 butterfly.
The lineup:
-Sunday (8 to 9 p.m., delayed, Channel 4); Men's and women's 400m IM finals
-Monday (8 to 9 p.m. delayed, USA Network): Men's 200m Freestyle semifinal; men's and women's 100m Breaststroke final; men's 100m Backstroke semifinal; women's 400m Freestyle final.
-Tuesday (8 to 9 p.m. delayed, USA Network): Men's 200m Freestyle final; men's and women's 100m Backstroke final; men's 200m Butterfly semifinal.
-Wednesday (8 to 9 p.m. delayed, USA Network): Men's 200m Butterfly final; men's 200m Breaststroke semifinal; women's 200m Individual Medley final.
-Thursday (8 to 9 p.m., delayed, USA Network): Men's 200m Breaststroke final; women's 100m Freestyle semifinal; men's 200m Backstroke semifinal.
-Friday, July 4 (8 to 9 p.m. delayed, Channel 4): Men's 200m Backstroke final; men's 200m Individual Medley final; women's 100m Freestyle final.
-Saturday, July 5 (8 to 9 p.m., delayed, Channel 4): Men's 100m Butterfly final; women's 800m Freestyle final; men's 50m Freestyle final.
-Sunday, July 6 (7 to 9 p.m., delayed, Channel 4): Women's 50m Freestyle final; men's 1,500m Freestyle final.

-Tom Hammond, Carol Lewis, Lewis Johnson, Ato Boldon, Dwight Stones, Ed Eyestone and Bob Neumeier are at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon for the U.S. Track and Field Trials.
The lineup:
-Tonight (midnight to 1 a.m. delayed., USA Network): women's 10,000m final, women's 100m quarterfinal.
-Saturday (8 to 9 p.m. delayed, Channel 4): Women's 100m final; men's shot put; men's 100m quarterfinal.
-Sunday: (7 to 8 p.m., delayed, Channel 4): Men's 100m final; men's 400m Hurdle final; woman's 400m Hurdle final; men's 400m quarterfinal; men's pole vault.
-Monday: (11 p.m. to 1 a.m. delayed, USA Network): Men's 5,000m final; men's 400m semifinal; men's and women's 800m final; women's 400m semifinal.
-Thursday (11 p.m. to 1 a.m., delayed, USA Network): Women's 400m final; men's 400m final; men's 1,500m quarterfinal; women's steeplechase final.
-Friday, July 4 (11 p.m. to 1 a.m. USA Network): Men's 1,500m semifinal; women's 5000m final; men's 10,000m final.
-Saturday, July 5 (5 to 6 p.m. delayed, Channel 4): Women's 200m semifinal; men's 200m semifinal; men's high jump final.
-Sunday, July 6 (7 to 9 p.m. delayed, Channel 4): Women's 1500m final; men's and women's 200m final; women's pole vault final; men's javelin; men's and women's 110m Hurdle final; women's 100m Hurdle final; men's 1,500m final.

Also:
The new Universal Sports site (formerly World Championship Sports Network) has up-to-date schedules and video, and NBCOlympics.com will do more coverage.

**TENNIS:

==Ted Robinson, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo snatch away the Wimbledon coverage starting Saturday (9 a.m to noon) on NBC with some live and mostly tape-delayed stuff. Sunday is the traditional off day, but NBC replays some of the week's most interesting matches (9 a.m. to noon). That leads to more taped matches Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) Thursday and Friday, July 4 (both noon to 5 p.m.) are the women's and men's semifinals (again, taped). There's also the 11:35 to 11:50 p.m. update each night.
That feeds into the women's finals live Saturday, July 5 (6 to 11 a.m.) and men's finals live Sunday, July 6 (6 to 11 a.m.).
Unless, of course, there's rain.
"The biggest upset of the week would be the weather," said Carillo. "It hasn't rained once."

**MLB:

==This weekend's TV games:
-FSN West Prime Ticket and KCOP Channel 13 have the Dodgers-Angels game tonight from Dodger Stadium.
-On Saturday, KCAL Channel 9 and KCOP Channel 13 have locked in the Dodgers-Angels game from Dodger Stadium on Saturday at 7:10 p.m., so that leaves the L.A. market of Fox's regional coverage on Saturday at 12:55 p.m. going with the Cubs and White Sox from U.S. Cellular Field with Thom Brennaman and Mark Grace. Some 58 percent of the country also get that game (41 percent Yankees at Mets with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver).
-On Sunday, for the second week in a row, ESPN has the White Sox and Cubs again with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. TBS takes the Yankees-Mets game Sunday at 10 a.m. with Chip Caray and Ron Darling. KCAL Channel 9 and KCOP Channel 13 have the Dodgers-Angels again at 1 p.m.

**GOLF:

==Another televised golf tournament without Tiger Woods. But with Annika Sorenstam. The hook is that she's trying for a record-tying fourth Women's U.S. Open title and 11th major during NBC's coverage of the third and final rounds on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m.
Not quite the wall-to-wall deal they gave the men's event a few weeks ago, eh?
Mark Rolfing will host with Johnny Miller and Dottie Pepper, plus reporters Gary Koch, Roger Maltbie, Jane Crafter and no Bob Costas.
==The CBS crew assigned to this weekend's Tigerless Buick Open (Saturday and Sunday, noon to 3 p.m.): Verne Lundquist will anchor with Nick Faldo, putting Peter Oosterhuis, Gary McCord and Ian Baker-Finch in nearby towers and David Feherty, for the first time since his bicycle accident back in March, actually walks the course as a reporter, along with Peter Kostis.

**ETC.

==ESPN's video tribute to Barry Melrose, which has been circulating since he decided to step away from his cushy studio job and return to the bench for the first time since the Kings let him go away in 1995:

==Jim Lampley, Manny Steward and Harold Lederman call Satuday's Manny Pacquiao-David Diaz lightweight championship bout from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on HBO pay-per-view at 6 p.m. (going for $49.95).

==Fox College Sports has done a three-year deal to carry the National College Surfing Championships, which air Aug. 2 from Dana Point. The event took place June 21.

==Jemele Hill's explanation as to what she learned from being suspended for writing a recent column for ESPN.com that compared Detroit fans cheering for the Boston Celtics to anyone who supported Hitler and nuclear war is at this link.

==You'd think Steve Mason, the KSPN-AM (710) sports-talk host who sang the National Anthem at Wednedsay's Orange County Flyers baseball game in Fullerton, could have at least worn a nice pair of shoes.

=="Always By My Side: A Father's Grace and Sports Journey Unlike Any Other," by CBS' Jim Nantz, is No. 3 on The New York Times bestseller, so that makes it a sports book unlike any other (if you really consider it a sports book) for this year.
By the way, among those who've given endorsements to the book is this one from Don Imus: "Wonderfully well written and heartfelt!" Imus presumably knows "what color" Nantz is.

==A story this week in Broadcasting & Cable has strongly implied that ESPN is open ears about getting into the funny business of sports programming. The story says that ESPN "has been soliciting and taking pitches for months for a more comedic-oriented potential companion show" to something called "ESPN Timeline," set to launch next April on ESPN2.
A comedy show -- meaning, "SportsCenter" isn't funny enough -- would be something more along the lines of -- and you could see this coming -- a "sports version of 'The Daily Show,'" according to the story, which then quotes ESPN senior VP of content development and enterprises Keith Clinkscales: "That's the holy grail. But I don't know what it will be; it depends on talent. We remain open to different opportunities."
Here's a crazy idea: Hire back that Criag Kilborn guy, you know, the one who left ESPN to go to Comedy Central to host this new show called "The Daily Show," which really took off when he left and Jon Stewart replaced him.
How funny would that be?
For another take on this, Deadspin.com seems to intimate that someone like Bill Simmons, who has, according to the kids, a lot of experience in sports writing genre, plus was a writer for Jimmy Kimmel, would be the one targeted to get this thing off the ground.

==Paul Pierce's appearance on Wedneday's Jimmy Kimmel show -- starting with the fact he's rolled out in a wheelchair:

==Between ESPN, ESPN2 and (for real) ABC, all 11 games of the Arena Football League playoffs will be televised, starting tonight and leading into the ArenaBowlXXII in New Orleans on July 27 (noon, ABC). Funny thing about that title game, though. ESPN hasn't decided who the broadcasters will be.
Bob Wischusen and Ray Bentley do today's New York-Dallas game (ESPN, 4:30 p.m.). Dave Pasch and Marcellus Wiley do Saturday's Colorado-Utah game (ESPN, 1 p.m.) as well as Monday's Grand Rapids-Arizona tilt (ESPN2, 6:30 p.m.). And Ari Wolfe and Shaun King are doing Orlando-Cleveland on Monday (ESPN2, 4 p.m.). Those three teams are also split up on the four divisional playoffs games played from July 5-7. But for the conference championships (July 12-14) and the title game, ESPN simply lists the broadcasting teams as "TBD."
Maybe they're waiting for a Mike Golic-Mike Greenberg surprise announcment?
During these playoffs, instant replay will be used for the first time in league history, set up as coaching challenges.
And, for what it's worth, the L.A. market had the best regular-season ratings for the second season in a row as far as ESPN2 games went -- a 0.49 mark. After 16 games on ESPN2, the male 18-34 demographic is up 24 percent overall with the male 18-49 up 16 percent vs. last year.

==The ESPN "SportsCenter" lineups for when it expands to live morning shows starting Aug. 11: Linda Cohn and Steve Berthiaume from 3 to 6 a.m.; Hannah Storm and Josh Elliott from 6 to 9 a.m.; Chris McKendry and Robert Flores from 9 a.m. to noon. On Fridays during the NFL season, Sage Steele will replace Storm, who will co-host Sunday morning's SportsCenters that McKendry previously did.

==With the success of Euro 2008 and providing extra national stuff to U.S. viewers, ESPN has a deal now to do live the 2008 Asia Cup Cricket Tournament on ESPN360.com in the U.S. and its territories. The six-team, 13-match biennial tournament started Tuesday and runs through July 6 in Pakistan. Also, Cricinfo.com, the leading cricket information site recently purchased by ESPN, has more to offer.

==ESPNRadio.com, which already has audio streaming of many of its affiliates (including KSPN-AM 710), has added more live and on-demand stations to the menu (mostly, to help advertisers). The newest affiliates will include Red Zebra Broadcasting's Washington D.C. stations WXTR-AM, WWXT-FM and WWXX-FM (triplexespnradio.com), Good Karma Broadcasting's WKNR-AM Cleveland (espncleveland.com), WAUK-AM Milwaukee (espnmilwaukee.com) and WEFL-AM West Palm Beach (espn760.com), and KEPN-AM Denver (espnradiodevner.com), owned by Lincoln Financial Group.

**FINALLY:
==One more tribute to the late George Carlin, from a 1988 appearance with Roy Firestone on the old "Up Close" ESPN show, where Carlin discusses the hyprocracy, absurdies and double standards of sports, such as the Fighting Irish, the Olympics, the Ickey Shuffle, and giving Kareem Abdul Jabbar parting gifts as he retires:

Carlin suffered three heart attacks in his life before dying of heart problems last Sunday night in Santa Monica. The second one he had in 1982 (his first was in '78, his third was in '91) took place at Dodger Stadium while he was watching a game. How's that for another sports angle? KSPN-AM (710) also played a clip this week of Carlin, who lived in Venice, talking about his disappointment in Kobe Bryant coming from a priviledged background and allowing himself to get into predicaments, such as the Eagle, Colo., thing.

HBO replayed an appareance Carlin did on the Chris Rock show, where he was able to say the seven dirty words without reprecussions -- the beauty of HBO -- and then, as usual, looked at what makes people cringe so much about those words.
"In newspapers, they can say 'F-dot-dot-dot' ... well, everyone knows what it means. The thought has been conveyed, and that's all language is ... (and they say it's wrong to print the word) because it's a family newspaper. How do you think the family got started? F**king."
Those seven words, which the FCC won't allow on over-the-air networks (which is why HBO has the exemption), are now part of the blogosphere language every single day.

Carlin also explained, in classic style, why he did what he did.
"I like to bother people. I like to find out where the line is drawn and delibertaly cross it and drag the audience with you. And they're happy that you did."
We've been happy ever since we heard Carlin's "Baseball-Football" bit as a kid listening to his records, which included his parody of a sportscaster who gave the result: "The 49ers 76, the 76ers 49."
And the best dig at a sportscaster Biff Burns: "And now, here's a partical score -- Pittsburgh, 73."

OK, one more clip of Carlin, from 1986, talking about things he'd change in sports, from letting all 45 guys get on the field for football, a 2-second shot clock in basketball and land mines place in the outfield during baseball games -- whatever it takes to increase the injury factor because "I'm an American -- I deserve it."
Also: What is a sport and what isn't a sport:
"Gymnastics isn't a sport because Romanians are good at it."

It doesn't get any better.