Press Coverage: Cold Enough For Ya, Bob?

↵Before the NFL season started, NBC had to make some drastic changes to their bloated Football Night in America show. They brought in Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison, sending Tiki Barber to the big-game-of-the-week for a 30 second report after the fact and Jerome Bettis, presumably, into oblivion. But the most drastic change to the SNF pregame extravaganza was moving Bob Costas out of the lead chair and giving that role to the two-headed-Statler-and-Waldorf-esque Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann. To be fair, Patrick is as Patrick has always been – solid and worthy of a lead chair, if not slightly more approving of own his performance than the viewing public. ↵

↵↵But Olbermann ... well, let’s just say I used to like Keith Olbermann when he was a quirky ESPN teleprompter reader. Now, he’s a newsman – good night and good luck and all that jazz – so this sports show on the weekends seems like more of a dalliance to him. That is to say, it doesn’t seem like Olbermann takes sports very seriously anymore. He’s far more concerned with getting in his own quips and obscure references – he dropped in a reference to Linda Ellerbee (‘and so it goes’) when doing the highlight of Ravens linebacker Dannell Ellerbe’s interception – than giving us highlights of games. Besides, how many football fans are getting that reference, and of those, how many people will think it’s funny? Olbermann has become Dennis Miller – only there to use big words and entertain the erudite football viewers (namely, himself) – and that hasn’t been a good thing for any of us. ↵

↵↵Having said that, Patrick and Olbermann taking over the pregame show has streamlined things a bit, giving Costas a chance to go to the site of each game to do interviews with the players and coaches and give us that big-game feel that a studio show alone can’t portray. Being at the game is one thing, but why does he have to be outside on the field in sub-freezing temperatures? Costas complained at least three times – likely more – about how cold it was on Sunday night in the Meadowlands. You could tell on his face that he was not happy about spending the pregame show, rather unnecessarily, out in the elements. To be fair, that unhappiness on his face could have just been frostbite. ↵
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↵↵Jimmy Traina from SI.com had a similar thought last night, asking, “why exactly does a pre-game show have to be outdoors, again? Does that add one viewer?” He’s right. Is there one person in America who was flipping channels last night and decided to stay on the NBC telecast because Costas was complaining about the weather or wearing a silly hat? Now, logistics come into play, as NBC already has one booth for the call of the game, so giving the pregame show another booth in the press box (or one of the luxury boxes) is probably not something the team and stadium operations people want to do. Doing the pre-game show from the concourse only works in some stadiums and may not provide the backdrop needed for that big-game feel the network is going for. Besides, doing those shots with any backdrop other than the field defeats the purpose of doing them at all. ↵

↵↵Oh, how Costas wished NBC and the NFL had flexed Eagles at Cowboys or Ravens at Raiders. ↵

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↵↵Brennaman’s admiration for Tebow during the game could be summed up in one word: uncomfortable. Even after Billick broke down the video of Tebow’s throwing motion to illustrate how he’s not an NFL-ready quarterback – the guy starts his wind-up from inside his back pocket – Brennaman asked his partner, simply, “Why,” draped with so much how-dare-you-say-that resentment it was as if Billick had told Brennaman to turn off his Wii and get in the kitchen for dinner.↵

↵↵“Why?” ↵

↵↵Because I said so, now eat your peas. Yet Billick remained patient with Brennaman and went through the entire explanation again, even going so far as to compare Tebow’s long delivery to the lightning-quick delivery of Dan Marino. Of course, Brennaman took that as a chance to point out that Billick was comparing Tebow to a Hall of Fame quarterback, leaving out the fact, of course, that Billick was not making the comparison favorably. ↵

↵↵Billick did have one moment that showed he’s not as well versed in the college game as someone calling the Sugar Bowl should be. When the crew was discussing Brian Kelly’s departure from Cincinnati to go to Notre Dame, Billick mentioned that he wished the NCAA could step in and do something about that. Someone with more background in the college game would know there is something the NCAA could do. There are several things. ↵

↵↵First, move back signing day from February 3 to April 1, giving teams an extra few months at the end of the season to focus on recruiting. This would give more time for the season to end before those teams not making bowl games – or not making the marquee bowl games – to wait until after the national championship to sign any coaches. ↵

↵↵Second, and I’ve suggested this for years, if one school hires another school’s head coach before his season is complete – as was the case with Notre Dame and Kelly – the new school should lose up to five scholarships for the first recruiting class. The reason to hire a new coach during the season is only for recruiting purposes in hopes of solidifying existing commitments and pilfering a few others before signing day. If a school wants a coach that badly – and a coach wants to leave his current school that badly as well – wait a few weeks and get it done after the season is over, or start your new job with one hand tied behind your back. ↵

↵↵It would have been nice for Billick to offer some specific suggestions rather than throw his hands up with a ‘whattayagonnado’, and one has to wonder if an analyst more versed in the college game would have handled that differently. ↵

↵↵Nick Saban: Media Diplomat↵
↵During the official BCS National Championship press conference, shown on ESPNews and hosted by ESPN’s rising star Jesse Palmer at the Disneyland Resort this past weekend, Alabama coach Nick Saban was asked by a media member, “Are you having fun? Is this fun?”↵

↵↵It was unclear if the question was referencing the entire fishbowl experience of being in the national title game, or specifically asking about going to Disneyland for a press conference when he’d undoubtedly rather be back with his team or breaking down film. Saban took the question as the latter, and his response should be tacked up on the wall of every sports department in the country. ↵

↵↵⇥“Is this fun? (Pause for laughter.) You know, what’s fun for me is practice. I really enjoy practice. I really enjoy being around the players. I really enjoy the teaching part of it. ↵⇥↵⇥“Some of the other things ... it’s an entertainment business and I really do appreciate that you all (the media) do make our sport – college football – and what our players do important and interesting. And you create a lot of interest for a lot of other people, and I do appreciate that. And it’s important to the game, so I’m having fun out of respect for what you all do. ↵⇥

↵⇥↵⇥“That’s about as diplomatic as I can be.”↵⇥

↵↵↵Bill Cowher Lets CBS Get Scooped?↵
↵Chris Mortensen reported yesterday on NFL Countdown that Bill Cowher had a meeting with the Buffalo Bills:↵

↵↵⇥“Even before Buddy Nix was named the Bills’ GM, sources say there was a stealth meeting with Bill Cowher earlier in the week. The Bills, who also met with Mike Shanahan after Dick Jauron was fired, believed talks with Cowher were very productive.”↵↵FOX’s Jay Glazer had a similar report as well. But one outlet that didn’t have the report: CBS. Per USA Today’s Michael Hiestand:↵↵⇥After being asked by studio host James Brown about the “awful lot of reports about you,” Cowher said he’s “not going to talk about any jobs during the regular-season. I’ve got my own issues up here. I’m trying to catch (fellow CBS analyst Shannon Sharpe) in the picks segment. It’s taking all my attention to do that.” ↵↵If Cowher is leaving CBS to go back to coaching, and it sure looks that way, why would the network protect him at the risk of losing out on a huge scoop? Why not have a one-on-one with Brown and give a cursory answer explaining that you’ve talked to teams and some other franchises have expressed interest but out of respect to the other coaching candidates out there you don’t want to say which franchises you’ve spoken to. That would have opened the door for JB to rebut with, “reports have you in Buffalo during the week,” before Cowher could have hemmed and hawed his way out of the segment with an, “as I just said ...” non-answer. ↵↵To give your own network a public ‘no-comment’ when its two biggest competitors are running the story makes CBS look weak in deferring to Cowher’s authority. Ironically, it’s the same kind of authority Cowher obviously has at CBS that he’s looking for with an NFL team, which will eventually lead to his departure from CBS.↵

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↵↵⇥Gleason saw sports develop from its mythic and under-reported early days to the point where -- hello! -- no amount of discussion or analysis of the events or their symbolism or ensuing gossip was too much. Indeed, his round-table shows were so far ahead of their time that they are still the blueprint for cutting-edge material in the electronic media. Blogs? Chat rooms? Gleason and (John) Roach had fans come onto our show and sit with us -- live, on air -- and give their dot-com rants two decades before Twitter was a verb.↵↵Thoughts and prayers with the Gleason family. ↵↵FOX and TWC Make a Deal That Will Cost Consumers Dearly↵
↵FOX and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation got what they wanted out of Time Warner Cable. On January 1, the two companies agreed to terms to keep the FOX family of networks on Time Warner’s platform. While specific terms weren’t disclosed, Time Warner Cable has agreed to pay FOX for the right to broadcast their networks, which means that current deals for other networks will likely be renegotiated and pay-out deals with networks like ABC and NBC should be expected. Now, with NBC joining team Comcast, the company could actually be getting money on both ends, both paying for and receiving funds from NBC’s potential deals. ↵

↵↵Oh, and why this will cost consumers dearly? TWC announced another rate increase the same day the FOX deal was announced. And then there’s this: ↵

↵↵⇥Consumers already pay dimes or quarters for most cable channels each month, whether they watch them or not. ESPN earns the most by far, $4.10 on average, and is forecast to receive more than $5 a month by 2012, according to the research firm SNL Kagan. Fox Sports Network gets $2.37 on average.↵⇥↵⇥The next-highest paid channel, TNT, gets 96 cents. The Disney Channel, NFL Network, Fox News, USA and ESPN2 each get more than 50 cents. For every channel, the price per month is expected to rise each year.↵⇥

↵↵And where will those increases end up? On our bills. The days of a-la-carte television – where we get to pick each channel we want and leave the others out of our service altogether – can’t come soon enough.↵