CBS Sports Set for Another SEC Season

CBS Sports announced highlights of its 2010 college football season featuring the Southeastern Conference, which include Florida-Tennessee, a prime-time doubleheader the first weekend of October and a Notre Dame game.

CBS Sports serves as the exclusive national network broadcaster of SEC home games and has first choice of available games each week for which will be the "Game of the Week." As part of its 15-year deal with the conference, CBS also carries the SEC Championship Game.

This marks the second year of the agreement and things such as Florida-Tennessee and Georgia-Florida represent obvious choices long before the season begins.

Notre Dame appears on the CBS schedule because the Notre Dame-Navy matchup is a Navy home game (although it will be played at New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey). Notre Dame, with all it's home games broadcast by NBC and most road games then picked up by ABC/ESPN, last appeared in a regular season game televised by CBS in 2008. That game was against Navy as well.

Here's a look at the schedule CBS announced (all games are Saturdays unless noted otherwise):

• Sept. 18 -- Florida at Tennessee, 3:30 p.m.
• Oct. 2 -- Doubleheader, 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
• Oct. 23 -- Notre Dame vs. Navy, Noon
• Oct. 30 -- Georgia vs. Florida, 3:30 p.m.
• Nov. 13 -- Doubleheader, Noon and 3:30 p.m.
• Dec. 4 -- SEC Championship Game, 4 p.m.
• Dec. 11 -- Army vs. Navy, 2:30 p.m.
• Friday, Dec. 31 -- Sun Bowl, 2 p.m.
  

ESPN Prepared for Wooden Story

With the death of college basketball legend John Wooden, every sports media outlet produced mounds of tributes to the 99-year-old coach and former All-American.

ESPN was the best prepared to cover the news of the beloved coach's death because of previous research and work.

Wooden was a focus on ESPN's "Sports Century" series in the past, and the hours of interviews with an appropriate variety of sources was mined for things such as this segment, which was utilized on TV and online almost immediately after Wooden's death.


Also, ESPN rallied all its resources to provide timely interviews and responses from its deep roster of college basketball efforts. Taken together, the breadth of coverage produced an appropriate picture of a man that almost all of ESPN's core viewers were too young to remember.

It was good work all around. Of course, a good man who did so much made it easy.

Proactive NCAA Delivers Its Money Message

Although the half-minute promotional video has existed for a couple of months, my first look came Thursday night while watching another enjoyable game during the NCAA Women's College World Series.

With one of its championships on TV, the NCAA wanted to gets its message out.


Certainly a well-done piece, putting a postivie a spin on what TV money means for college sports. And, as a 30-second insert during a commercial break of a softball game, it almost makes you feel good about how such a revenue stream helps intercollegiate athletics.

What's missing, though, is a bit more context.

Information about where the TV money comes from would be nice, but it would also show how few dollars actually come in from the 88 championships the NCAA contests. In reality, the Division I men's basketball tournament accounts for more than 90 percent of all TV revenues. Rights fees for minor sports -- baseball, softball and just about any other -- amount to almost nothing.

Also overlooked in the promo piece is any mention of the power of those TV partners, the folks who provide that revenue. Game times? Controlled by TV. How events and teams get protrayed on broadcasts. Controlled by TV.

It's a nice piece, with an appropriate and feel-good message, but not all messages are complete.

Blown Call Again Exposes A Perfect Problem

A perfect game became a one hitter for Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga on Wednesday night when veteran umpire Jim Joyce clearly blew a call at first base.

It was not 27 up and 27 down. Insted, it was another huge strike for baseball, which has refused to use TV replay to its full potential despite the ability of the technology to help the sport.

For some, the discussion in the aftermath of the blown call -- and it will begin to intensify Wednesday morning with sports-talk shows across the nation -- will focus the baseball side of the argument. A lost perfect game lost does matter.

For others, the focus will be on the use of replay in baseball. Problems with the integrity and practice of the sport matter more.

While baseball has replay, its limited scope does not include safe-and-out calls like that at first base in the Indians-Tigers game. So, Joyce's obvious mistake was not reviewable. And instead of an appropriate ending (with Galarraga hustling over and cover first base to close out his perfect game) the sport got a black eye.

Immediate kudos to ESPN baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian, though. His reaction segment used television and online showed why he's one of the best baseball experts in the business. He was accurate, honest and measured.


If Major League Baseball can take this aggregious error and build from it any way that's half a appropirate as Kurkjian's work here, it would certainly be a positive step for the sport.

Stanley Cup Finals Score Strong at Start

The first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals (thanks to large-market participants Chicago and Philadelphia) have posted higher combined ratings than the first two games of last year's championship series, and Game 2 helped NBC earn the highest ratings among 18- to 49-year-old viewers on Monday night.

Game 1 on Saturday grabbed the best overnight rating for the first game of the Finals in 11 years. It produced a 2.8 rating and a 6 share, drawing more than 7 million viewers nationally. It was up 12 percent from last year.

In the team markets Saturday, 35 percent of all TVs were tuned into the game in Chicago and 25 percent in Philadelphia.

On Monday, the national numbers were even with last year's Game 2 between Pittsburgh and Detroit last year. About 7 million people watched on Monday.

Midweek numbers for the next game might not be as high, but the numbers are a good start for the NHL.

For comparison, though, the gold medal game from the Oympics between the United States and Canada drew more than 27 million viewers in the United States. So, nationalism apparently sells better than playoff hockey -- even hockey at its highest level.

World Cup Worth More Internationally

While ESPN plans saturation coverage of the World Cup over multiple mediums -- including a significant move into 3D -- as the event begins this month, the all-sports network obtained rights for U.S. coverage of the tournament for much less than some international outlets.

Specifically, ESPN paid $100 million for the rights to aid the World Cup here in the United States. Meanwhile, Univision shelled out $325 million for Spanish broadcasts.

Partners' Performance a Matter of Perspective

Every sports event and league on TV needs partners -- people with money to get the broadcast on the air -- whether the entity buys the time and then keeps or splits its revenue or whether a network believes in the value of the activity so much that it shells out millions of dollars for exclusive rights then sells ads itself.

Mid-level events and series might buy or share time while giants such as the NFL invariably ink lucrative deals and sell their exclusive rights.

After that, how the partners behave -- in terms of what viewers hear and see on TV -- often depends on the nature of the relationship.

When a group buys its own time, for example, it's not a surprise if the coverage of the event sounds a bit breathless and hyped. When a network or station holds exclusive rights, there might be more of a chance for criticism and critique.

The Indianapolis 500, featuring the IndyCar Series, which has bought an abundance of TV time in the past, provided some prime examples of perspective impacting the performance of a partner this past weekend.

Common sense and facts were frustratingly missing ESPN/ABC's coverage -- and it started even before the race itself.

With "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts riding shotgun in the pace car for the race, and with a camera clearly showing her sitting in that passenger seat, the rest of the on-air crew -- most frustratingly Marty Reid -- said it was Roberts job to keep the car up to speed and set the pace for the race. Really? From the passenger seat?

It's neat that she was there, and a nice cross-promotion piece, but intimating that she was driving the car was an insult to viewers who could clearly see otherwise.

Another insult or at least some laziness without perspective came with the first accident of the race, when Tomas Scheckter bumped Davey Hamilton and sent him from the race on the first lap.

Our friends in the TV booth (Reid, Eddie Cheever and Scott Goodyear) cited Scheckter's aggressiveness and said pushing hard early and taking chances was something he was known to do. At the same time, they said Hamilton was surprised by the move, which prompted the accident. Even in an interview with pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch, Hamilton said the move was something Scheckter typically tries.

Well, if it's that's the case, why was Hamilton surprised? Nobody asked.

Later in a race full of hype (and hope for a close ending), ESPN/ABC missed some irony -- and no partner could mention this but viewers certainly took notice -- when Englishman Dan Wheldon thanked his sponsor, the National Guard, and said how proud he was to drive for them on Memorial Day (a truly American holiday).

Also, ESPN/ABC did not do enough to cover the spectacular last-lap accident that sent Mike Conway airborne. In attempting to protect a partner (and, in fairness, protect Conway as well because they were not sure about the significance of any injuries), they missed what was happening and left viewers frustrated and uninformed.

At that point of the race, on the last lap after Dario Franchitti had dominated, the Conley crash was the most newsworthy and significant piece of the broadcast but it was overlooked.

Also surprisingly overlooked (at least in terms of usual hype) was the sixth-place finish of Danica Patrick. She got appropriate attention for a change, and pit reporter Jamie Little asked good questions in a one-on-one standup interview afterward. It was just less Patrick than usual and that in itself was striking.

Not overlooked was Franchitti's wife -- actress Ashley Judd, who got plenty of time on TV. She has become the first lady of open wheel racing on TV. And too much can be a bad thing.