Late Thursday Night Links

As I check for sources to see The Amazing Race Asia 2: Racers Revealed, let me give you some links for this late Thursday night.

First, CNBC’s Darren Rovell has a few news & notes in his latest entry, but first and foremost is his sentiment that Las Vegas cannot necessarily be ruled out to get an NBA franchise, this despite the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal earlier this year.

The Sports Media Watch notes that Opening Night of the NBA season wasn’t a ratings winner for TNT on Tuesday.

Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated has his Media Power Rankings for October.

TV Week notes that this year’s World Series ranked as the second lowest rated ever on network TV. And TV Week’s Andrew Krukowski has the TV Sports ratings for the week ending October 28.

We have some announcements from ESPN to give you. First, we get their announcing assignments for college basketball which include an increased role for Doris Burke who will call some men’s games along with the women’s schedule she already has. Doris is a very good announcer and I give her some love from her native Rhode Island. And the lovely Stacey Dales will be in the ESPN studio for the weekly Big Monday tripleheaders with Rece Davis and Digger Phelps.

We also get the features that will run on Sunday NFL Countdown and Monday Night Countdown. And if you care, here’s the schedule of Arena Football League games on ESPN2 and ABC.

Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News, who I’m sure is hard at work on his extensive media columns for tomorrow, has a blog entry about the national appearances of the LA Avengers of the Arena League.

I don’t know what to make of this press release, but NBC Sports will literally go dark during Football Night in America this Sunday as NBC Universal starts its green-themed programming.

Don’t forget, it’s marathon weekend in the Big Apple as it will have the US Olympic Marathon trials this Saturday and the New York City Marathon on Sunday. Both can be seen on NBCSports.com and Mediazone. The NYC Marathon will cost you $4.99.

I’m beginning to see the Friday sports media columns already posted so I’ll end the links here and do the regular megalinks tomorrow morning. See you then.