TV Page 17 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Talented Mr. Tynan
"Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding."...
Marrying Television, Football Gained An Audience But Lost A Game
Dig Sherry Kafka's 1973 Texas Monthly article on Don Meredith: "Tuning In Dandy Don":...
It's Ain't Me, Laaaaaady
Martin Short as Jerry Lewis doing Bob Dylan. (Yeah, SCTV was good.)...
Every Viewer Complaint About Big Papi's Post-Bombing Swear Word
Before the Red Sox's first home game after the Boston Marathon bombings, David Ortiz grabbed a microphone to tell an emotional and excitable crowd that "this is our fucking city." This being our country, Americans immediately ran to register their disgust with the FCC....
To Which TV Show Will Bill Simmons Compare The Aaron Hernandez Saga?
The Spurs are like South Park. Dwight Howard is like Jim Carrey. It's inevitable that Patriots fan and trope recycler Bill Simmons will look to pop culture to explain this Aaron Hernandez mess. But which one fits best? ...
Only One CBS Viewer Complained To The FCC About Kevin Ware's Injury
Louisville's Kevin Ware's compound fracture of his right leg in the Elite Eight, bone jutting through the skin, may have been the most horrific sports injury ever shown on national TV. CBS aired the replay twice, spurring discussion about the appropriate way to handle gruesome moments. But in the en...
John McCain Introduces Bill That Would Ban Sports TV Blackouts
We can't speak to the chances of McCain's bill passing. We can only say that we very much want to live in a world where teams that play in publicly funded stadiums are no longer allowed to black out home games that don't sell out....
"What They Must Not See": A Top Producer Weighs In On How To Cover A Catastrophic Injury
Earlier we examined some of the difficulties and choices faced by broadcasters when a live event is derailed by a gruesome injury, like Louisville's Kevin Ware's compound fracture. We asked Fred Gaudelli, lead producer of NBC's Sunday Night Football, how he's handled similar situations in the past—a...
Two Replays, No Warning: How Broadcasters Handle Gruesome Injuries
For 45 seconds after Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered a compound fracture, his tibia poking out from his shin, CBS kept its cameras off him. That 45 seconds was enough time for the production room to view the replays, realize how graphic they were, decide whether to show the play again, and decide h...
OK, What The Hell Channel Is TruTv?
TruTV, formerly Court TV, is part of the Turner family of networks, and as such is hosting eight games of the NCAA Tournament today and tomorrow. But what goddamned channel is it on? We've annotated the above map with the TruTV channel numbers on major cable providers for the 10 largest television m...
The Leftover Big East Signs A TV Deal For Almost $1 Billion Less Than The One It Turned Down Two Years Ago
Realignment is a massive game of musical chairs, and the tone-deaf Big East didn't hear the music stop. The conference, under John Marinatto, was convinced only a few megapowers would be left standing. They were right. Their mistake was thinking they were one of them. That's why they lost every prog...
"A Women Kissing A Nerd," "Beyonce Girating Her Vagina," And Other Angry Complaints To The FCC About The Super Bowl
Beyoncé is a "slut." She "gyrated her pelvis," "humping the air for 13 minutes." She "dressed like a stripper" dancing in "erotica fashion." Her "breasts protruded out, her butt almost completely showed." She "showed her vaginal area to all the world." Some people had very different reactions to the...
The Wizards Moved Broadcasters Off The Floor To Sell An Extra $1 Million Worth Of Seats
We noted over the weekend that the Wizards' broadcasters, both home and away, TV and radio, are no longer anywhere near the court. Gone from the scorer's table, where crews at virtually every other arena call the game from proximity, the TV crews now sit at the very tippy top of section 110. (They w...
Leonard Cooper, <em>Jeopardy</em> Folk Hero, Still Could Have Lost When He Wrote "I Just Won $75,000"
Everyone is rightly lauding Leonard Cooper, the winner of the Jeopardy Teen Tournament, as America's coolest high schooler. When Final Jeopardy came around, Leonard didn't know the answer. So he wrote something much better. He wrote,...
Breaking Down The Craziest Half-Inning In Television History
Originally published in Baseball Prospectus....
NBC's NHL Promo Tries To Rewrite Last Season's Playoff Results
The Flyers beat the Penguins in the first round of the playoffs last year, yet it wasn't as simple as that. The teams combined for 56 goals, hundreds of penalty minutes, and multiple suspensions. It was simultaneously the ugliest and most entertaining playoff series in recent member. But the Flyer...
Oprah Winfrey Gets The Next Chance At Asking Lance Armstrong If He Cheated At Cycling
News surfaced last week that Lance Armstrong was sorta kinda getting itchy to come clean on certain PED-related matters, and now it seems that Oprah Winfrey will get the next crack at letting the ex-seven-time Tour de France winner admit, well, anything he might feel compelled to admit. And on the o...
Nobody Is Watching NBC Sports Network
Via Awful Announcing, Sports Media Watch published a list of NBC Sports Network's most-viewed programs for the four weeks ending Dec. 23, and it's grim. Aside from a boxing card and a simulcast of Sunday Night Football (because NBC broke in to show Obama's Newtown speech), no show broke 200,000 view...