What Your Television Is Doing This Weekend

By Brian Powell
The NBA All-Star Weekend:
It may not be for everyone in the states, but after the globalization the NBA has gone through over the years, the All Star game has never been bigger around the world. The game on Sunday will be carried by a record 123 different TV outlets in 215 countries and in an amazing 44 languages. You don’t have to wait until Sunday though because the fun starts tonight with the celebrity game (ESPN, 7pm)!
[img=http://i.tsn.com/i/photos/20080215/86714.jpg]
Stars like Chris Tucker, Deion Sanders and raining MVP Tony Potts (Entertainment Tonight) will all be trying to help their teams best the 40-21 barn burner from last year. If you enjoy watching uncomfortable messes and terrible basketball, this is the contest for you. If not, then you can wait until 9pm for the Rookie-Sophomore Game on TNT.
Saturday night on TNT you’ve got the Dunk, 3-point, Shooting Stars, and Skills contests beginning at 8pm.
The Daytona 500:
FOX plans to use over 70 cameras to bring this race to the masses and will introduce something called the Gopher Cam for the 50th running of the 500. Even if you don’t like racing, this event is worth checking in on at least once or twice on Sunday (especially if you’re lucky enough to have HD). Chris Meyers, Jeff Hammonds, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds are your hosts starting at 2pm.
Boxing:
I didn’t mention HBO’s boxing card last Friday because I didn’t think it was worthy enough (don’t tell Large I said that), but there is a huge PPV fight Saturday night. Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor weigh-in tonight for their second meeting tomorrow on HBO PPV and the fight should definitely be worth the price of admission. Pavlik upset Taylor last September and you can bet that Taylor is going to be ready for the rematch. You can even relive their first fight if you missed it tonight (HBO, 9pm).
NCAA Hoops
There are 12 teams in the Top 25 in action this weekend and College Gameday will be at Indiana all day Saturday leading up to the Michigan St.-Indiana game at 9pm on ESPN. Looks like those Sampson recruiting violations came at the perfect time for ESPN.
Also worth checking out: UCLA at USC on Sunday night at 10pm on FOX Sports Net. An exciting Pac-10 match-up should be the perfect way to close out the weekend.↵