November 2008 Archives

More from today's column with Sal Paolantonio, on "How Football Explains America" (linked here):

Q: In this time of a financial crisis, can football explain how we're headed into a recession, when it most often appears to all who watch the game that college and pro football seem to be recession-proof?

A: "I'm not sure they are recession proof. Let's look at what's happening with the new NFL stadiums being built in Dallas (pictured above) and New York. The Giants, Jets and Cowboys are having a very difficult time selling exorbitantly priced so-called Personal Seat Licenses. They are charging tens of thousands of dollars for the right to buy a ticket, and they are asking those who in the past did not pay those fees to pony up. For months, there has been stiff resistance on principle. Now, longtime fans can't afford it or simply cannot borrow the money to pay for a $50,000 seat license."

Q: The NFL, in particular, seems to stifle the freedom of expression - some call it the No Fun League -- which is an essential element of being America. Do you find that counterproductive?

A: "I think Commissioner Roger Goodell is ahead of the curve by enforcing decorum in the game. You don't want to slide into WWE mode. It's a game with time-honored traditions, and those help sell the game. So, the league is trying to protect its brand, and thus its investment. Can't fault them for that. Same goes with Mr. Goodell's insistence on protecting player safety. The players should be protected. It's their livelihood and the owners' investment. But it is tackle football. That is the essence of the game. That should not be diluted."

That's the title of the book published recently (Triumph Books, 211 pages, $24.95), authored by Sal Paolantonio in a very thought-provoking manner that fits the pieces of football's evolution on both the college and pro scale to how the country came together and continues to press upon its ideals forward.

Find it (at this link).

Mark Bowden, author of the new book, "The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL," probably offers his explanation of Paolantonio's book on the jacket cover: "So it turns out that Sal Paolantonio doesn't just talk about football on television, but he really thinks about it! His book is a breezy, conceptual tour through the history of America and of football, showing they are, in fact, one and the same. From war to jazz, from racism to integration, from immigrant waves of Scotch-Irish to Tonga islanders, from dioramas in the display windows of newspapers to 'Monday Night Football,' from Jim Thorpe to Eli Manning, the story of the game mirrors the story of our country. Who knew? All those lazy Sunday afternoons on the couch were really anthropological research."

Paolantonio says he got the idea for this book after reading Michael MacCambridge's "America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a National" and realizing that as good as the book was, it never really explained the "How" in the title. He also notes the Franklin Foer best-seller, "How Soccer Explains The World," and found a template for the way he could explain football's impact on America.

We caught up with SalPal for an on-line Q-and-A during his ESPN assignments, asking him to draw some comparisons to today's United States and the sport. An excerpt:

Q: What does Thanksgiving, the true American holiday, mean to football and visa versa, with examples you've used in the book as well as others you may think of this time of year, maybe of giving thanks for health and family and duty to country?

A: Well, the marriage of Thanksgiving and football started purely as a commercial idea -- a way to sell tickets to games and advertising in Chicago newspapers. And like most everything else in this country, it has become mythologized. (See Christmas. Macy's basically created the idea of shopping and giving on a grand scale on Christmas -- commercializing it.) But what I like about Thanksgiving is how it helps explain America through football. With local Turkey Bowl games all over the country, Americans have taken ownership of the tradition. We've democratized it, just like Fantasy Football has democratized the NFL. Used to be that you would bet on a team put together by somebody else -- a coach or general manager. Now, you invest financially and emotionally on teams you have assembled in your fantasy leagues (and I do mean plural). People of have taken ownership of the mythology. That is how football explains us as a people.

A link (here) to the history of Amos Alonzo Stagg helping to form the Chicago-Michigan game back in the late 1890s.

More Sunday ...

The Associated Press

STILLWATER, Okla. -- The BCS campaign between Oklahoma and Texas is heading for the sky.

University of Texas students and fans have raised around $7,000, part of which has paid for a pilot to fly over Stillwater before Saturday's game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

The plan is for a plane to fly a banner during the ESPN's "GameDay" pre-game show (7 to 9 a.m. PDT) with the inscription "45-35" -- the score of Texas' victory over Oklahoma on Oct. 11.

Texas is second in the BCS rankings, followed closely by Oklahoma at No. 3.

If we had done a "normal" media column this week, maybe some of this would have made it in. Probably not:

== Oh, to be Bob Papa.
Thursday, he did the play-by-play on the Thanksgiving Day broadcast of Arizona-Philadelphia for the NFL Network.
Saturday, he's doing play-by-play on the Grambling-Southern college football game for NBC from New Orleans.
Then, he somehow has to get to Ontario (not Canada, but that outpost near Riverside) by 7 p.m. local time Saturday for HBO's broadcast (with Max Kellerman) for the a "Boxing After Dark" telecast (airing at 10 p.m., delayed in the West) between Paul Williams-Verno Phillips and Chris Arreola-Travis Walker from the new Citizens Business Bank Arena.
Sunday, he's going back across the country to do the New York Giants (he's their radio play-by-play man) as they are in Washington D.C. with a 1 p.m. local kickoff.
Oh, wait. We knew it was too nuts to be true.
NBC was incorrect when it issued a press release Wednesday saying that Papa would be doing the football game Saturday. Tom Hammond is calling that game instead. Papa confirmed as much with an email on Wednesday as well.
Thank goodness.
"Yes, this entire week has been crazy for me starting this past Sunday in Arizona with the Giants," Papa said from his Blacberry. "Plus throwing in my Giants TV shows and my Sirius NFL radio show each morning has made this a challenging week."

== CBS will bring Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks to "join the guys live on the set to help them with their NFL picks" Sunday, according a netowk release.
Oh, right. Because CBS is carrying the annual V.S. Fashion Show on Wednesday at 10 p.m. (linked here). You know Fox would cross promote it as well if it had the opportunity.
This also means it could be the first time all season you've seen the CBS NFL pregame show. It has JB. And the good Boomer. And another old quarterback. And a loquacious former NFL tight end. And a recently retired coach. And still, a cartoon guy named Thurston Long ... he's not there?
Something like that.

== The Associated Press reported Monday that the NFL "quietly changed its policy this season" to allow more viewers to see games on the NFL Network. It affects only a small number of viewers in outlying areas of the cities of the teams who are in the game. Those games were always simulcast by the NFL Network on a local, over-the-air channel to an area that the NFL decided was the "home market." The games, however, were blacked out last season on cable systems that carried that local station outside the home market. Now those systems' subscribers will be able to watch. Those who don't get the local channel on their cable system, however, still won't see the games unless they receive NFL Network.
"It made more sense to us upon reflection that if a cable station was carrying the programing 24-7 that it be allowed to carry our NFL Network games," NFL executive vice president Joe Browne said.
Thursday's Eagles-Cardinals game on the NFL Network was simulcast on WPVI in Philadelphia; viewers in Harrisburg, York, Scranton and Wilkes-Barre who already got the station on cable were also able to see it on that channel. But the Phoenix station airing the game isn't on any cable systems outside the home market, so no additional fans will had access.

== Yup, NBC is already promoting its coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics from Vancouver. The first ads ran during the network's telecast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and during the National Dog Show on Thursday. "This isn't a start of the campaign so much as a nod to the success of Beijing and a way to introduce Vancouver as a unique setting and one of the most beautiful places in North America," said Mike McCarley, the NBC VP of strategic marketing, told the Sports Business Daily.

==ESPNU has the NCAA Women's Volleyball Championship Selection Show on Sunday at 7 p.m., hosted by Beth Mowins with analyst Karch Kiraly. The ESPN network's coverage of the event starts Dec. 13 with all four Regional Finals live on ESPNU. The title match is Saturday, Dec. 20 at 5 p.m. on ESPN2.

AND THE CLOSING ARGUMENT:

== Have we got caught up on the Kenny Mayne "Mayne Street" series?
Seems not.
They do evoke a laugh or two, or three, and may really be setting the template for future endeavors on the Internet for the ADD way of viewing a series that otherwise would be fighting for time and sponsorship on a major network.

Catching you up:
Here's episode 5, and wait for that classic line: "Kenny, where are your pants?"

And episode 4, "Kenny The Clown" with "sorry, my arm is stuck":

And episode 3, "Poker," with Neil Everett, wearing a viser and ear piece, and Chris McKendry as the fourth wheel:

After each episode, stick around for the outtakes.
We've already delivered the first two episodes. More to come....

Adding to today's column of the Dubious Dozen of the Sports Media for 2008 (linked here), we offer these leftovers, some of which, we have no follow-up news to deliver:

The culprit: Danyelle Sargent and Mike Francessa
The crime: Sent by Fox to be a sideline reporter at asked to interview new 49ers head coach Mike Singletary, Sargent bungled a question so badly that it had to be stopped and re-asked. The problem is, the video of that first question, when she asked Singletary if he called the late Bill Walsh upon being hired, was captured on a satellite feed and broadcast on a New York TV show hosted by Francessa, and repeated across the Internet, as well as the Versus show "Sports Soup."
==A clip of the Francessa clip of Sargent (linked here)
The aftermath: Fox said it would file a protest with the NFL for unauthorized use of the video. Sargent, who once dropped the "F" word during a open mike when she worked on ESPNEWS two years ago, has not been on the Fox NFL telecast since that October day.
After a day when the Internet gave her a migraine and she "stayed in bed for like five hours," Sargent explained how she asked new Singletary about a phone call to Walsh, who died in July 2007.
On Dan Patrick's syndicated radio show, Sargent said: "I misspoke. What I meant to say is, 'I heard he was one of the first phone calls that you made when you decided that you wanted to get into coaching.' . . . I didn't even realize that I misspoke, and then the producer at the game in my ear says, 'Wait, stop.'
"I don't see how anyone could have thought that it was on air because I stopped in the middle of the interview. There was no toss-back. I stopped in the middle of the interview and started talking to my producer. And I've never seen anyone do that during a game."
Said NFL senior VP of media operations Howard Katz: "To use an outtake was unfair. If it had been on the broadcast, it would have been fair game."
"Obviously a mistake was made," Francesa told the New York Times. "If we'd known that, we wouldn't have used it."

@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$

The culprit: ESPN
The crime: In November, an advertisement pitch that was supposedly made to the all-sports network was released to the blog AwfulAnnouncing.com (linked here), and later reported on in USA Today. Anomaly, a New York ad agency, planned an ad campaign for ESPN specifying what it wanted actors to do in portraying students from different colleges who were working in "the ESPN College Basketball Call Center (CBBCC)," people on the phone "to get them to watch more College Basketball. Basically they are selling college basketball."
But what type of stereotypes did they need to exploit?
The memo said that, for example, a Tennessee co-ed needed to be "slutty" and "crazy." The "defining characteristic" of the Marquette student is "you don't really remember her." Syracuse would need a "Jewish kid" who loves college -- "all-you-can-eat buffets in the cafeteria, who knew?" A student from "Perdue" needed to look 14.
The aftermath: ESPN canceled the campaign.
"Our marketing department just learned of this casting call today," said ESPN's Mike Soltys. "The language and approach reflected in that document were not approved by us and in no way represent ESPN or the respect we have for the college community."

@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$%&!@#$

By Eddie Pells
The Associated Press

Turns out, Tiger Woods wouldn't really rather have a Buick. At least not anymore.

When Woods ended his nine-year relationship with General Motors Corp. on Monday -- a mutual decision between a megawatt celebrity who doesn't need the work and a teetering corporation that needs every penny -- it offered yet another snapshot of how badly the American economy has deteriorated.

Woods is the world's most marketable athlete with an estimated $100 million endorsements a year. If his agreement with one of the world's most active sports sponsors broke apart, some experts to wonder if any endorsement or sponsorship deal is really ironclad in these tough times.

"The real story here isn't Tiger," says Marc Ganis, the president of Sportscorp Ltd., a Chicago-based sports consulting firm. "It's the auto industry. ... There are a lot of parties who are going to have some difficulties finding sponsors to substitute for what the auto industry used to provide."

LeBron James ($28 million in endorsements according to Sports Illustrated's 2007 figures), Peyton Manning ($13 million) and those in the top-circle elite don't have so much to worry about because, like Woods, they have multiple deals spread over several industries.

As for everyone else -- well, Ganis figures they will feel the pain. If money from the auto industry and financial world dries up, athletes and events that are lower in the pecking order will get thirsty.

"You've just got to be much more creative," said Evan Morgenstein, an agent for gymnast Nastia Liukin, swimmer Dara Torres and other Olympic athletes.

Calls to the representatives of about a half-dozen top-name athletes and their agents by The Associated Press showed that Woods and those in his stratosphere will have very little trouble making endorsement money, even in a rough economy.

Manning is spread into a number of industries -- cell phones, satellite TV, electronics, credit cards.

James and Microsoft have ended a two-year marketing partnership, though James' manager, Maverick Carter, didn't mention the Microsoft deal earlier this week when he responded to an AP e-mail asking if the economy might hurt James' endorsements.

"We have long-term deals with great partners who aren't going anywhere," Carter said.

James was similarly upbeat.

"I know I have great relationships with the partners that I have," he said. "All of them are long-term deals, so I can only comment on what I have. And looking forward there's always going to be deals out there."

TVWeeek.com reports today (linked here) that the National Association of Broadcasters is issuing a warning to policy makers and Congress about the potential impact of ESPN's winning exclusive rights to air most of the Bowl Championship Series. The new deal takes much of the series off broadcast TV and moves it to basic cable.

In a policy statement today, NAB's board of directors said the move would "disenfranchise" millions of viewers.

"Broadcasters continue to support the rights of all Americans to have free access to telecasts of major sporting events, particularly those of publicly funded educational institutions," the resolution said.

It directed the NAB staff to educate policy makers "on the importance of ensuring that no segments of society are disenfranchised from this highly valued programming."

Last week, the BCS announced that ESPN had outbid Fox for the rights to the series of games and would begin airing the games starting in 2011. ESPN's offer was said to be $500 million over four years. Fox bid $400 million, up from the $330 million it's paying under its current four-year deal.

Somewhat in the same area code, you can also check out Jason Whitlock's latest take on what he thinks today of ESPN (linked here).
We'll make it easy:
"ESPN is the enemy of the truth, and all who believe a pursuit of the truth is the lifeblood of a genuinely free society must stand against the Wal-Mart-ization of sports journalism. I reached this conclusion when trying to figure out why Ball State quarterback Nate Davis isn't one of the top-five Heisman Trophy candidates and Ball State coach Brady Hoke isn't the front-runner for national coach of the year."
Aside from the fact Whitlock is a Ball State grad ...
There's more:
"ESPN is so financially tied to the organizations it covers and so devoid of basic journalistic ethics that it cannot properly analyze the sports world. ESPN just bought the BCS television package. It has a vested interest in promoting all things BCS. If you're going to televise multiple Big 12 games in primetime on ABC and ESPN, you have every reason to promote the myth that the majority of Heisman Trophy candidates play in the Big 12."
Thank you, and the closing comment:
"Sports media is dying by suicide and ESPN is Dr. Jack Kevorkian. You're dying, too. ESPN just hasn't told you yet."

The fact we're finally getting around to mentioning this today, hours after Tuesday's "Dancing With The Stars" finale aired on ABC, is an indication of where our interest went in Season 7.

Lukewarm at first, watching Warren Sapp bust a few moves, and Misty May get all dolled up. Then she got hurt, and Maurice Green was never on the radar, so we kept up with Sapp, enough to do a story on how he's able to juggle his dancing along with appearing on the NFL Network on Sundays as well as "Inside the NFL" in New Jersey on Wednesdays, and it played out to the very end.

Sapp (above with Kym Johnson) was not the winner, as projected, but the fact he finished eight points behind winner Brooke Burke -- and ahead of Lance Bass -- was a victory in itself. Sapp's technique was often criticized by the judges, but head judge Len Goodman said: "From the moment you start, you make me smile."

Now Sapp can relax and stick to calling other network analysts femine names that rhyme with "itch."

Sapp's sappy performance ends a streak: The last four winners of DWTS had been athletes -- Emmitt Smith, Apolo Anton Ohno, Helio Castroneves and Kristi Yamaguchi.

Although, Burke, the mother of four, may be considered a jock after this banana split move in the Monday final:

Early Neilsen ratings released this afternoon show that the Tuesday finale had a 5.1 rating for the 18-to-49 demo, that's 20 percent down from last fall's final episode, and six percent down from the spring edition finale. It didn't help that "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" was sucking away viewers on the other channel.

So how about one more look of another costume ensemble that Sapp and Johnson wore:

The 2008 list isn't all that crazy. Not Marv Albert in a dress crazy, if that's what you're referencing. But a lot of female presence for some reason. Like Erin Andrews in a dress crazy.

And even more crazy chick stuff. Talking about lynching Tiger Woods. Invoking the name of Hitler. Boozing it up at a (supposed private) celebrity roast. Wearing something not appropriate to work (above).

Good never comes of those things.

Which is why they've made our twisted list again -- some repeat offenders.
Why do we keep doing this? Boredom? An easy way to fill in a column during a holiday week? Because it's the stuff that never gets old?

Check all three of those off, plus the fact people don't seem to learn from their mistakes. Anyone who makes a reference on a sports program about another person's ethnicity, religious belief, freedom of speech or (this list goes on) becomes fair game for targeting.

The Internet bloggers feast on this stuff, waiting for someone to trip over their tongue. But it goes far past that, which is why we've left No. 12 on the Dubous Dozen to all the other "foot meets mouth" instances where "gotcha" only goes so far. An apology usually follows. And it's forgotten. But linked perpetually on some website for easy cross referencing.

Kelly Tilghman, Jemele Hill, Dana Jacobson and Erin Andrews (pictured above, in a dress she wore to a Cubs-Brewers game that caused Chicago manager Lou Pinella to ask if she was working or modeling), thanks for playing along in 2008. Jay Mariotti, Buzz Bissinger, Johnny Miller, Ric Bucher . . . you're in there, too.

After Friday's column, we'll present a few others that didn't make the list, but were nonetheless entertaining to an extent.

You'd have thought the boys at ESPN's "College GameDay" would make at least one more trip to L.A., following up on their excursion outside the Coliseum for the USC-Ohio State contest way back in early September. This Saturday's USC-Notre Dame contest ain't bad. It ain't glamorous either, when you put it up next to ...

Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State?

Uh, Okie dokie.

Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Desmond Howard found out late Sunday that's where they'll be eating cold turkey sandwiches, in Stillwater, Okla., outside of Boone Pickens Stadium, before the No. 3 Sooners, coming off their distruction of previous No. 2 (and now No. 7) Texas Tech, face the No. 12 Cowboys. Herbstreit sticks around to do the game that night at 5 p.m.

According to a post on AwfulAnnouncing.com, this could be the first time since 2003 that GameDay hasn't setup at more than one USC game in a season. It could still make it out to the USC-UCLA game at the Rose Bowl next week (Dec. 6), but that's pretty unlikely, since that day, Alabama probably links up with Florida in the SEC title game (which will be on CBS).

While ESPN2 hosts UCLA on Friday and ESPN has USC on Saturday, Versus has the game with all the Rose Bowl implications: Oregon at Oregon State at 4 p.m.

THE LOCALS:

==Friday, 6:30 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: UCLA at Arizona State (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone)
==Saturday, 5 p.m., ESPN: Notre Dame at No. 5 USC (10-1) (with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)

Here's the rest of the week:

TONIGHT:

== 4 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Western Michigan at No. 15 Ball State (11-0) (with Todd Harris and Ray Bentley
==4 p.m., ESPN Classic and ESPN360.com: Navy at Northern Illinois (with Eric Collins and Shaun King)

THURSDAY:

== 5 p.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: Texas A&M at No. 2 Texas (10-1) (with Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews)

FRIDAY:

== 9 a.m., Channel 7: West Virginia at No. 25 Pittsburgh (7-3) (with Dave Lamont and Brock Huard)
==9:30 a.m., ESPNU: Ohio at Miami (Ohio) (with Dave Ryan and Jay Taylor)
==10 a.m., CBS College Sports: UTEP at East Carolina (with Tom Hart and Brian Jones)
==11:30 a.m., Channel 2 and CBSSports.com: LSU at Arkansas (with Don Criqui and Dan Fouts)
==12:30 p.m., Channel 7: Colorado at Nebraska (with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN Classic and ESPN360.com: Bowling Green at Toledo (with Todd Harris and Shaun King)
==3 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Fresno State at No. 9 Boise State (11-0) (with Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore)

SATURDAY:

==9 a.m., Channel 2 and CBSSports.com: No. 22 Georgia Tech (8-3) at No. 11 Georgia (9-2) (with Craig Bolerjack and Trev Alberts)
==9 a.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: Virginia at Virginia Tech (with Dave Pasch, Andre Ware and Todd Harris)
==9 a.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: South Carolina at Clemson (with Terry Gannon and David Norrie)
==9 a.m., ESPNU: NCAA Football Championship Subdivision: South Carolina State at Appalachian State (first round) (with Dave Armstrong and Larry Coker)
==9:30 a.m., FSN West: Kansas vs. No. 13 Missouri (9-2) in St. Louis (with Bill Land, Dave Lapham and Jim Knox)

==11 a.m., Channel 4: Bayou Classic: Grambling State vs. Southern in New Orleans (with Tom Hammond, Don McPherson, Charles Davis, Derrin Horton and Lewis Johnson hosting the telecast).

==12:30 p.m., Channel 7: No. 4 Florida (10-1) at No. 20 Florida State (8-3) (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales)
==12:30 p.m., Channel 2 and CBSSports.com: Auburn at No. 1 Alabama (11-0) (with Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Maryland at No. 21 Boston College (8-3) (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley
==12:30 p.m., ESPNU: North Carolina at Duke (with Doug Bell and Charles Arbuckle)
==12:30 p.m., Versus: Baylor at No. 7 Texas Tech (10-1) (with Ron Thulin, Kelly Stouffer and Craig Hummer)
==12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: Houston at Rice (with Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor)

==3:30 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Kentucky at Tennessee (with Mark Jones, Bob Davie and Erin Andrews)
==4 p.m., Versus: No. 23 Oregon (8-3) at No. 17 Oregon State (8-3) (with Tim Neverett, Glenn Parker and Anne Marie Anderson)
==4 p.m., ESPNU: Vanderbilt at Wake Forest (with Clay Matvick and David Diaz-Infante)
==5 p.m., Channel 7: No. 3 Oklahoma (10-1) at No. 12 Oklahoma State (9-2) (with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters)

Gobble. Gobble. Gobble.

Gurgle.

Is there a bigger shooting-fish-in-a-barrel game than the Titans, coming off their only loss of the season, going to Detroit on a short week to face the winless Lions, who cling to this tradition of hosting Thanksgiving Day games despite the fact they've given America nothing to be thankful in return?

Detroit ... what a place to be in this economy. The NFL has yet to announce a bail-out plan for the Lions, and sending Tennessee in for this holiday feast is simply mean.

"Based on records, if 0-11 Detroit beats 10-1 Tennessee, you would have to throw this game into the argument of being one of the greatest regular-season upsets in the history of the National Football League," said CBS' Jim Nantz, who has the honor duty distinct displeasure of calling this game. "It would definitely have to be right up there, if not the biggest of all, if Detroit was able to spring that upset. Now to make this clear, I'm not comparing this to Namath and the Jets beating the Colts in Super Bowl III, or anything like that that has happened in the post-season. I'm dealing with records. Based on that, this would have to rank right up there."

So tune in to see history, and stay for the public flogging.

Now, pass the cranberries that look like the inside of a tin can and let's get on with the rest of the week:

THURSDAY:

== 9:30 a.m., Channel 2: Tennessee at Detroit (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms).
== 1 p.m., Channel 11: Seattle at Dallas (with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver)
== 5:15 p.m., NFL Network: Arizona at Philadelphia (with Bob Papa and Cris Collinsworth)

SUNDAY:

== 10 a.m., Channel 11: N.Y. Giants at Washington (with Kenny Albert, Moose Johnson and Tony Siragusa). Fox also has in this window: San Francisco at Buffalo, New Orleans at Tampa Bay, Carolina at Green Bay.
== 10 a.m., Channel 2: Indianapolis at Cleveland (with Dick Enberg and Randy Cross). CBS also has Baltimore at Cincinnati and Miami at St. Louis.
== 1 p.m., Channel 2: Denver at N.Y. Jets (with Kevin Harlan and Rich Gannon). CBS also has Pittsburgh at New England and Kansas City at Oakland. Fox also has Atlanta at San Diego.
== 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Chicago at Minnesota (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer)

MONDAY:

== 5:30 p.m., ESPN: Jacksonville at Houston (with Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Tony Kornheiser)

MEANWHILE, IN WEEK 14:

The league announced today that NBC has used its flex scheduling privedges, dumped New England at Seattle for Dec. 7, and picked up Washington at Baltimore from the CBS lineup. The Pats-Seahawks game moves to 1 p.m. on CBS for those ticketholders in the greater Seattle area who had plans for that Sunday afternoon. They've now been changed.

The NFL Network has scheduled a Thursday, Dec. 4 telecast, pitting the Chargers and Raiders from Qualcomm Stadium that, depending on your cable service, will be available to very few viewers.

Same with a 3-D version broadcast of the game, unless you've got some connections.

The Burbank-based 3ality Digital LLC (home site linked here) says it will coordinate with the Beverly Hills-based ReadD company for the first-ever live broadcast of an NFL game in full digital 3D.

According to today's Wall Street Journal (linked here), there will be one theatre in Los Angeles carrying the game, along with one in New York and Boston, where those in the audience can see things only with special 3-D glasses. Unfortunately, it is closed to the general public, open only to invited guests -- particularily, consumer-electronic company reps.

The story claims this is a preliminary step on what is likely a long road to any regular 3-D broadcasts of football games.

"We want to demonstrate this and let people get excited about it and see what the future holds," says Howard Katz, NFL senior VP of broadcasting and media operations.

RealD specializes in bringing advanced digital 3D projection capabilities to cinemas worldwide. It has more than 100 exhibition partners and more than 5,500 worldwide screens are committed to install RealD's platform.

"As boxing fans once gathered at local theatres to see heavyweight title matches in the era before pay-per-view and plasma televisions, RealD's new technology will give audiences another reason to head to the theatre," explained Michael Lewis, chairman and CEO of RealD in a press release. "The continued box office success and the strong audience response to films released on RealD's platform have shown that consumers crave a premium 3D cinematic experience. We look forward to giving fans of live events the opportunity to feel like they're in the front row without even being there."

We've seen references, erroneously, to is as the L.A. Sports Museum, this place that Gary Cypres has put together with his own money to house his $30 million collection of sports memorabilia. He said he didn't want to put his own name on it, but he does have an idea some day of selling naming rights to the museum that we've featured in today's column (linked here). Also check out photographer David Crane's slide show of the place (linked here).

One of the prized items that Cypres has on display is the Dodger uniform that Babe Ruth wore in 1938, when he was a first-base coach for the Brooklyn franchise, hoping to land the next manager's job (it eventually went to Leo Durocher).

Last week, a Ruth Brooklyn Dodgers uniform was sold at auction for $310,500, purchased by SCP Auctions for one of its clients. It was said to be the last professional uniform worn by Ruth (story linked here).

David Kohler, the SCP Auctions owner who was gracious enough to show us his Lakers' collection at his home in Orange County this past summer, made the distinction for us -- Cypress bought his Ruth home jersey through a Sothebys/SCP Auction in 2005. This road uniform is for a different client.

Kohler also passed along this incredible item that he just acquired: The ID wallet card that Ruth carried around when he was a member of the Boston Red Sox (1914-1919), written in his own hand:

By Lusa Rathke
The Associated Press

KILLINGTON, Vt. -- Forget the Rockies. With the economy in a tailspin, eastern skiers may be staying closer to home this winter.

Destination resorts out West are reporting slower-than-normal reservations, while New England ski areas say their business appears to be benefiting from the downturn -- although resort operators everywhere are nervous.

"We were going to (go West), but this year, I don't think we're going to, unless the market turns around," said 49-year-old Sue Martin, of West Greenwich, R.I., who was skiing Friday at Killington.

With lift tickets $40 to $80 a day, plus the expense of lodgings and meals, although deals can be had, ski areas are particularly vulnerable as discretionary income falls. University of Vermont economics professor Art Woolf predicts it'll be a rough year for the industry.

"You can save a lot of money by not going on vacation," Woolf said. "It's a discretionary expenditure that's kind of lumpy. If you decide to go skiing you're going to pay $1,000, $2,000, whatever it is for the trip, so you can save a lot of money by not undertaking that activity."

By Jeffrey McMurray
The Associated Press

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Reigning Horse of the Year Curlin will stand at stud next year at Lane's End, a Kentucky horse farm owned by a former U.S. ambassador to Britain.

Will Farish announced Friday the richest racehorse in North America will become a stallion at his Versailles farm, where Curlin's sire, Smart Strike, is already a breeding star.

Curlin will command a stud fee of $75,000 his opening year, half what Smart Strike receives. But its $10,000 more than the fee for Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown.

"Curlin's performance on the track, his pedigree and his conformation make him the most exciting sire prospect to retire in many years," Farish said in a news release.

Curlin's majority owner, Jess Jackson, announced last week he was retiring the horse after perhaps one last race. Jackson has bid $4 million to buy out the 20 percent interest in the horse he doesn't already own, but the complicated ownership dispute is being worked out in court.

Although Jackson's Stonestreet Stables had looked into the possibility of standing Curlin itself, by choosing Lane's End, the horse will live at what Jackson calls the nation's premier stallion farm.

"He is one of the best examples of the breed -- fast, strong, and durable," Jackson said. "I predict he will make a substantial contribution to our sport through his gene pool, and I am looking forward to seeing his foals compete and possibly exceed his unequaled race record."

Curlin has won 11 of 16 career starts, plus a pair of second and third place finishes. The only time he finished out of the money was his fourth-place finish last month in the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita, which he was attempting to win for the second straight year.

Despite that loss, Curlin's career includes wins at the Preakness Stakes, Jockey Club Classic, Stephen Foster Handicap and Dubai World Cup. His career winnings of $10.5 million have passed Cigar to make him North America's richest racehorse in history.

The Associated Press

NEW YORK _ Experts presented recommendations to baseball Friday that they hope will
decrease the frequency of broken bats in major league games.

The recommendations will be reviewed by Major League Baseball's safety and health advisory committee, which includes players' union officials.

"We'll be announcing something soon," baseball spokesman Pat Courtney said.

MLB collected more than 1,700 broken bats over 2½ months this year and met with manufacturers to discuss quality control after commissioner Bud Selig expressed concern over the increase in broken bats among maple models. Selig can't ban maple bats unilaterally because their use is subject to collective bargaining.

Baseball retained the USDA Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory; the wood-testing agency Timberco Inc.; Harvard professor Carl Morris and University of Massachusetts-Lowell professor James Sherwood to analyze data and design tests.

Gary Cypress holds up his Honus Wagner T206 card, a Holy Grail of baseball memorabilia that some authenticators have graded out to be worth $2.8 million.

"That's crazy, isn't it?" he asks, considering how much someone actually thinks the thing is worth.

You may not be able to touch it, but you can see it at the Sports Museum of Los Angeles, which is really a collection of about 10,000-plus sports memorabilia items that Brentwood's Cypres has put together over the last 25 years and finally arranged to display it to the public.

His SMLA opens the day after Thanksgiving, and we were part of a media-led tour of it the other day that will be the focus of Sunday's column. We'll also have a slide show put to music of what staff photographer David Crane captured through his lens (including the shots here of Cypres)

In a word: Astounding. In a few others: There's some work to do. It could be a little more interactive for the kids. It's very New York/Boston heavy with items, which may not necessarily have resonance with L.A. sports folk. And it's not really in the best part of town (but near the Blue Line, across the street from the LA Mart). But those, for now are the only minor constructive criticisms we can come up with. The rest, as they say, is history, for you to enjoy.

Check out the Website (www.sportsmuseumla.com) in the meantime.

"As a collector, it's not necessarily what's the most expensive item," Cypres says. "It could be a million dollar item or 20 dollars, as long as it tells a story."

L.A. Councilwoman Jan Perry, who helped Cypres get the museum built so that it could upgrade the neighboorhood in an area that has many abandoned or older, delapidated buildings: "I can't claim to be an avid sports fan, but I'm a fan in the lives of people who've achieved so much. To think of the world of Jackie Robinson or Bill Russell and see personal photographs ... I don't know where he found all this stuff.. but I'm happy he was so tenatious with our city bureacy to get it done."

While it sits at about 32,000 square feet, there's another 14,000 feet that are in the plans to be added someday. Cypres wants to have it be a place where non-profits can use it for fund-raisers without having to spend all their money on facility rentals. He also wants more room for traveling exhibits.

"What's my favorite?" he repeats a question about his collection. "Usually the next thing I buy becomes my favorite."

It harkens back, for some of us who remember such L.A. sports landmarks, to the old Helms Athletic Hall of Fame in Culver City. That collection of trophies and artifacts ended up in a bank building lobby near LAX -- Citizen Savings Bank. Which then became First Interstate Bank, and finally, when the Helms Foundation disbanded, all the assets were absorbed by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, which sits over on Adams Blvd., in L.A.

Some links to stories that have been done about Cypres:
==A 2006 L.A. Business Journal story by David Davis, when Cypres was trying to get his collection put together for display (linked here).
==A story by the Professional Sports Authenticator's David Laurell, which really puts his collection into context with others (linked here)

Aside from the fact that the NFL commish knows how to stand his ground (we got the proof at links here, here, here and here), and isn't really upset that fans figured out his private line?

We did learn (because we admit we've stopped watching) that Warren Sapp (he, also, of the NFL Network, as well as Showtime's "Inside the NFL") made the final three of "Dancing With The Stars," and took dance partner Kym Johnson with him to Pittsburgh so they could work on their routine that's coming up on Monday's next show. Sapp is up against Brooke Burke (the probable winner) and Lance Bass (a strong runner-up), so the consensus may be that this will be the last dance for the former Bucs and Raiders defensive end.

Oh, and as we suspected, Sapp issued an apology to ESPN's Keyshawn Johnson, but then took a bite out of Philadelphia's Donovan McNabb (linked here) -- and he did it on the NFL official website.

Otherwise, we gleaned from our blog postings this week:

== Week 13 of the college football TV season (linked here) reminds us that Barack Obama isn't playing around when it comes to a playoff, even after ESPN locked up the BCS through 2014 (linked here) when Fox decided it was too expensive (linked here).

== Week 12 of the NFL's TV season has some good AFC matchups, and we're not talking about NBC's Colts-Chargers tussel (linked here). Also, the NFL's dirty work in the courts is never over (linked here).

== Former Red Bull GM Alexi Lalas, who still can't believe the team is doing so well without him, will put a surge into the ESPN telecast of the MLS Cup on Sunday (linked here).

== A videotape of the Ali-Spinks bout from 1978 may hold the truth that become a "Get Out of Jail" card for a man arrested nearly 30 years ago (linked here).

== Kings TV analyst Jim Fox digs chicken soup (linked here).

== Angels radio station KLAA-AM (830) may not have Joe McDonnell, but it's got a sports shrink on the weekends (linked here).

Also:

== We had no intention of watching all of ESPN's 24 hours of college basketball, but some others did (linked here)

== Michele Tafoya may no longer play the "secret word" with KSPN's Mason and Ireland, but she's got a word or two about not being on the ESPN "MNF" sidelines any more (linked here).

== And finally, we did happen to catch Snoop Dogg on ESPN's "Around The Horn," at least for the opening (was it Tuesday's show? they all seem to merge together like a ball of mud). And they allowed him to comment on LeBron James (Dogg actually made more sense than any of the panelists). And it sure seemed like Just Average Adande was in a hurry to get blasted off the show so he could "hang out" with Dogg wherever they happened to be, which no doubt allowed the former big-city columnist to get all wrapped up in exploring his inner rapper.

In addition to today's media column (linked here), these notes would help make anyone go cold turkey on Thanksgiving:

==Both Dick Vitale and Billy Packer will be honored this weekend in Kansas City, Mo., at the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame (linked here) for their contributions as broadcasters. Vitale, inducted as a contributor to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in September, said on an ESPN conference call this week that he still has a strict program that limits how much he can talk as he tries to rest his vocal cords. He had throat surgery a year ago and missed two months of the season.
"Little things like that are going to help me prolong my career, because, I'm going to be honest with you, without it I probably would feel like my life is over," the 69-year-old said. "I really mean it. I'm a gym rat. I love being around kids. I love being around the environment of the college game. If that's taken from me, I really believe the party's over. It's done. I know I'm in the last chapter. I know time is running out. But I want to enjoy it as much as I can." Packer, 68, retired in April from CBS after 28 seasons as its main college basketball analyst but has yet to announce what he intends to do with his career from this point forward.

== John Lynch, who officially announced his retirement from the NFL after 15 seasons earlier this week, jumps right in as an NFL analyst by joining Chris Rose on Fox's regional coverage of the Minnesota-Jacksonville game that goes to just six percent of the country. Lynch will do games for the rest of the season, the network said.

== Next up on HBO's "Real Sports" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.): Host Bryant Gumbel interviews incarcerated former Olympic sprinter Tim Montgomery. He was sentenced in October to five years in jail for herion charges, making it an 8 1/2-year time because of bank fraud on top of that.

==NBC has the last round of the LPGA's ADT Championship -- noteworthy because it's supposed to be the farewell event for Annika Sorenstam -- on Sunday at noon, where eight players from the 32-player field competing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Dan Hicks will host NBC's coverage, with Dottie Pepper, Gary Koch, Jane Crafter and Kay Cockerill.

==Versus will provide the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup championship (linked here) to a U.S. audience with its coverage from Montreal on Sunday (3 p.m. kickoff). Versus will pick up the coverage by TSN, the CFL's exclusive broadcaster for the first time, when Montreal faces Calgary, called by Chris Cuthbert and Glen Suitor.

==NBC reports that, going into its final Notre Dame home football game coverage of the year, the ratings for its Irish games has been 2.3, a 15 percent increase over 2007 (when the team finished with a school-worst eight losses). Notre Dame (6-4) is already bowl eligible before it takes on Syracuse, then heads to the Coliseum to face USC on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

==Winter X Games 13, set for Jan. 22-25 in Aspen and Snowmass, Colo., will add a women's skiing slopestyle event as well as snowmobile best trick. There are 15 hours of live programming on ESPN and ABC.

== Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant, Lennox Lewis and Harold Lederman will call HBO's coverage of Ricky Hatton vs. Paul Malignaggi and James Kirkland vs. Brian Vera (Saturday, 7 p.m., live) from Las Vegas.

==FS Prime Ticket announced it will carry two CIF-Southern Section football playoff games -- Friday, Nov. 28 and Friday, Dec. 5 -- before airing the Pac-5 championship game from Anaheim Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 13. Game times and team match-ups will be announced approximately one week prior to each game. Chris McGee, John Jackson, Dain Blanton and Jackie Pickering will provide the commentary, with Lindsay Soto on pre- and post-game. For the third year in a row, FS Prime Ticket will also follow up at Home Depot Center in Carson for the CIF State championships starting on Friday, Dec. 19.

AND THE CLOSING ARGUMENT:

From The Onion Sports (story linked here):

November 20, 2008

BCS Picture Made Clearer By Pretending Certain Teams Don't Exist

NEW YORK--Faced with ongoing criticism of what many believe is a flawed system, representatives from the Bowl Championship Series assured college football fans Wednesday that the NCAA football title picture becomes much less complicated when one simply pretends certain teams do not exist.

Yes, Boise State and Utah are undefeated, but if there are no such teams as Boise State and Utah, considering them for a national title shot becomes a nonissue," said David Frohnmayer, chair of the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee, who acknowledged that many BCS voters already used a limited version of the technique.

"Furthermore, if the University of Oklahoma is able to beat Texas Tech this Saturday, we are fully prepared to act as if there is no such institution as the University of Oklahoma, since if there were it would confuse the entire picture unnecessarily. And, as always, no matter what happens with the rest of USC's season, we will pretend that any team that comes between them and a BCS bid is imaginary."

Concluded Frohnmayer, "The BCS works."

Tomorrow's media column will condense the previously posted Q-and-A with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell into a newsprint-readable format. But with that came an update today on the league's pending FCC ruling against the cable companies in question, if it matters how you view this whole issue with the NFL Network getting resolved.

We'll refer you to a Broadcasting & Cable story on the thing:

An FCC administrative law judge has ruled that a trial will go forward on program discrimination complaints against Comcast, Time Warner, Cox and Brighthouse, but that it will start fresh with the facts of the cases and cannot be finished within the 60-day time frame proposed by the FCC.

The FCC's Media Bureau last month had concluded that the complainants in a half-dozen program access complaints, including the NFL, WealthTV, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, had made Prima facie case that Comcast, Cox, Time Warner Cable and Brighthouse had violated the FCC's rules against discriminating against outside vendors in favor of an affiliated network.

But the FCC also said there were several factual disputes that it could not resolve, and so set all for adjudication, with a decision required within 60 days. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin would have preferred the FCC bureau act on that prima facie evidence, but the other commissioners wanted to take the further step of referring the complaints to FCC judges to make the call.

In an opinion, a copy of which was obtained by B&C, FCC Judge Arthur I. Steinberg granted cable operators' request for more than 60 days, saying the FCC's time frame "cannot be achieved" given the "extremely complex proceeding involving six separate program carriage complaints" against four defendants. The operators had said 60 days was unrealistic and insufficient.

The NFL's response to the news:

NFL Network is pleased that the Administrative Law Judge has rejected Comcast's attempts to delay this proceeding through a needless appeal to the full Commission -- an appeal that sought to challenge the clear legal standards that support the NFL Network's complaint. We're particularly glad to note that the ALJ's order did not accept Comcast's position that it was exempt from the statutory prohibition against discrimination because of its contract with the NFL Network . We will now turn to proving our case in the ALJ factual hearing, and will do our utmost to help the ALJ complete the hearing expeditiously, as he has promised to do.

Alexi Lalas, most recently the roster-builder of your Galaxy before he was relieved of his duties, said on ESPN's soccer coverage recently that if the Red Bulls of New York beat Real Salt Lake and made it to the MLS Cup, he'd shotgun a Red Bull energy drink on the set (story linked here and here).

We did some research, and after several minutes of fishing around (linked here), we are now convinced that the Red Bulls did in fact quality for the Cup, to be played at Home Depot Center on Sunday, and broadcast by ESPN (12:30 p.m.).

JP Dellacamera will call the match with John Harkes and sideline reporters Allen Hopkins and Pedro Gomez.

Rob Stone hosts the studio show with Julie Foudy and ... Lalas, who was also a former president, GM and player for the New York franchise. Lalas also predicted before that Red Bull-Salt Lake final that Red Bull would lose to Houston in the conference semifinals.

The challenge for Lalas after Bulling up on his bet -- the trick is to slam a hole in the bottom of the can and drink it all down ASAP -- won't be so much the caffeine surge (go with the sugar-free, it's safer), but more possibily for Stone and Foudy to keep him quiet for the rest of the halftime and post-game analysis.

Maybe you remember the story of the Juan Catalan, who spent more than five months in jail after a witness falsely accused him of murdering a 16-year-old back in 2003. His alibi was that he couldn't have been the gunman - he was at the Dodger game that night with his 6-year-old daughter. He had a ticket stub to prove it, but prosecutors didn't believe him.

It wasn't until Catalan remembered that an HBO crew was there to film an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" that, with a little more probing by his attorney, video evidence was uncovered that proved him right.

A judge finally released him citing insufficient evidence, and Catalan filed a claim against the city for false imprisonment.

(Some versions of that story linked here, here and here)

That may set the stage for another sports-related incident that could help another allegedly wrongly accused man go free.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports today (linked here), in a story headlined "Muhammad Ali bout could clear man of murder," that Anthony McKinney could be the latest version of Juan Catalan.

The 18-year-old McKinney was charged with robbing and killing a security guard in Harvey, Ill., on Sept. 15, 1978. McKinney had confessed to doing it, although no evidence was ever found. In 1981, McKinney was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

But a new trial is being sought based on evidence turned up by the Northwestern University Law School, uncovered by journalism and law students.

On that date of the crime, Muhammad Ali made boxing history by defeating Leon Spinks to win the heavyweight title for a third time. A witness who told a grand jury that he left his house at the end of the 10th round and ran into another man, and they said at that time they saw McKinney commit the crime. McKinney testified he watched the entire fight and left his house at 10:30 p.m.

The Northwestern students believe that the two witnesses, and McKinney, were coerced into a false confession and testimony, and the TV logs of the Ali-Spinks fight help their case.

The day before you settle in for a turkey dinner, have a big bowl of Jim Fox Chicken Soup.

The Redondo Beach Cafe (1511 S. Pacific Coast Hwy, R.B., 310.316.1047) (site linked here), run by those Montreal-raised, Greek-bred Tsangaris brothers, Costa and Chris, have decided to name a bowl of chicken soup on their menu in honor of Jim Fox, the Kings' FSN West analyst and former player.

Why? Why not.

They've invited anyone who wants to come to the restaurant on Wednesday, Nov. 26, for a ceremony prior to watching the Kings face Edmonton at 7 p.m. (the Oilers' home feed, not on FSN West).

And if that's not enough -- and don't you think it oughta be? -- the restaurant will host its regular Grey Cup bash -- Sunday at 3 p.m. -- to celebrate the crowning of the Canadian Football League champion. The party grows every year, and more than 200 could be cramming in to the place for this one.

Or, about a third of what's expected for Fox Chicken Soup night.

Many have asked recently about Joe McDonnell's future in the sports-talk biz. We're working on it. We just talked to Joe as he was driving out to Arizona to take in tomorrow's Lakers-Suns game in Phoenix -- a small vacation to get away for awhile.

While Arte Moreno-owned KLAA-AM (830) (linked here) has yet to hire McDonnell as a weekday sports talk host -- it's been two months since McDonnell did his last show for KLAC-AM (570) and it would seem to be a natural move to 830, which keeps running colon-cleansing informercials during the day -- the station has announced one addition.
"The Dr. Casey Show" starts Saturday (9 to 10 p.m.) and Sunday (2 to 3 p.m.).

Dr. Casey Cooper (www.drcaseycooper.com) is a state-licensed psychologist from USC specializing in sports culture. She maintains a private practice in Mission Viejo and assists individual athletes, families, and teams.

Working at a sports-talk show would seem to be a good place for a sports shrink. Just lie on the couch and tell us why you can't stop hitting the redial on your phone, Jeff from Tarzana.

The final installment of the Roger Goodell Q-and-A, with everything else that was worth noting:

On the reaction of streaming video on NFL games during NBC's Sunday night telecasts?

Goodell: "Very positive. We felt this was important to do because streaming on the Internet will be more and more prevalent as people consume media on different platforms. We're learning, NBC is learning, what consumers like or don't like. What is, the phrase they use, killer app? (a definition linked here if you so desire). It's something we're glad to partner with NBC."

Back to getting this NFL Network negotiation settled: Are you open to a parternship route?

Goodell: "We are open to negotiations and we've openly said, and privately said, this will come to a negotiated settlement at some point in time. I believe that's what it should be and we encourage those negotiations."

Would you have given away the Patroits-Giants game last year in week 17 if you had to do it over again?

Goodell: "Yes, it was an historically significant game in the history of the NFL and there was a great deal of interest in seeing it, more than 35 million. The frustration of not being able to get the distribution and demonstrate this kind of product doesn't belong on a sports tier and there is demand for it. That statement was loudly made."

On what ultimately will get the deal done:

Goodell: "It's ultimately the cable operators' determination that there's a great demand for the content. I think it's there and ultimately they'll understand we're committed to the long term and they'll help us work to get the consumers what they want. We're not new to disputes. They go on all over the country. I'm sure we won't be the last."

What aspects of the new media intrigues you the most?

Goodell: The telephone is nothing we haven't already thought of. We have a forward-thinking partnership with Sprint and that's a big opportunity for us. All the content created right here is going to be increasingly valuable in the digital world and we'll be delivering more and more football, not just games, to new devices. There's never been a greater time to be an NFL fan because of that. And there's an insatiable appetite for NFL football. That's good news. Now we have to figure how to feed that."

And how is it again that people have found your personal phone number?

Goodell: "I don't know. I asked that. People are pretty creative now a days."

FYI: Jim Rome has a two-segment sit-down with the commissioner taped Tuesday on today's "Jim Rome Is Burning" (ESPN, 1:30 p.m.)

A third part to the Q-and-A with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, this, about what determines games the L.A. audience receives on a weekly basis:

From an L.A. TV perspective, do you get a sense that when there's talk of a team coming to this market, that fans fear they won't be getting the best game available every Sunday and it is one of the reasons fans here may resist having a franchise brought here after all these years? Is there a benefit of not having a city locked into a team, especially with L.A.?

Goodell: "I've heard that theory and have seen it written before, but it's not backed up by the facts. First, our policies have been very pro-consumer and allowing people to see high quality football. You look at the local markets and see a significant bump when a home team plays. Clearly that is a plus and I believe that would be the case here in Los Angeles if the city had a franchise. Plus as technology develops, Sunday Ticket is an example so people can see more than just what's on broadcast television and that's another benefit of the current policy."

The other part of the policy is that L.A. is considered a secondary market to San Diego, so that when the Chargers find their way to L.A. TV even if they aren't doing so well. I hear complaints from people asking, 'Why do we have to see that game? We're not part of the San Diego market.' Do you hear complaints as well about that?

Goodell: "That happens around the country. The networks regionalize most of our games on Sunday afternoon so they make determinations as to what games would be the most popular. Frankly, those are decisions that the consumer doesn't have the choice to make. But I go back to our policies being very pro-consumer."

The final Part IV coming up shortly ...

More from the Q-and-A on Tuesday with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell:

ESPN will move the BCS to cable in three years from now. ESPN president George Bodenheimer didn't want to say whether it thought the Super Bowl would ever be on cable. Guess you're the one to ask if there's anything that could put the NFL title game off free TV:

Goodell: "The one thing that's been pointed out repeatedly in all the media reports (on the BCS deal) is that the NFL is the only league that continues to be successful on free television. And we're proud of that. We anticipate that going forward. I don't see any significant restructuring from that standpoint. We have a great relationship with ESPN but the majority of our telecasts are always on free television."

Is that a good strategy for college football to point toward -- cable TV -- considering how much college football is covered on ESPN?

Goodell: "The one thing I've learned about this job is to take care of your own business."

What about playoff games on cable somewhere down the line?

Goodell: "Again, it goes to the NFL Network schedule, we love the idea of being broadly available and the fact all our games are on free TV in those markets (when the NFL Network does a game) is something we're proud of. We haven't gotten to the point of strategically how we'll market our different packages going forward and with whom, but again the core principle will be to remain available to as many as possible."

Part III arriving in a few hours...

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell popped by the Culver City offices of the NFL Network on Tuesday -- his first visit, he said, since taking over as the league's boss in Sept., 2006. He'd been in Buffalo the night before for the Bills-Browns game and, before flying back East on Tuesday night, he did a Q-and-A with some locally-based reporters, touching on the future of the league-owned NFL Network and how it will work itself into cable homes sometime down the road.

Some of the highlights will be broken up in postings between now and the next couple of days:

On what it will take for the NFL Network to finally turn the corner and become available to consumers who continue to ask for it, despite the ongoing struggle between the league and major cable operators such as Time Warner, Comcast and Charter:

Goodell: "I was updated earlier today that we are on 300 cable and satellite carriers. We're trying to resolve the remaining big three. But the interest has been extraordinary from all the other carriers. ... When you look at how networks grow, I'm looking at a variety of other networks and they're in 10 million homes. I think the expectation may have been higher in some people's minds, but the reality is, this is a very successful network and I think the reality of how we get there is to continue the quality, expand our programming and eventually we'll get that distribution because I think viewers will demand it."

On whether the average viewer understands all the behind-the-scenes fighting, or if they really care:

Goodell: "I would argue they don't care, they just want to see it and I understand that perspective. In this day in age, people can see most everything they want, and they want to see the games and quality of programming that comes out of this facility."

On what is the most effective way to get the NFL Network's message out about what's going on -- letters to the editor, commercials, any other options?

Goodell: "The communication is to get people to truly understand why it's not there. (NFL Network CEO) Steve (Bornstein, sitting nearby) is laughing at me because I was returning fan calls (Thursday night). A number of fans called my personal line and left voice mails -- and I called them back. We talked about why they weren't getting it and they appreciated it and understood. I don't think it makes them feel any better because they want to see the games and the NFL Network, but at least they understand that we care and most importantly, we're not benefiting by this. Particularly as it relates to a sports tier. We're fighting the sports tier because they're charging our consumers seven, eight bucks a month to get that. That's wrong. We think there broad interest in the game, that's been proven and it should be available more broadly. ...
"(Callers) asked questions, 'Why am I not seeing the game?' and we went through it very methodically, I was watching the game as I was doing it. They had good questions and I think they went away at least better informed on the issues."

On whether it was hard to convince the people that it was actually you calling them back:

Goodell: "A couple didn't believe it, but they finally became convinced. I'm still emailing one of them."

Part II coming up....

USC can't do anything to strenghten (or weaken) its place in the Bowl Championship Standings, because it has the week off.

UCLA is taking a nap this weekend as well.

So let's all sleep in and dream about a college playoff system instead.

Or maybe we can circle back to the very end of the interview that President-elect Barack Obama did with "60 Minutes" question guy Steve Kroft , when he spoke up out of turn about an eight team, three-round system that sounded more than reasonable to "any sensible person."

"I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this," he said. "So, I'm going to throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do."

BCS coordinator John Swofford responded: "For now, our constituencies -- and I know he understands constituencies -- have settled on the current BCS system, which the majority believe is the best system yet to determine a national champion while also maintaining the college football regular season as the best and most meaningful in sports. ... We certainly respect the opinions of president-elect Obama and welcome dialogue on what's best for college football."

What's best for college football? Did you see what ESPN promised to give the BCS clowns between 2011 and 2014?

This season comes down to what TheBigLead.com (linked here) says is all that's left watching: Texas Tech at Oklahoma (Saturday), Florida vs. Alabama (probably in the SEC title game Dec. 6), and the National Championship (in early January). Everything else is just noise.

WEDNESDAY:

==4 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: No. 17 Ball State at Central Michigan (with Todd Harris and Ray Bentley)

THURSDAY:

==4:30 p.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: No. 23 Miami at Georgia Tech (with Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews)
==6 p.m., ESPNU: Grambling at Texas Southern (with Charlie Neal and Jay Walker)

FRIDAY:

==6:30 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Fresno State at San Jose State (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone)

SATURDAY

== 7 to 9 a.m., ESPN: "GameDay" is at Norman, Okla., for the Texas Tech-Oklahoma contest with Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard.
==9 a.m., Versus: Yale at Harvard (with Rich Ackerman, Dale Hellestrae and Bob Harwood)
==9 a.m., Channel 7: Michigan at No. 10 Ohio State (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales)
==9 a.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: West Virginia at Louisville (with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware)
==9 a.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Indiana at Purdue (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley)
==11 a.m., ESPNU: Jackson State at Alcorn State (with Dwayne Ballen and Eddie Robinson, Jr.)
==11 a.m., ESPN Classic and ESPN360.com: Florida Classic: Bethune-Cookman vs. Florida A&M (with Eric Collins and Shaun King)
==11 a.m., MTN: Colorado State at Wyoming (with James Bates, Todd Christensen, Natalie Vickers and Andrea Lloyd)
==11:30 a.m., Channel 4: Syracuse at Notre Dame (with Tom Hammond and Pat Haden)

==Noon, FSN West: Washington at Washington State (with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Jim Watson)
==12:30 p.m., Channel 7: No. 15 Michigan State at No. 8 Penn State (with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)
==12:30 p.m., Channel 2: Mississippi at No. 18 LSU (with Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN2: Boston College at Wake Forest (with Terry Gannon and David Norrie)
==12:30 p.m., Versus: Air Force at Texas Christian (with Joe Beninati, Glenn Parker and Tim Neverett)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN PPV: Stanford at California (with Rob Stone, Chris Spielman and Jessica Mendoza)
==12:30 p.m., Big Ten Network: Illinois at Northwestern (with Thom Brennaman, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson)
==12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: Marshall at Rice (with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts)

==2:30 p.m., ESPNU: Duke at Virginia Tech (with Dave Armstrong and Larry Coker)
==3 p.m., MTN: No. 14 BYU at No. 7 Utah (with Rich Cellini, Jon Berger, Blaine Fowler, Sammy Linebaugh and Toby Christensen)

==4 p.m., Versus: No. 21 Oregon State at Arizona (with Ron Thulin, Kelly Stouffer and Lewis Johnson)
==4 p.m., Big Ten Network: Iowa at Minnesota (with Wayne Larrivee, Chris Martin and Anthony Herron)
==4:15 p.m., ESPN 2 and ESPN360.com: No. 20 Pitt at No. 19 Cincinnati (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
==4:45 p.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: Florida State at No. 25 Maryland (with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute)
==5 p.m., Channel 7: No. 2 Texas Tech at No. 5 Oklahoma (Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters)
==5 p.m., ESPN2 and ESPN360.com: Vanderbilt at Kentucky (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
==5 p.m., CBS College Sports: UNLV at San Diego State (with Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor)

SUNDAY:

==5:15 p.m., ESPN and ESPN360.com: Connecticut at South Florida (with Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore)

ESPN officially announced today its partnership with the Bowl Championship Series starting in 2011, after the last two years of the Fox deal runs out, and continuing until 2014.

Does it mean there will be no playoff system until 2014?

John Swofford, the BCS coordinator and ACC commissioner, said in a conference call this morning that it's not likely that any changes will come, but they're still open to adjusting the format in the future.

While the Rose Bowl remains a separate deal with the Disney Company, ESPN/ABC Sports chief George Bodenheimer also said today that no decision has been made past 2010 about putting that Pasadena classic on ESPN along with all the other BCS games.

Bodenheimer would not confirm that the new deal calls for Disney to pay what's been widely reported to be $125 million per year for four years, which is $25 million a year more than Fox proposed.

The real sticking point to this with viewers could be determining how many are actually shut out of the BCS title game starting in 2011 with it becomes a cable-exclusive delivered show. Changes in the analog delivery taking place early next year -- which may cause more to buy cable -- seem to narrow the gap in the over-the-air vs. cable audiences. For example, Fox can deliver the upcoming BCS title game to about 114 million homes; ESPN has about 98 million homes. But in this economy, how many who already can't afford cable will suddenly buy it just to keep up with the delivery system?

It could also give ESPN some strength to increase its fees to the cable systems, which in turn might increase your cable bill. ESPN today generally runs about $2.85 per subscriber, a relative bargain considering all the rights fees it pays to different leagues and conferences.

Steve Mariucci, the NFL Network analyst and former San Francisco and Detroit head coach, said it about the upcoming New York Jets-Tennessee Titans contest: "If I'm (Jets coach) Eric Mangini, I am going to have Brett Favre spread the ball around because the Titans don't have a weak link. Leon Washington is going to have to come up big on special teams. The Jets have to get out in front early and make Kerry Collins continue to throw the football."

Take it for what it's worth, as the still undefeated Titans -- we're not sure about their record, we'll have to have someone show us a cue card to remind us -- run into the 7-3 Jets in what looks like the two best AFC squads hooking up. The other 7-3 AFC team, Pittsburgh, ties its Thursday up with Cincinnati.

THURSDAY:

==5 p.m., NFL Network: Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (with Bob Papa and Cris Collinsworth)

SUNDAY:

==10 a.m., Channel 11: San Francisco at Dallas (with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver) Other Fox choices: Minnesota-Jacksonville (with just retired John Lynch working as an analyst with Chris Rose), Philadelphia-Baltimore, Tampa Bay-Detroit and Chicago-St. Louis.

==10 a.m., Channel 2: N.Y. Jets at Tennessee (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms). CBS is passing on Buffalo-Kansas City, New England-Miami and Houston-Cleveland.

==1 p.m., Channel 11: N.Y. Giants at Arizona (with Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston and Tony Siragusa). Fox also had Carolina-Atlanta and Washington-Seattle to pick from. CBS has Oakland-Denver (with Dick Enberg and Randy Cross) in this slot.

==5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Indianapolis at San Diego (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer)

MONDAY:

==5:30 p.m., ESPN: Green Bay at New Orleans (with Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski)

Bye week: Nobody.

Looking ahead:

THURSDAY, NOV. 27 -- THANKSGIVING:

==9:30 a.m., Channel 2: Tennessee at Detroit
==1:30 p.m., Channel 11: Seattle at Dallas
==5 p.m., NFL Network: Arizona at Philadelphia

Also:
The Week 13 schedule past Thursday was finalized, with NBC keeping the Chicago-Minnesota game as schedule. Denver-N.Y. Jets moves from an early window to late window for CBS.

Los Angeles-based Fox released a statement today explaining that it wasn't going to renew its contract to carry the Bowl Championship Series after its deal runs out after 2010.

All that's left is for the ESPN celebration party, because Disney has not only outbid (and out-Foxed) the process, but will move everything -- including the Rose Bowl -- to its cable channel from 2011 to 2014.

After which time, Barack Obama's plan to start a playoff system can begin.

"Even with today's vast economic uncertainties, Fox Sports made a very competitive bid to keep broadcasting BCS games free to every home in America, one that included a substantial rights fee increase, and certainly as much as any over-the-air network could responsibly risk," the network said in a statement. "Unfortunately, the University presidents and BCS commissioners were not satisfied and they've decided to take their jewel events to pay television. We wish everyone well."

ESPN is "pay television"? Never thought of it that way.... But it seems to be once you consider that you pay a cable bill, and it's included. Which is what'll happen early next year when all analog TV disappears.

The Wall Street Journal story (linked here) reports that Fox's bid for $400 million for a four-year extension was all it could afford. ESPN/Disney bid $500 milllion.

And why it's not completely agreed upon yet, this deal may result in the Rose Bowl, which is excluded from the BCS package because it has an exclusive deal with ABC, moving from over-the-air to ESPN as well, giving the cable network the BCS championship, as well as the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose bowls staggered over a week's time, starting on New Year's Day, 2011.

A stealth Warren Sapp, who belongs now to the NFL Network and Showtime's "Inside the NFL," made it to the final four of ABC's "Dancing With The Stars," (linked here), after the only other athlete left, Olympic sprinter Maurice Greene, was finally voted off, scoring 48 out of 60 from judges for his quickstep (kinda ironic, eh?) and paso doble routines Monday.

Sapp isn't bitching complaining that he's still on the show. Seems like it's coming down to Brooke Burke against Lance Bass, so Big Ol' Sapp may have only a week or two left.

But Sapp may have an apology in order soon as well, calling ESPN's Keyshawn Johnson a "bitch" during this week's "Inside the NFL" show on Showtime (more on that at this link).

But that's not all we learned this week:

== Week 11 of the NFL on TV for L.A. viewers (linked here) takes San Diego at Pittsburgh ahead of undefeated Tennessee playing Jacksonville. And Springsteen will light up the halftime show for NBC's Dallas-Washington game (linked here)

== Week 12 of college football on TV for L.A. viewers (linked here) may exclude you finding the USC-Stanford game (it's on Versus, 4 p.m.), but there's always Oregon State-Cal on Channel 7 at 12:30 p.m. (and really nothing much on ABC at 5 p.m.)

== ESPN has more ways to overexpose Brian Dennehy Bob Knight (linked here)

== More on Kenny Mayne's new web series "Mayne Street" (linked here), with Episode 2 that came out today (linked here).
The network says the first episode had nearly 2.5 million viewings in the first 48 hours, making it the site's most viewed single video in the last six months. "The great start for 'Mayne Street' illustrates the huge opportunity that exists for creative content at ESPN, not just on TV but on any platform," said Keith Clinkscales, senior vice president, content development and enterprises, ESPN.

== If Fox can't handle the freight for the BCS bowl games, Disney will take it, and put 'em all on cable (linked here).

== Why Turner is done going all British in the golf world (linked here), and now why ESPN has it (linked here).

== HBO's documentary "Driving Dirty: Thundercars of Indiana" has some characters that could spawn a mini-series (linked here).

== Don't let the Pumphrey brothers into your house, unless you're ready for an add-on (linked here).

==NASCAR would appreciate it if its Chase races that started on network TV didn't finish up on cable, especially if it's for a monkey scractching its butt (linked here).

== Bob Smiley's new book on Tiger Woods is out, and he'd like you to read it (or buy it for Christmas) (linked here).

==And, of course, another method for Pete Arbogast to sabotage his own career as a USC basketball play-by-play guy (linked here).

And he'll be sure hang himself out to dry. This time, when it comes to filling in for Rory Markas on USC basketball games.

Earlier this week, USC announced officially (linked here) that while Markas recovers at home from blood clot surgery on his brain, Steve Physioc would replace him on play-by-play, starting with Saturday's home encounter with UC Irvine at Galen Center. There wasn't any way Pete Arbogast could have done that game -- he's with the USC football team at Stanford on Saturday.

But when Arbogast heard that he'd only do hoop games when it Physioc had a conflict, we heard from several sources that he went to complain directly to USC athletic director Mike Garrett.

The response from Garrett: Fine, then you'll do no basketball games.

Since that happened, a source at 710-AM said that Isaac Lowenkron, a USC grad who has done play-by-play on the AFL Avengers, has been recruited to fill in for Physioc. Even though Lowenkron is better known for his work at rival sports-station KLAC-AM (570), where he has called Pac-10 conference tournament games in the past.

On his always entertaing blog posting this morning buried in the "publisher's forum" of WeAreSc.com (linked here), Arbogast makes a passing reference to "easy come, easy go" on replacing Markas, as it "turns out someone else is gong (sic) to do" those hoop games.

Apparently, it was an easy decision for Garrett to gong Arbogast.

Yes, you could just as easily go to ESPN.com and find this. We've saved you one extra click.

The Tuesday-Friday episode run of this web-exclusive sit-com, a cross between "The Office" and a "This is SportsCenter" commercial, has about a dozen episodes left after this, according to Ron Wechsler, ESPN vice president of series content and development, who chatted this project up with us the other day.

All of 'em have been shot, so if there's some cool news angle that could be worked in, it'll have to wait for the second season. If there is one.

"If people clamor for a second flight, we'll be happy to oblige," said Wechsler.

What may save this concept from collapsing under its own digital weight is that it comes in small bursts -- not a 30-minute show that is being pitched for TV. Not yet anyway.

"For whatever reasons, Kenny has mastered this particular form of short-form content," said Wechsler. "If we do it fo rthe Web, once we got to five minutes, which this generation of people are used to watching, if we go longer, then it's 'Gone With the Wind.'"

Which means your attention span probably ran out on this item two paragraphs ago.

Editor's note: ESPN puts a disclaimer on this episode, saying it "contains some mature languages and references." We'll blow its cover. There's a mention of pornography (by Mayne) and one of "drinking sloppy" (by the guy trying to get him to cross the line and mention a local roast beef sandwich place in one of his "news" stories). We were offended that there wasn't more adult language included.

We got more than just cranky Kings and Ducks fans complaining about "Rinkside View" (today's column linked here). We got Jim Fox and Bob Miller also suggesting ways it can be improved (linked here).

And as a matter of background: We started inquiring about "Rinkside View" on Tuesday and were basically told that execs at FSN weren't going to be available to talk. The plan was to write about it anyway. Suddenly, executive producer Tom Feuer and GM Steve Simpson became available, not just to the Daily News, but also the L.A. Times and Orange County Register. And the New York Times: We have Stu Hackel, a former VP of broadcasting for the NHL who now blogs on the sport for the New York Times, also checking in with the FSN West leadership to discover what all the fuss has been about (linked here).
The damage-control train rolls on...

And spinning forward, we know that:

== ESPN's Sunday Outside the Lines (6 a.m., replayed at 9 a.m. on ESPNEWS) looks at Manny Ramirez' upcoming free agency, especially at how his final days in Boston played out before he was traded to the Dodgers. Pedro Gomez reports. A quote from Red Sox shortstop Alex Cora: "Every question was about Manny Ramirez. We lost a game -- it was 'Why Manny didn't run a ball out?' We win a game - 'Is Manny going to show up tomorrow and play?' So it got to the point that, I don't want to say it got to us, but it was this dark cloud over the team."

Video above is from the FSN Kings-Blues "Rinkside" telecast from last Saturday at Staples Center

They call it "Rinkside View." You've called it "Stinkside View." That's when you're being nice.

The Fox Sports Net's L.A. offices have heard your constructive criticism astute suggestions, and in Friday's media column, they'll explain some changes to their approach, starting with Sunday's Kings-Ducks telecast on FSN Prime.

Then they expect to hear more feedback as to how it can work spinning forward.

We'd assumed that "Rinkside" this season would be done in the way it has been in the past -- as an alternative feed to the "traditional" NHL telecast. For next Tuesday's Lakers-Chicago Bulls telecast, for example, FSN West will carry the tradition telecast with Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz, while FSN Prime will do the "Courtside View" coverage -- low camera angles, boom mikes in crazy places, no broadcasters, and Bill Macdonald running all over the place behind the scenes.

That's a nice compromise. But it's not practical, especially financially, on the hockey side of the ledger.

Southern California hockey fans who've already seen this "Rinkside View" hybrid version for the last month complain most about how it makes them dizzy, restricts seeing plays develop and, some aren't willing to watch -- even boycott. A few have resorted to calling Fox Sports chief David Hill to lodge protests.

Oh, and they've filled our comments slots on the Kings blog in remarkable numbers. The passion is evident. A few even more off the deep end after FSN executive producer Tom Feuer offered his "let them eat cake" edict in the OC Register this week. Have to say, that didn't go over too well. (see link here). Even if this seems to be the future of NHL telecasts.

A day after Turner said it was bailing out on the British Open (linked here), ESPN and The R&A, the organizer of what's called officially The Open Championship, announced they'd dive in together on an eight-year deal to do all four rounds live on the cable channel starting in 2010.

Jean Van de Velde immediately began new plans of figuring out a way to get out of the moat he still finds himself stuck in.

ABC will still have an extensive same-day weekend highlights package for the third- and final rounds for those who haven't figured out how cable works yet.

ESPN will televise 34 live hours live over four days and produce six hours of encore highlights for ABC, which continues the network's relationship with the event past the 50-year mark.

"It is all important to The R&A that we preserve the traditions of The Open Championship while at the same time ensuring that golf fans are able to enjoy modern state-of-the-art coverage of the event," said Peter Dawson, Chief Executive of The R&A. "We know just how much ESPN respects The Open's heritage and we are very excited by their many innovative plans to cover the Championship across the whole media spectrum, both in the United States and internationally. We look forward to a long and productive relationship."

Alastair Johnston, IMG Vice Chairman, who led the negotiating team representing The R&A said: "We had to consider not only the financial terms but The R&A's overall mission to promote and develop the game of golf to an evolving global audience."

The deal also includes exclusive U.S. coverage of all rounds of the Senior Open Championship and coverage of the next two Walker Cups when contested in the United Kingdom (2011 and 2015).

Ossie Schectman, a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, made the first basket for the New York Knickerbockers in on Nov. 1, 1946, in the first game of the fledgling Basketball Association of America, against the Toronto Huskies.

Three years later, the league became the NBA.

Schectman's shot is considered the first NBA points.

Who knew?

In the documentary, "The First Basket," (official movie link here) more little-known history of the Jews and basketball come to light. The hour-and-a-half flick directed by David Vyorst and narrated by Peter Riegert opens in Southern California on Friday at Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills, the Town Center in Encino and the Fallbrook 7 in West Hills.

After the game of basketball was invented by Dr. James Naismith in Springfield, Mass., the game spread through New York settlement houses and proved a perfect fit for urban Jewish kids. By the 1920s, basketball had become a staple of life in American Jewish communities, and many of the top teams grew out of these neighborhoods.

"The First Basket" uncovers the influence that these Jewish pioneers had on the evolution of basketball as it grew from a game played with ash cans on tenement steps.

Red Holzman, Dolph Schayes, Red Sarachek, Barney Sedran, Eddie Gottleib, Abe Saperstein, Ralph Kaplowitz, Sammy Kaplan and many more are featured.

Hey now mama don't shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light
Don't you shut out the light
-- From "Shut Out the Light," by Bruce Springsteen

It's either that, or "Blinded By The Light."

Whatever works for NBC.

On a night when Springsteen premieres a new song, "Workin' on a Dream," which will be used to a package of highlights during halftime of Sunday's Dallas-Washington NFL game, the network will also do its part about conserving energy by turning the lights out in the studio again.

The game will launch the second "Green Week" by NBC (owned by General Electric), and during the NBC NFL pregame show, commentators Bob Costas, Chris Collinsworth, Dan Patrick, Jerome Bettis and Tiki Barber "will discuss how they each personally green their own routines," according to the network press release.

Meanwhile, "Workin' on a Dream" will be on Springsteen's next album, released in late January. He played it acoustically during a Barack Obama rally in Columbus, Ohio. Springsteen will also, of course, perform at halftime of Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Fla., on Feb. 1.

Turner Sports, which will carry about 28 hours of the British Open on TNT over four days next year, has pulled out of the bidding to renew its deal with the event, which clears the way for ESPN to take the rights.

Reports from the Sports Business Daily is that ESPN will pay about $25 millon a year for up to seven years and put all four rounds of the event on its cable channel -- ending ABC's 50-year association with the tournament. It also makes the British Open the first major golf event to go cable only.

"We are disciplined in our approach to negotiating programming rights," said Turner Sports chief David Levy. "While we were unable to reach terms on future rights that made economic sense for our company, we respect and value the R&A and our partnership of the past six years, and look forward in 2009 to TNT's final year of covering The Open."

TNT has covered the British Open's Thursday-Friday rounds since '03.

It's on HBO, all right, but "Dirty Driving: Thundercars of Indiana" isn't really as dirty a documentary as you may think. It's definitely not "Taxi Cab Confessions."

This one debuting Thursday at 10 p.m. by Emmy winner Jon Alpert deals with how the small town of Anderson, Indiana deals with fact it lost 33,000 GM jobs and the foreclosure of hundred of homes years ago.

It embraces sprint car racing.

"As much a demolition derby as a race, this cacophony of screeching tires and crashing metal gives inhabitants of Anderson a chance to lose themselves for a couple of hours, channeling their hopes and frustrations into a wild weekly contest for Thundercar supremacy," says the HBO release.

"We don't make cars no more here in Anderson, Indiana, but we can still race 'em and we can still wreck 'em," says one racer, Sammy Hawkins, who still has a job at the Firestone factory. "They can't take that away from us."

In addition to Hawkins, you get to meet Wild Willie Coffman , who straps a stuffed gorilla to his car for luck; Billy Riddle , a major trash-talker who's targeted by other drivers, and Alice Riall , the matriarch of a race-crazed family, describes herself as "probably the oldest grandmother out there racing in the Thundercar division."

Other airings on HBO: Monday at 1:05 a.m., Nov. 21 (12:30 a.m.), Nov. 24 (10:45 p.m.) and Nov. 29 (3:30 a.m.), and Dec. 4 (12:15 a.m.)

==HBO also has a DVD of the documentary for sale in its online store for $24.98 (linked here)

It's not a new event in the X Games. Not yet.

The Pumphrey brothers, Craig and Paul, have made their parents proud by being able to bust things up -- houses, airplanes, bowling alleys, etc. -- with their bare brute. They've parlayed it into a TV show that tries to answer the question: Is there a science to demolition with the human body as the battering ram?

Force, plus strength, minus stupidity, equals the new series on the G4 channel, "Human Wrecking Balls ... Man Vs. Man-Made" which debuts tonight at 10:30 p.m.

The Associated Press

Jimmie Johnson's dominance may have taken some of the sizzle out of the Sprint Cup Chase for the championship, but that doesn't mean NASCAR chairman Brian France thinks Johnson's last major steps toward a third straight points title had to be relegated to cable TV.

France said Tuesday he wasn't pleased with ABC's decision to bump the final laps of last weekend's race in Phoenix to ABC-owned ESPN2 so the network could air an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos."

"We didn't like it, that was not what we had anticipated but we have talked to them repeatedly in the last couple days," France said. "There were lots of circumstances that we have to consider. They have their own issues they had to manage around. Unfortunately we got the short end of that."

France, however, says the interests of NASCAR and its television partners are "in line" and that a rare early afternoon storm and a late accident that forced two red-flag stoppages couldn't be helped.

"America's Funniest Home Videos" aired between 7:30-8 p.m. in the Eastern and Central time zones. The race had a rating for 4.6 in the 7-7:30 p.m. spot before the broadcast was moved.

"They did not like the idea of having to pull out of ABC and operate the way they did Sunday," France said. "It is imperative we work closely together with them for scheduling."

==Some background on what went down at The Big Lead (linked here)
==More background from another AP story, which quotes one of Johnson's teammates as saying: ''I knew we were in trouble when I looked at the monitor and saw a monkey scratching its butt." (linked here)

Rory Markas has returned to his Lancaster home after spending nearly a week in the hospital having surgery to remove a blod clot, and USC has a plan to move forward with its college basketball radio schedule for as long as the team's play-by-play man needs to recover.

USC said today that Steve Physioc , who works with Markas on the Angels' TV and radio broadcasting crew, would be the primary fill-in starting with the call of Saturday's game at the Galen Center against UC Irvine (12:30 p.m., KSPN-AM 710). That game will lead into the USC-Stanford football broadcast at 4 p.m. with Pete Arbogast, who will also do some fill-in games when Physioc is not available. Jim Hefner will continue as the basketball analyst.

Upcoming broadcasts include Tuesday, Nov. 18 at home against New Mexico State and a three-game trip to Puerto Rico from Nov. 20-23 for a tournament.

"We hold Rory's broadcasting work in high regard and we made it clear to him that he will continue to be our basketball play-by-play announcer when he is ready to return," said USC athletic director Mike Garrett. "We also let him know that the entire Trojan Family wishes him a healthy, speedy recovery. We realize he is anxious to get back into his announcer's chair, but he has gone through quite a medical ordeal and his recovery period will be dictated by his doctors' guidance. In the interim, we are very appreciative that such broadcast veterans as Steve and Pete agreed to pinch hit for him until he is ready to return."

ESPN has given the Bowl Championship Series organizers a ridiculous plan that would put all its bowl games, including the championship, on the cable network, according to the Sports Business Daily, and later run on sister publication SportingNews.com (linked here).

Meaning, no more over-the-air Fiesta, Orange, Sugar or BCS title game on Fox, or ABC, or anywhere else. The deal would also move the Rose Bowl from ABC, which has the rights to the game already, to ESPN.

The BCS, according to the story, is looking for a four-year, $500 million extension, or $125 million per year, which would be a 50 percent increase over its current $82.5 million a year deal. Fox, whose current bid is for an average of about $102 million per year, has several days to match the ESPN offer.

==More from USA Today (linked here)

It's being heavily promoted today on all mediums related to ESPN -- this opening episode of "Mayne Street" where Kenny Mayne plays himself ("I'm a poor man's Larry David," he's said) and works with others at ESPN like Scott Van Pelt on an Internet-only (for now) sit-com. The rest of the cast is actual actors, playing producers, cameramen, executives, etc...

We like the feel and the concept. It's like "The Office," with the old show "Sports Night," but, at least in this episode, it's too much like a commercial for "SportsCenter." Maybe that's just a reality they'll have to deal with in future episodes.

Let us know your reviews. It debuts with a new episode every Tuesday and Friday, between 3 and 5 minutes long.

==The show's official site (linked here)
==Mayne blogging about the show (linked here)
==A live chat with Mayne takes place today at 12:15 p.m. on ESPN.com. Again, to promote it more.

The NFL Network has a decent game this week, with the New York Jets facing New England. On the week the nation celebrates Veterans Day, a veteran human being -- Brett Favre -- shows up on the league-run channel.

Are you decent enough to watch it?

An email sent out by the NFL Network this morning includes an op-ed piece written by NFL Network president and CEO Steve Bornstein that is "being offered to various publications" concerning the ongoing dispute with cable operators.

Below, we've run the opinion piece in full. It concludes:

You can take a stand. Contact your elected officials today. Tell them cable should stop the discrimination and give you NFL Network.

Meanwhile, the lockdown with the San Diego Chargers' secondary market coverage means that L.A. viewers won't see undefeated Tennessee meet Jacksonville in the CBS' afternoon window.

THURSDAY:

== 5:15 p.m., NFL Network: N.Y. Jets at New England (with Bob Papa and Cris Collinsworth).

SUNDAY:

== 10 a.m., Channel 11: Chicago at Green Bay (with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver). As opposed to Philadelphia-Cincinnati, Detroit-Carolina, New Orleans-Kansas City and Minnesota-Tampa Bay on the Fox lineup.

== 10 a.m., Channel 2: Baltimore at N.Y. Giants (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf). As opposed to Oakland-Miami, Denver-Atlanta or Houston-Indiana on the CBS lineup.

== 1 p.m., Channel 2: San Diego at Pittsburgh (with Jim Nantz and Phil Simms) CBS' other options here: Tennessee-Jacksonville; Fox has St. Louis-San Francisco and Arizona-Seattle.

== 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: Dallas at Washington (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer) NBC gets to get all presidental with its trip to DC after the Obama victory, and with Tony Romo back in the lineup for the Cowboys.
Meanwhile, NBC says it will keep Indianapolis at San Diego for its Week 12 contest.

MONDAY:

== 5:30 p.m., ESPN: Cleveland at Buffalo (with Mike Tirico, Tony Kornheiser and that guy who used to quarterback the Rams, leading into a bunch of college basketball games you can see long into the night and early morning)

And now, a message from the NFL Network:

It's not leaving your TV set any time soon. In fact, it has tasted the TV life and wants more.

ESPN said today that Bob Knight will not only return as a college basketball analyst, but he'll expand his duties than just sitting in a studio and taking digs from Digger Phelps.

This season, Knight will also do a Thursday night game telecast, appear on "SportsCenter," provide postseason studio analysis and be on ESPN radio. Oh, and he'll also be an analyst for select nonconference game telecasts other than Thursday and make Saturday appearances on College GameDay.

He will work with Brent Musburger on Thursday nights, beginning Jan. 15, and on other nights with Dan Shulman.

Last season, ESPN added Knight as a studio analyst for the postseason, shortly after he resigned as the Texas Tech coach on Feb. 4.

Knight's first ESPN appearances will be on College GameDay from Chapel Hill, N.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18 when Kentucky visits No. 1 North Carolina. His first game telecasts will feature a 2K Sports Classic Benefiting Coaches vs. Cancer semifinal and third place matchup from New York City on November 20 and 21 at 4 p.m. and 2 p.m., respectively, on ESPN2.

For that matter, here's the regular studio lineup ESPN will have this season:
Big Monday: Digger Phelps and Stacey Dales
Super Tuesday: Hubert Davis and Jay Williams
Wednesday Night Hoops: Steve Lavin and Jimmy Dykes
Thursday Night Showcase: Fran Fraschilla and Stephen Bardo
Friday: Doug Gottlieb and Tom Brennan
Saturday College GameDay: Jay Bilas, Digger Phelps, Hubert Davis and reporter Andy Katz
Saturday afternoons:Tom Brennan, Doug Gottlieb, Adrian Branch and Jay Williams
Saturday Midnight Madness:Tom Brennan and Doug Gottlieb
Sunday Tom Brennan and Doug Gottlieb

Nice to see USC grind out a victory against Cal and then drop to No. 25 in the latest BCS standings.

Oh, that's South Carolina, scratching its way into the standings this week. Sorry.

But it would have made perfect sense.

The No. 6 Trojans venture to the dark side of college football's TV landscape -- the Versus network -- for Saturday's game on the Farm.

The games USC fans will most likely pay attention to -- or focus entirely on, if they have no access to Versus -- would include Pac-10 co-leader Oregon State, which still hasn't managed to get into the BCS standings or the Harris poll, hosting Cal in an ABC regional contest; No. 1 ranked Alabama (home to Mississippi State), No. 3 Texas (at Kansas), No. 4 Florida (hosting that other USC), and No. 2 Texas Tech and No. 5 Oklahoma in a bye week, resting up for their encounter on Nov. 22 on ABC.

And then there's the novelty of Neuheisel going back to Seattle to see how rotten apples taste when heaved at him from the 46th row:

THE LOCALS:

== Saturday, 4 p.m., Versus: No. 6 USC at Stanford (with Ron Thulin, Kelly Stouffer and Lewis Johnson)
== Saturday, 7:15 p.m., FSN Prime: UCLA at Washington (with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Jim Watson)

GAMES ON USC FANS' RADAR:

== Cal at Oregon State (Saturday, Channel 7, 12:30 p.m., with Joe Tessitore, Rod Gilmore and Todd Harris)
== Mississippi State at No. 1 Alabama (Saturday, ESPN, 4:45 p.m., with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)
== No. 3 Texas at Kansas (Saturday, FSN West, 9:30 a.m., with Dan McLaughlin, Dave Lapham and Jim Knox)
== No. 25 South Carolina at No. 4 Florida (Saturday, Channel 2, 12:30 p.m. with Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson)

AND THE REST:

TODAY:

== 4 p.m., ESPN2: No. 14 Ball State at Miami of Ohio (with Bob Wischusen and Brock Huard)

WEDNESDAY:

== 5 p.m., ESPN2: Central Michigan at Northern Illinois (with Eric Collins and Shaun King)

THURSDAY:

== 4:30 p.m., ESPNU: Buffalo at Akron (with Charlie Neal and Jay Walker)
== 4:30 p.m., ESPN: Virginia Tech at Miami (with Chris Fowler, Jesse Palmer, Craig James and Erin Andrews)
== 5 p.m., CBS College Sports: Wyoming at UNLV (with Tom Hart and Spencer Tillman)

FRIDAY:

== 5 p.m., ESPN2: No. 22 Cincinnati at Louisville (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone)

SATURDAY:

== 7 to 9 a.m., ESPN: "GameDay" takes a strange detour: Tallahassee, Fla., but not so much to celebrate a Florida State game. Call it the Obama factor -- this is the first GameDay trip to an historically black college campus, Florida A&M, which faces Hampton later in the day. That's 5-4 Florida A&M against 7-3 Hampton, whose coach, Joe Taylor, left the school last December after 16 seasons to take over at FAMU. The usual crew is there: Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard. Afterward, Herbstreit drives a few miles down the road to do the Boston College-Florida State contest for an ABC regional, which goes to the L.A. market (yawn) at 5 p.m.

== 9 a.m., Channel 2: Notre Dame vs. Navy in Baltimore (with Craig Bolerjack and Steve Beuerlein)
== 9 a.m., ESPN: No. 11 Ohio State at Illinois (with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware)
== 9 a.m., ESPN2: Northwestern at Michigan (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley)
== 9 a.m., Big Ten Network: Indiana at No. 8 Penn State (with Wayne Larrivee, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson) or Purdue at Iowa (with Thom Brennaman, Chris Martin and Anthony Herron)
== 10 a.m., CBS College Sports: Middle Tennessee at Western Kentucky (with Joe Williams and Pat Sperduto)
== 11 a.m., MTN: New Mexico at Colorado State (with James Bates, Todd Christensen and Natalie Vickers)
== 12:30 p.m., ESPN: Minnesota at Wisconsin (with Terry Gannon and David Norrie)
== 12:30 p.m., ESPN PPV/ESPN360.com: No. 16 North Carolina at Maryland (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales)
== 12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: No. 17 BYU at Air Force (with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts)
== 12:45 p.m., ESPNU: No. 24 Wake Forest at North Carolina State (with Doug Bell, Charles Arbuckle and Melissa Knowles)

== 3:30 p.m., FSN West: No. 12 Missouri at Iowa State (with Joel Meyers, Gary Reasons and Emily Jones)
== 4 p.m., ESPNU: Connecticut at Syracuse (with Clay Matvick and David Diaz-Infante)
== 5 p.m., Channel 7: Boston College at No. 19 Florida State (with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters)
==5 p.m., ESPN PPV/ESPN360.com: No. 13 Oklahoma State at Colorado (with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute)
== 5 p.m., ESPN2: Vanderbilt at Kentucky (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
== 5 p.m., CBS College Sports: No. 23 Tulsa at Houston (with Carter Blackburn and Dan Fouts)
== 5 p.m. MTN: No. 7 Utah at San Diego State (with Tim Neverett, Blaine Fowler and Jenny Cavnar)

LOOKING AHEAD:

SATURDAY, NOV. 22:

== 9 a.m., Channel 7: Michigan at No. 11 Ohio State
==12:30 p.m., Channel 2: Mississippi at No. 19 LSU
== 12:30 p.m., Channel 7: Stanford at Cal
== 12:30 p.m, ESPN2: No. 15 Michigan State at No. 8 Penn State
== 5 p.m., Channel 7: No. 2 Texas Tech at No. 5 Oklahoma

A new book entitled "Follow the Roar: Tailing Tiger for all 604 holes of his most spetacular season" by Reseda's Bob Smiley hits stores today -- and yes, the 31-year-old Smiley, an otherwise unemployed TV writer (for CBS' "Yes Dear" and ESPN.com contributor, did follow Woods on every hole during his abbreviated 2008 season.

Back in July, the Daily News' Jill Painter did a story on Smiley's pursuit (linked here)

"Bobby Jones once said the worst way to watch golf is to watch one person, but I don't think he knew Tiger Woods," Smiley said.

"I set out at the beginning of the year believing this would be Tiger's greatest year ever," Smiley said. "You can still make the argument it was. He won five of seven events. The last one was a major, and he wanted to win so badly he sacrificed the rest of the year to do it. It was pretty impressive. If he won the U.S. Open and finished eighth two weeks later at the Buick Invitational, maybe it wouldn't have been as compelling."

Last week, explaining his book to the St. Petersburg Times (linked here), he said: "When I sold the idea I already knew the person I was dealing with and never promised the publisher that he would be part of the story. It was always about this idea of watching this larger-than-life figure from afar and recognizing that I'd have just as little interaction as when the year started. But saying that, I hope Tiger will read the book and I'll get a call one day from him giving me his opinions."

As for watching golf in the future after his adventure this year that started in Dubai and ended at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines: "I'm a little burned out. I had a friend ask me if I was going to the Chevron World Challenge (in Thousand Oaks), which is right up the road from me, and my first feeling was nausea. But I might go to the L.A. Open next year (at Riviera). I look forward to picking a hole and watching everybody come through."

A link to the book on the publisher's website (linked here).

In preparation for today's column on USC band director Dr. Arthur C. Bartner (linked here), we wondered how the "Spirit of Troy" marching band would be able to translate the song "Almost Perfect" by Avenged Sevenfold, into an on-field performance.
The girls twirling the batons with fire flaming from each end was a nice touch.
If you saw it, chime in.

Sunday's column focuses on USC "Spirit of Troy" band director Dr. Art Bartner, and how the 68-year-old manages to keep himself in exceptional physical condition for a demanding job that's more than waving ones arms and providing the soundtrack to the football team's performance.

With a football mentality that was instilled by former linebacker coach Marv Goux, Bartner sings the praises now of Pete Carroll for helping him feel young again, inspired to forge ahead with a training routine that takes him up to four times a week in the gym.

About three years ago, Bartner said during a game he felt tightness in his arms and chest -- that made him think he was having a heart attack. It got him serious about training. A pinched nerve in his neck about eight years ago also pointed him to physical therapy to fight off the prospects of surgery.

"He's in excellent shape," says Bartner's 24 Hour Fitness trainer of two-plus years Brenda Swanney, who concentrates on key components of strength training, cardiovascular endurance, lenghtening the muscles and balance -- all aspects of power yoga, which is her specality. "I've put him on a couple of programs that requires him to be at the gym often."

Outside of Mike Leckrone, who has been at Wisconsin since 1969, Bartner says he thinks he's the only college band director his age that hasn't retired. As long has he stays physically strong, that's won't be an option anytime soon.

"I won't lie, it's very hard to get to the gym three times a week and exercise properly," Bartner says, "but we're a lot smarter than we were five or 10 or 15 years ago.

"I feel it most when I miss a few days of the workouts, when things begin to tighten up again. So when we're on the road, I'm always looking for the workout room. Even on cruise ships."

More on Bartner and the USC band:
==The Spirit of Troy's official website (linked here)
==A Christian Science Monitor story on bands (including Bartner's influence) (linked here)
==A in-house magazine story this past August with a Q-and-A with Bartner (linked here).
==A clip from the band playing on "American Idol":

(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
Cars ride by a billboard appealing to bring the 2014 Winter Olympics to Russia in the outskirts of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Russia. The billboard reads: "Sochi 2014, Together we shall win!"

By Stephen Wilson
The Associated Press

LONDON -- Stocks markets and oil prices may dip and dive, but Olympic organizers with preparations under way for three games in the next six years aren't breaking a sweat.

The reasons? Time and television money.

The global economic downturn has squeezed private financing for venues that will be a part of London's 2012 Summer Games and Sochi's 2014 winter edition, but with brisk ticket sales for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and most of the sponsors locked in, the IOC can afford to hold off making new deals for television rights and sponsorships.

"All of us feel this," said Gerhard Heiberg, head of the International Olympic Committee's marketing commission. "Of course, this has an impact for everyone in the world. It never comes at a convenient time. But we don't feel we are affected too much in general. Things are moving everywhere in the right direction. Some things may take longer than originally hoped."

The financial pinch comes as IOC president Jacques Rogge seeks another term that will keep him in office until 2013. He says the committee is closely monitoring the financial situation.

"It would be naive and shortsighted to say that nothing will happen," Rogge said last week, confirming his plans to seek re-election next October, when he is expected to be unopposed. "Yes, the situation is so volatile that it is too soon to draw conclusions."

Rogge said the Olympic movement is in "excellent financial health." Total Olympic TV and sponsorship revenues for the 2005-08 cycle -- covering the 2006 Turin Winter Games and 2008 Beijing Olympics -- totaled about $3.5 billion.

As I write this, I have finished crying inside my cubicle after watching NBC's documentary about the Paralympics in Beijing.
It is a 90-minute, continuous "Oh my" journey with amputee sprinters and swimmers, wheelchair basketball players and racers, a paralyzed shot-putter, a sailor with Lou Gehrig's disease, and Marin Morrison, a swimmer devastated by a brain tumor. ...
(Director) David Michaels said he would return home, usually teary, after editing the footage.
"My wife thought I was going hormonal on her," he said. "She'd say, 'OK, what now?' and I'd say, 'You can't believe this story.' I was so emotionally attached."

(More from the Richard Sandomir piece in the New York Times at this link)

The Media Learning Center, unfortunately, couldn't unscrable the NFL Network from most Southern California cable system TV screens. We tried throwing a monkey wrench into the process with Friday's column (linked here), so we apologize if it only made things worse.
Having used much of the material on the blog this week in the print edition Friday, what we had left to review is:

== The NFL's Week 10 TV schedule in L.A. originally had the Chargers and Raiders going head-to-head in the 1 p.m. window, until Fox switched it out and took the Packers-Vikings game (linked here).

== College football's Week 11 TV schedule in L.A. doesn't include No. 2 Texas Tech hosting No. 9 Oklahoma State at 5 p.m. Saturday ... the USC-Cal game interrupts it (linked here).

==Chris Berman took the softball route with Barack Obama and John McCain in their Monday Night Football taped interview, and the reason McCain probably lost was because of his lame Berman impersonation (linked here).

==Why McCain has more time now to read 38 Pitches once he figures out how a laptop turns on (linked here)

==ESPN launched a Spanish-language version of "Around the Horn" that sounds about the same to us as the English version (linked here).

==A TV reality show in India resulted in two 19-year-olds throwing pitches before a bunch of major-league scouts in Arizona (linked here).

== A little more context on Keyshawn Johnson's reality show (linked here), and Matt Vasgersian's new MLB Network gig (linked here)

==More background on the blood-clot recovery process of Rory Markas (linked here), plus a note about it in Pete Arbogast's latest scatterbrained blog on WeAreSC.com (linked here), where he writes that he heard third-hand that Markas "is under the weather with doctoring troubles of his won (sic)" (think he means "own" ... and he's comparing a blod clot by Rory to his "own" problems with his nose) yet he is "one of my closests friends in the business."

== Oh, and how can Arbogast get away with only charging $500 to call your kid's lacrosse game (linked here).

Following up today's news and notes (linked here), we also need to throw out these things that otherwise would fall between the cup holders in our new Ford F-150 truck:

==More on the NFL Network's status as far as "Smashmouth Cable Football" goes from a New York Times piece (linked here), a Wall Street Journal story (linked here) on the introduction of game video on Sprint phones, and more of NFL Net COO Kim Williams talking to MultiChannel News (linked here).

== Fox really needed to interrupted its NFL pregame show last Sunday to drive a new truck into the studio and pimp it up? It was as if the '09 Ford F-150 was the infomercial, and the NFL commentary simply wrapped around it. It started after a commerical break about 15 minutes into the hour-long show, when NASCAR analyst Jeff Hammond came onto the set pretending to do the weather report by showing cards with words like "comfy" and "sweet" and "perfect" that supposedly described the conditions in different cities -- but really to set up the pitch. Terry Bradshaw had to ask: "So how'd you get out here?" To which Hammond responded: "I'm glad you asked. Come on and I'll show you the new F150!" The truck was parked on the green lined practice field as Hammond acted like a saleman pitching all the benefits of the truck to Bradshaw and Michael Strahan for three minutes. They even got Strahan in the back seat to show its legroom. "Howie can get in there with you," said Bradshaw. But Howie Long, who does Chevy commercials, wouldn't go near it. Coincidence? "One thing we try to do at Fox is work with advertisers," said Fox studio producer Scott Ackerson in USA Today. "Ford came to us and said, 'This is important to us, could you make something happen?' " Money talks.

== British soccer ball maker Mitre has reportedly filed a federal lawsuit against HBO, claiming the network misrepresented the makers of their equipment in a piece on Sept. 16 for "Real Sports" that discussed children in sweatshops. The story, with Bernard Goldberg reporting, showed how children in India miss school and work long hours stitching soccer balls. The suit claims that HBO paid the children to go on camera and exaggerate stories about their working conditions.HBO's Ray Stallone said: "We are not going to comment on pending litigation."

==Dr. Jerry Punch and analysts Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree will call the next-to-last Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Phoenix, with ABC carrying it live at noon on Sunday. ESPN2 has qualifying today at 2:30 p.m. with final practice Saturday at noon.

==NBC has a 90-minute documentary on the 2008 Paralympic Games, directed by David Michaels (Sunday, 11:30 a.m., Channel 4). As a story in today's Sports Business Journal points out, this may be quality programming, but it's really a way to drive viewers to the new Olympic channel Universal Sports, which has 28 hours of Paralympic coverage from Nov. 10-16. NBC bought a stake in the channel last June and has it in about 30 million homes, but mostly as a presence on the Internet.

==Craig Hummer, Justin McKee, Ty Murray and Donna Brothers cover the 2008 Pro Bull Riders Final from Las Vegas for NBC (Sunday, 1 p.m., Channel 4)

AND THE CLOSING ARGUMENT:

Lon McEachern and Norman Chad will be back on ESPN with same-day coverage Tuesday of the 2008 World Series of Poker championship (the ESPN link here). A one-hour preview show starts at 5 p.m., leading into the two-hour presentation from the Rio in Las Vegas.

Chad's analysis (via ESPN) on the nine competitors left in the game:

==Dennis Phillips (linked here) of St. Louis (the leader with 26,295,000): "Perhaps no player could be more negatively affected by the 117-day final-table delay. When play was halted in July, Phillips was in a zone. He was running hot and reading well, getting all the right cards and pushing all the right buttons. Poker is a streaky game, and he was on a week-long streak. Heck, 3½ months later, he might not even be able to find his St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap."

==Ivan Demidov of Russia: "In recent years, Russians are making a bigger impact in poker. Demidov is seldom recklessly aggressive like other twenty-somethings; rather, he's smart and measured and overcomes his lack of live tournament experience with a steady countenance and solid reads."

==Scott Montgomery of Perth, Ontario, Canada: "Another improbable product of the now-famed University of Waterloo poker factory in Canada - if it's such a good engineering school, how come everyone there is playing cards?"

==Peter Eastgate of Odense, Denmark: "Ah, to be young, fearless and playing for $9.1 million. In Europe, the poker community talks about uber-aggressive Scandinavian players like Eastgate. He is calm and icy at the table as he continues to shove big bets into the middle."

==Ylon Schwartz of Brooklyn: "He says if he wins the Main Event, he wants to go somewhere no one will find him 'like Tim Robbins in "Shawshank Redemption."' He gets another point there."

==Darus Suharto of Toronto: "At 39, the second-oldest player left in the field, which speaks to the youthful state of no-limit tournament hold 'em in 2008."

==David Rheem of Los Angeles: "He could go out first or he could end up first. He's not afraid to mix it up, he goes with his reads and he'll risk it all early if the spot feels right. Even when he bluffs off most of his stack, he has a great ability to not let the moment destroy him - he'll brush it off and move on. And, of course, most of the established pros are rooting for him."

==Craig Marquis of Arlington, Texas: "I like him because he started playing in January 2007 after going to a New Year's Eve party and realizing how much money Tom Dwan and David Benefield were making at cards - on New Year's Eve, most people just get silly and make stupid resolutions."

==Kelly Kim of Whittier: "He has to feel like he's on a free roll - he was the short stack when they got down to 10 players - but that doesn't mean he'll play recklessly. In fact, with a big gallery of friends and family on hand, he'll probably play it snug - you don't wait 117 days and bring all your supporters into town to go bust in 15 minutes."

From wire services

With a blessing from basketball royalty and backing from hometown voters, Kevin Johnson swept into office as mayor of Sacramento while more than a dozen other sports figures played politics by running in elections across the country.

Johnson, a former All-Star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, became the city's first black mayor and during his victory speech echoed Barack Obama's landmark presidential triumph.

"Sacramento also made history today in electing its first black mayor," Johnson said Tuesday night. "Both Obama and myself, we ran on a promise and the theme of change. No more business as usual."

Ex-quarterback Heath Shuler and former NFL coach Sam Wyche scored victories that had little to do with football, while heavyweight boxer Joe Mesi had a rough time in the political ring, losing a bid for a legislative seat in New York.

Also, Greg Hopkins, a former Arena Football League player with the Avengers recently dismissed as an assistant coach, was beaten by Bill DeWeese, the Democratic caucus leader in the Pennsylvania House.

By Andrew Bagnato
The Associated Press

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Squinting into the desert sun, the scouts huddled behind a screen, their radar guns cocked. The catcher went into his crouch as the lanky lefty pawed at the mound, then rocked and fired. The only sounds were a grunt and the pop of the ball in the mitt.

At first glance, it looked like any other big league tryout. This one had a twist: the pitcher, Rinku Singh (right), had never picked up a baseball before May. And he's from India, better known for producing world class cricketers than pitching aces -- although Singh hopes that will soon change.

"Baseball," Singh said later in halting English. "Love it."

Singh and Dinesh Patel, both 19, pitched in front of some 30 major league scouts on Thursday at a Tempe sports clinic. The tryout was among their rewards for winning an Indian reality TV show called "The Million Dollar Arm," which drew more than 30,000 contestants.

A California sports management firm organized the contest. The rules were simple: pick up a baseball and throw it as hard as you can.

We're supposed to know exactly why the NFL Network isn't on all your TV sets for tonight's Denver-Cleveland game. We're still trying to get to the bottom of it. Sorry if you won't see Brady Quinn's breakout performance unless you have DirecTV or ... Dish or ... some other lesser known cable system.

We've talked to NFL Net COO Kim Williams for her take on the whole tug-o-war over when the network will get more exposure, and how a recent FCC ruling could pave the way for that. Do some due dillgence on this.

Here's a link (linked here) to a letter that 13 senators sent to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell trying to get him to resolve the contract dispute with the cable networks so their constituents can see NFL games without the hassle. Good luck with that. We also ran Goodell's response earlier this week (linked here).

The NFL.com website (linked here) also has its link to "I Want My NFL Network" campaign, encouraging readers/viewers to complain to their elected officials (about the cable channel's holding them hostage). They suggest switching to AT&T U-Verse, DirecTV, Dish or Verizon.

A lot of this goes back to the NFL Net sticking with its coverage of the New England Patriots' game in Week 17 against the New York Giants -- who knew it'd be a Super Bowl preview -- and allowing CBS and NBC to carry the contest as well on a Saturday night.

We'll try not to get too blogged down in semantics. Bob Papa makes his NFL Net debut on the play-by-play (replacing Bryant Gumbel) and working with Cris Collinsworth. You can also go to NFL.com and watch in-quarter highlights, listen to the broadcast and get updated stats.

In all honesty, it's a game that otherwise would be regionalized on a Sunday afternoon and you wouldn't see anyway unless you had DirecTV's Sunday Ticket. Those viewers in Denver and Cleveland will see it free from a local channel, so they're not shutout.

"It's our third season doing games, and it has been a great opportunity for all of us at the NFL Network to grow this franchise each year," said NFL Network producer Mark Loomis. "When you get the schedule in April, it's always interesting to figure out, try to guess what's going to happen in November, how the teams are going to stand. Going into this weekend, looks like our season is shaping up great. The Broncos and the Browns are a great way for us to get started."

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the heavyweight title fight between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

Holyfield won a 12-round decision.

Oh, and some dude glided into the ring. Someone called Fan Man.

James Miller was his actual name (see link here). He died in 2002. Not from the punches landed onto him when he crashed into the ring during the seventh round, after circling overhead for 25 minutes. He committed suicide.

ESPN Classic airs the crazy bout tonight again at 5 p.m. It has clearance that a paraglider will in fact interrupt the coverage.

The postscript to that crash landing is that Miller flew into the Coliseum in Jan., 1994, trying to interrupt a Raiders game. He was arrested.

After the game, Raiders defensive end Howie Long said had Miller landed in the stands, the physical assault he received in Las Vegas would have paled in comparison as a result of Raider Nation's welcoming committee.

"Magnify that beating tenfold. That's what he would have gotten here," Long said.

A collectable?
We'll have to see.
Here's the front and back:

"Almost Easy" by Avenged Sevenfold is the halftime routine that Dr. Art Bartner was trying to learn today as he worked out at the local gym in Torrance. He told me that's what the "Spirit of Troy" members picked to play at Saturday's USC-Cal game at the Coliseum.
Dr. Art, a young 68, makes it out to the gym three times a week, and the locals know where to usually find him -- on a treadmill, keeping a brisk pace, and conducting with his arms waving as he reads the musical notes and hears them in his head. This is a song very new to him (click above) so he said it'll take a lot of getting used to.
Will it translate to a marching band song? Put it this way: It ain't "Tusk."

The lyrics (at this link).

Angels play-by-play man and USC basketball broadcaster Rory Markas underwent surgery Monday to remove a blood clot from the right side of his head and will likely remain in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles until Friday, and stay hospitalized for an undetermined amount of time for treatment and rehab.

Angels spokesman Tim Mead said Markas' family was encouraged by the prognosis after talking to doctors and a full recovery is expected.

Markas, a Chatsworth native and Palmdale resident who attended Cal State Northridge, finished his seventh season calling Angels games for FSN West and KCOP Channel 13, as well as 830-AM on the radio.

He is about to start his 11th season of USC basketball for KSPN-AM (710). He also does news reporting for KTTV-Channel 11.

Markas reportedly felt dizzy and had headaches while working at Channel 11 on Friday and saw a doctor, who had him undergo tests. An angiogram showed problems that led to the surgery.

USC spokesman Tim Tessalone, noting that he first Trojans basketball broadcast is Saturday, Nov. 15 against UC Irvine at the Galen Center, said: "We've been aware of Rory's situation for several days now and the entire Trojan family wishes him a healthy, speedy recovery. We are waiting to get more information of his status and expected recovery period, and are hopeful he'll be able to call Trojan men's basketball games as soon as possible. Knowing Rory, he'll fight on and be back courtside as quick as he can. In the interim, we have begun the process of securing a fill-in should he be unavailable for a period of time."

From TVWeek.com (linked here), so it's gotta be true:

A&E Network has ordered new original series "Keyshawn Johnson: Tackling Design."

The former USC star receiver and current ESPN analyst attempts to make a name for himself as an interior designer, the press release for the 10-episode series says.

The reality show will "follow the day-to-day drama facing" Johnson. Will clients take this former pro athlete seriously as an interior designer?

"Given the pressures and personalities, Johnson's famous temper is sure to be put to the test," the press release promises.

"Sports fans are aware of Keyshawn's formidable skills on the field, but will be completely surprised by his talent as a designer. The fact that he is really trying to get his interior design business off the ground perfectly fits with our real life brand where we capture the real lives of extraordinary people," said Robert Sharenow, Senior Vice President, Nonfiction and Alternative Programming, A&E.

Major League Baseball's new cable channel, MLB Network, officially announced today the hiring of Matt Vasgersian as a studio host and anchor of the signature nightly studio show -- think of him as same what Rich Eisen does for the NFL Network -- when it launches on Jan. 1.

A 41-year-old USC grad, Vasgersian (Wikipedia link here, including the bleak background blemish of him being the first XFL broadcaster for NBC in 2001) has been the Padres' TV play-by-play man since 2002. Many in the baseball industry considering him the eventual replacement for his hometown Dodgers once Hall of Famer Vin Scully decides it's time to walk away. Scully has reportedly told some close to him to prepare for that to happen after the 2009 season -- which would be his 60th with the franchise.

Vasgersian, who also has done Fox Sports baseball and did five seasons for the Milwaukee Brewers, will move back to New York for this assignment. The studio in Secaucus, New Jersey, will host the show live starting at 3 p.m. PDT until the last MLB game of the night from Monday through Saturday, going with live look-ins of games in progress. A show called "Hot Stove," also hosted by Vasgersian, will run at 4 p.m. PDT Monday through Friday during the offseason.

In an email this morning, Vasgersian, currently doing regional NFL games for Fox and a broadcaster for NBC during the last three Olympics, said that he was "thrilled to be in this from the ground level - MLB has put some great people in place already and that made it a pretty easy call for me ... the only downside to this new gig is leaving So Cal and giving up my football seat at Fox. I'm hoping that after I settle in I'll be able to do a few Saturday baseball assignments and an occassional football game when they've got a 7 or 8 game weekend. I'm pretty excited about the job, just wish it was in L.A. or S.D."

The key to this job, and why it may not be fair to continue mentioning him as a Scully replacement, is Vasgersian's personal-life decision to want to cut down on the constant baseball travel grind. In today's San Diego Union-Tribune (linked here), Vasgersian, who has been a team broadcaster for the last 18 years on the minor- and major-league level, said: "I love the fact I'll be off the road now. I've been pushing in that direction, to do fewer games that were travel games."

"Matt's experience behind the mic, his ability to carry a broadcast and his enthusiasm for baseball make him ideally suited to serve as the 'voice of MLB Network,'" said Tony Petitti, MLB Network CEO, in a statement.

So who are the candidates to replace Vasgersian with the Padres? Plenty of talent in Southern California to choose from.

Maybe you've heard about these things floating around, a letter where Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylanian Republican who chairs the senate Judiciary Committee, got 12 of his friends to sign a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to complain about the league's inability to get this cable company feud resolved with carrying the NFL Network. Goodell fired a letter back, which became public today.

Here's a link to the Specter letter (linked here)

Here's the Goodell letter in response:

So my 8-year-old kid has a soccer game this week, and it's her birthday, and her grandparents are in town from Lake Elsinore, and I'd really like to make it special but I'm not into spending a ton of money on a big party ....
What can I do to make this game so unique, it'll be the envy of all my friends and ex-wives?

You mean I can get Pete Arbogast to call the game for me? He's not too busy?

And it's just 500 bucks? Are you flippin' kiddin' me? Where do I sign up?!?

At this new home-made website, "Call Your Game" (linked here), where "professional sportscasters provide play-by-play for your team."
Oh, pinch me. No, really. Pinch me. Harder.

According to the "list of services," you'll get "a professionally announced game broadcast," with a pre- and post-game show "tailored to your desires. We will generally not talk nor show action during breaks in the action, but will send the 'broadcast' to 'commercial.'"
Get it? A "broadcast" in quotes. So it won't be on the radio?

No, but you get a free CD (or $20 for an additional copy, $10 after that).
And you can even be the colorman for Pete, without having to pay extra.

The cost? It practically pays for itself!
Arbogast, in the "Category A" announcer since he is "the voice of USC football," runs just $500.
(Does USC know he's using its name to get side work?)

Mark Helmer, an associate producer on USC football and basketball, will do play-by-play under "Category B" announcer for $250, plus $150 for a color analyst. Or you can get some other USC graduate student or website broadcaster to do the call for a mere $150, with a $100 color analyst.

Note: Fees are collected at least two weeks prior to the game. In case you sober up and realize what a colossal waste of an idea this really is.

We're not sure why no one like Bob Miller or Vin Scully hasn't thought of this idea themselves. It's as if Arbogast has formed his own radio stable of broadcasters. You go, pimp daddy.
Heck, if you want to join the club, just drop Pete an email and you're practically in (at this link) or call him -- 323-203-8302. Collect even. There's Rory Markas, picking up the phone right now.

The beauty of it is they'll call any sport -- including car racing, surfing, lacrosse, tennis "and other racquet sports" ... even bowling. What can't they do?

You gotta read the rest of the horribly slow-loading website for more details. It'll provide minutes of entertainment for the entire family.

At least, he says he does.
In a much better Q-and-A than Edward R. Berman did last night with the presidental candidates, SI.com's Arash Markazi busts through today -- much more involved, much better depth, probably emailed -- able to draw out some interesting answers from the candidates (or their "helpers" who had access to a keyboard).
One of the laugh-out-loud best responses -- scroll to the end of this (linked here) -- when Arash asks McCain about his sports heroes:

"One of my favorite athletes to watch, who is currently playing, has to be Curt Schilling. Like Ted Williams, I admire Curt on and off the field. He also is a gifted athlete who I think will make the Hall of Fame, and he also is one who speaks his mind regardless of the consequences and I really admire that. I also think that he's an incredible writer about baseball. His blog, 38 Pitches, reflects some of the best writing out there on the subject. ..."

a) Is Schilling still active?
b) 38 Pitches is some of the "best writing out there"?
McCain will have plenty of time after today to start Googling for better sports blog sites.

By the way, here's what Schill has to say about today's presidental election (linked here):

"The rhetoric, the BS, the white noise. Get out and vote. Vote for whomever you choose to, whomever you believe will lead this country over the next four years, but just vote. ... When standing in line please say a thank you to the men and woman who've sacrificed so much for us to have this right. ... Whether 'your guy' wins or loses, there will be a new President of the United States tomorrow and we need to turn the page, move on, and fix this thing."

Actually, there'll be a new president sometime in late January, 2009. But we get the point.

There must be an array of scenarios this weekend where USC loses to Cal, but climbs up a notch or two in the BCS standings. It stands to reason, based on how the Trojans' last few weeks of victories don't matter because of how everyone else not playing a Pac-10 opponent has more impressive league triumphs.

If and when the Trojans do finally knock off a ranked team this month -- Cal, at No. 21 -- and rival UCLA somehow beats one-loss Pac-10 team Oregon State on Saturday, maybe USC will fall completely out of the Top 25. Jerry Palm surely knows how it'll happen.

The linchpin to this could be what again transpires back in Buddy Holly's native Lubbock, Tex., where the new No. 2 Texas Tech (9-0), fresh off slipping past previous No. 1 Texas, takes on No. 9 Oklahoma State (8-1) in a game you can't possibly view on a regular TV set. It goes up against USC-Cal. Sorry. Move.

For this week, the bonanza is having a game on every night of the week, kinda like the bowl season come early.

Again, we use BCS standing rankings (and will boldface the team and its record whenever we feel it's relevant):

THE LOCALS:

==Saturday, 3 p.m., FSN Prime Ticket: Oregon State at UCLA (with Bill MacDonald, James Washington, Dain Blanton and Chris McGee)
==Saturday, 5 p.m., Channel 7: No. 21 Cal (6-2) at No. 7 USC (7-1) (with Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone)

TODAY:

==4:30 p.m., ESPN2 (and ESPN360.com): Miami (Ohio) at Buffalo (with Todd Harris and Ray Bentley)

WEDNESDAY:

==5 p.m., ESPN2 (and ESPN360.com): Northern Illinois at No. 17 Ball State (8-0) (with Rece Davis, Mark May, Lou Holtz and Rob Stone)
==5 p.m., ESPNU: Toledo at Akron (with Ari Wolfe and Jim Donnan)

THURSDAY:

==4:30 p.m., ESPN (and ESPN360.com): No. 23 Maryland (6-2) at Virginia Tech (with Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews, looking for little children to interview)
==4:30 p.m., ESPNU: Howard at South Carolina State (with Charlie Neal and Jay Walker)
==5 p.m., CBS College Sports: No. 12 TCU (9-1) at No. 8 Utah (9-0) (with Tom Hart and Dan Fouts)

FRIDAY:

==4 p.m., ESPNU: Penn at Princeton (with Dave Cohen and Gus Omstein)
==6 p.m., ESPN2 (and ESPN360.com): Nevada at Fresno State (with Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore)

SATURDAY:

==7 to 9 a.m., ESPN "GameDay" heads to Baton Rouge, La., for the Alabama-LSU contest, with Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Desmond Howard. Herbie then has to fly back to Lubbock, Tex., to do the Texas Tech-Oklahoma State contest for ABC regional.

==9 a.m., ESPN (and ESPN360.com): Michigan at Minnesota (with Pam Ward and Ray Bentley)
==9 a.m., ESPN2 (and ESPN360.com): No. 11 Ohio State (7-2) at No. 24 Northwestern (7-2) (with Dave Pasch and Andre Ware)
==9 a.m., ESPNU: Syracuse at Rutgers (with Dave Armstrong and Larry Coker)
==9 a.m., Big Ten Network: Purdue at No. 18 Michigan State (8-2) (with Wayne Larrivee, Charles Davis and Charissa Thompson)
==9 a.m., FSN West: Baylor at No. 4 Texas (8-1) (with Joel Meyers, Dave Lapham and Jim Knox)
==10:30 a.m., Versus: Iowa State at Colorado (with Ron Thulin, Kelly Stouffer and Lewis Johnson)
==11 a.m., MTN: San Diego State at No. 15 BYU (8-1) (with Rich Cellini, Jon Berger and Molly Sullivan)

==12:30 p.m., Channel 2: No. 1 Alabama (9-0) at No. 16 Louisiana State (6-2) (with Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson and Tracy Wolfson)
==12:30 p.m., Channel 7: No. 3 Penn State (9-0) at Iowa (with Brad Nessler, Bob Griese and Paul Maguire)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN (and ESPN360.com): Clemson at No. 22 Florida State (6-2) (with Terry Gannon, David Norrie and Todd Harris)
==12:30 p.m., ESPN PPV (and ESPN360.com): No. 6 Oklahoma (8-1) at Texas A&M (with Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute)
==12:30 p.m., ESPNU: Virginia at Wake Forest (with Doug Bell, Charles Arbuckle and Melissa Knowles)
==12:30 p.m., FSN West: Stanford at Oregon (with Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis and Jim Watson)
==12:30 p.m., CBS College Sports: Marshall at East Carolina (with Carter Blackburn and Aaron Taylor)

==3 p.m., MTN: Colorado State at Air Force (with Tim Neverett, Blaine Fowler and Anne Marie Anderson)
==4 p.m., FSN West: Kansas State at No. 14 Missouri (7-2) (with Bill Land, Gary Reasons and Emily Jones)
==4 p.m., ESPNU: Cincinnati at No. 25 West Virginia (6-2) (with Clay Matvick and David Diaz-Infante)
==5 p.m., ESPN PPV: No. 9 Oklahoma State (8-1) at No. 2 Texas Tech (9-0) (with Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters)
==5 p.m., ESPN (and ESPN360.com): Notre Dame at Boston College (with Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe)
==5 p.m., ESPN2 (and ESPN360.com): No. 5 Florida (7-1) at Vanderbilt (with Mark Jones and Bob Davie)
==5 p.m., CBS College Sports: Tulane at Houston (with Tom Hart and Trev Alberts)
==7:30 p.m., ESPNU (delayed): Bethune-Cookman at Hampton (with Dwayne Ballen and Eddie Robinson, Jr.)
==7 p.m., MTN: New Mexico at UNLV (with James Bates, Todd Christensen and Molly Sullivan)
==8 p.m., Big Ten Network (delayed): Wisconsin at Indiana (with Mark Neely, Chris Martin and Anthony Herron)

The ongoing NFL Network vs. cableworld squabble has reached some recent peaks and valleys, most of which we'll get into later in the week.

The bottom line is that the NFL Network, which is guaranteed to be on Channel 212 on DirecTV and not guaranteed to be on any other cable channel (especially Comcast or Time Warner), launches its first of eight games with a Thursday night tidbit, Denver at Cleveland, and the debut of the non-Bryant Gumbel at the mike team of Bob Papa (shoulda been Spero Dedes, but the Lakers put their foot down) and Cris Collinsworth (coulda been someone else, but NBC and HBO love the cross promotion).

Next Thursday (Nov. 13), it's the N.Y. Jets at New England.

Other stuff of note this week:
=Dallas, last in the NFC East, has a bye, throwing all the nets for a loop.
=Sunday, it was originally Raiders vs. Chargers going head to head in the 1 p.m. window, but Fox declined the Carolina-Oakland afternoon matchup and went with Green Bay-Minnesota in the early game instead.

THURSDAY:

==5:15 p.m., NFL Network: Denver at Cleveland (with Bob Papa and Cris Collinsworth)

SUNDAY:

==10 a.m., Channel 2: Tennessee at Chicago (with Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf) as opposed to Buffalo-New England, Baltimore-Houston and Jacksonville-Detroit.

==10 a.m., Channel 11: Green Bay at Minnesota (with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver), as opposed to New Orleans-Atlanta, St. Louis-N.Y. Jets and Seattle-Miami.

==1 p.m., Channel 2: Kansas City at San Diego (with Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker), instead of Indianapolis-Pittsburgh (with No. 1 team Jim Nantz and Phil Simms). Fox has Carolina-Oakland also in this window and thankfully declined.

== 5:15 p.m., Channel 4: N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia (with Al Michaels, John Madden and Andrea Kremer).

MONDAY:

==5:30 p.m., ESPN: San Francisco at Arizona (without Cosell, Meredith and Gifford; with Kornheiser, Tirico and that Jaws dude.)

Bye week: Dallas, Tampa Bay, Washington and Cincinnati.

**************************

Monday, the NFL announced that the Week 11 schedule was set -- NBC wasn't changing its Dallas-Washington matchup. The only time change is Tennessee at Jacksonville game on Sunday, November 16 moves from 10 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. (or 4:15 p.m. local time) on CBS.

The NFL has a flex schedule in Weeks 11-17 to give NBC the best possible game of its choice on Sunday night. The other networks (CBS and Fox) can also change a morning time to a later-afternoon kickoff. The decisions have to be made 12 days prior to that weekend, except for Week 17, when it's six days notice.

ESPN has confirmed that Chris Berman has successfully conducted limited-access interviews today with presidental candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, upping the "SportsCenter" bloated anchor's presitege factor when it comes to picking up chicks.

The network sent out a few quotes from each interview, before they air at halftime of tonight's Steelers-Redskins' contest from FedEx Field (5:30 p.m. kickoff, 7:15 p.m.-ish halftime viewing required).

Berman: On one thing you would change in sports:

Obama: "I think it is about time that we had playoffs in college football. I'm fed up with these computer rankings and this and that and the other. Get eight teams - the top eight teams right at the end. You got a playoff. Decide on a National Champion."

McCain: "I'd take significant action to prevent the spread and use of performance-enhancing substances. I think it's a game we're going to be in for a long time. What I mean by that is there is somebody in a laboratory right now trying to develop some type of substance that can't be detected and we've got to stay ahead of it. It's not good for the athletes. It's not good for the sports. It's very bad for those who don't do it and I think it can attack the very integrity of all sports going all the way down to high school."

Point goes to Obama. This proves he's in touch with the fans. McCain is merely repeating a story he read in the New York Times three years ago.

Berman: On what you learned about yourself over the campaign:

Obama: "What I learned about that I think was positive was that I don't get too high when things are going well and I don't get too low when things are going tough. I think that has helped me and the organization stay steady."

Apparently this question wasn't asked of McCain, or it wasn't memorable enough to include in this press release. Or he couldn't remember what he learned about himself.

Berman: On the best piece of advice from the sports world:

McCain: "I have to go all the way back to high school. I had a football coach who was a football star himself...The most important lesson he taught me was you've always got to do the honorable thing, even when nobody's looking because maybe nobody will know, but you'll know."

According to McCain's Wikipedia entry: In 1951, ... McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria, Va. He excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954. Maybe when no one was looking, he also was a football player.

Magic Johnson does not endorse the old Kobe Bryant?

Naw, it's just this press release that made its way into our mailbox:

SACRAMENTO -- Magic Johnson, enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame after winning five NBA championships as a Los Angeles Laker, and three Most Valuable Player awards, has lent his voice to the chorus of those calling Proposition 8 wrong and unfair.

Johnson's efforts to defeat Prop 8 occurred as the family of Steve Young announced their opposition. Barbara Young made it clear last night that they will vote NO on 8. Steve Young, the legendary former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers was MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, MVP of the NFL in 1992 and 1994, and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The Young family released the following statement last night: "We believe ALL families matter and we do not believe in discrimination, therefore, our family will vote against Prop 8."

And in a recorded telephone call to California voters, Johnson says:

"This is Magic Johnson calling to ask you to join me and Barack Obama in
opposing Proposition 8. Prop 8 singles out one group of Californians to be treated differently - including members of our family, our friends, and our coworkers. That is not what California is about. So this Tuesday, vote no on Proposition 8. It is unfair and wrong. Thanks."

This means Magic isn't campaigning for Hillary Clinton any longer?
So many ways to go with that... You decide the proper angle...

Si, it does look like a bad "Saturday Night Live" skit.

"Que es muy macho? Senior Plashke?"

Today, on ESPN's Spanish-language channel, ESPN Deportes, a new show called "Juego Cruzado" will launch.

Without losing anything in translation, it's pretty much like ESPN's "Around the Horn," otherwise referred to by Al Michaels as "Gasbags on Parade."

Hosted by Luis Alfredo Alvarez, the show collects a group of newspaper writers, including Rafa Ramos from Los Angeles' La Opinión, to bicker about the day's sports headlines. Or, as the ESPN press release says, " 'Juego Cruzado' will feature passionate opinions on the day's hot-button issues."

Who can speak Spanish without passion, eh?

The other newspaper writers will come from New York (El Diario La Presna), Miami (El Nuevo Herald) and Mexico (Mileno), plus Dallas and Puerto Rico starting in Feburary.

Alvarez, hosting from Bristol, Conn., will "test and rate the strength of each journalist's comments," and have his mute button, says the ESPN release. To make the show different (not better, different), there will be a "linea de vida" (life line) at the bottom of each panelist's screen to show who's winning or losing; a "La voz del Jefe" (voice of the boss) will represent the voice of the publisher and appear in the background sporadically; and something called "Cartelera cruzada" (What 2 Watch 4).

The program will consists of four main segments - 'Recomendadas' (Recommended), 'Clasificados' (Classified), 'Editorial del día' (Editorial of the Day) and 'Momento final' (Final moment).

"Sports news and commentary is truly one of the elements that sets us apart from the pack and adding Juego Cruzado to the mix will further strengthen our leadership position in sports news and information," said Chris Calcinari, vice president, production and operations, ESPN Deportes and ESPN International. "We are honored to partner with such reputable newspapers and journalists to bring our viewers a show that will be unpredictable, topical and full of hard-hitting opinion and debate."

If it's like most Spanish-language talk shows we've seen, a hot, well-endowed Latino woman will sit in a chair nearby and laugh hysterically at whatever's said.

The Sunday column on how SlamBall is picking up interest in China (linked here) deserves some context on how the cross-polination of basketball, ice hockey, gymnastics, football and ... trampolining? ... has come from when Mason Gordon dreamed it up in December, 2000 and held his first tryout camp (pictured above).

Gordon, a 6-foot-4 player who had dreams once of playing at UCLA at about the time the Bruins won their 1995 national championship, went to Claremont McKenna College and was ready to study law before he took an internship with Tollin/Robbins Production company, with the goal of dating an actress and attending a movie premiere. He did both -- and also created SlamBall.

As this Answers.com website link helps explain (linked here), SlamBall got its first major exposure on TNN (which became Spike TV) in 2002-03, but then it kind of laid dormant, trying to figure out its next move.

Sorry, that was the subtitle. The main title: "Men With Balls."

He said "Balls."

By Drew Magary, a founding editor of KissingSuzyKolber.com, and the "Balls Deep" columnist on Deadspin.com. From Little Brown and Co. A mere 288 pages.

Just from the reviews up there on Amazon.com (linked here), we're in:

=="Men with Balls is funny, completely uninformative, and horrifyingly profane. In short: the perfect book." - Michael Schur, cofounder of FireJoeMorgan.com and co-Executive Producer of "The Office"

=="Drew Magary possesses a keen insight into pro sports' unyielding loads of crap. Men with Balls oozes with, well, balls." - Jeff Pearlman, author of "Boys Will Be Boys"

=="One of the funniest books I've ever read--the product of a meticulously demented mind. Required reading for anyone who loves sports, and any athlete who knows how to read." - Will Leitch, author of "God Save the Fan" and founder of Deadspin.com

=="Profane, beyond naughty, and, I have to say, just damn funny." - Buzz Bissinger, author of "Friday Night Lights" and "Three Nights in August"

(Leitch and Bissinger read the same stuff?)

The description of the product:

"This book will be all you require to cast aside your boring life as some jackass who cruises around bookstores hoping to score grad-school trim. With Men with Balls, you will learn how to:
Showboat using classical pantomime techniques
Figure out whether or not a stripper actually fancies you
Emotionally cope from the emotional fallout of rookie year hazing games
Find out which free locker room amphetamines will give you a shot of energy, and which will cause you to run down terrified schoolchildren with your Escalade (NOTE: Some do both)
Avoid media scrutiny by directing beat writers and columnists to the nearest hot buffet."

Point away.

Another clip from BlogCritics.org (linked here): "His mixture of profane lucidity and humbling anecdotes (although I probably could have done without his story about his American Pie-type rendezvous with a piece of fruit) is right on par with his everyday blogging."