Beginning of the Workweek Links

We have lots of material on this first real workday of 2009.

We begin with David Scott of Boston Sports Media Watch who jumped on NESN for botching the end of the Boston College-North Carolina game.

The lovely Jessica Heslam of the Boston Herald has the tepid NESN explanation of what happened.

Jessica reports that WEEI has signed Big Show blowhard Glenn Ordway to a new contract.

We now have the arrival of Jay The Rat on the internet. Tom Mantzouranis of AOL Fanhouse reports that Jay Mariotti along with the lovely Lisa Olson, formerly of the New York Daily news and Kevin Blackstone will be writing for the site.

Michael Hiestand of USA Today writes that CBS Sports has signed Bill Cowher to a contract extension for 2009. Michael says former Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen could return to TV full-time, especially after his performance this past weekend on NBC.

Newsday’s Neil writes that NBC plans to have Millen join its Super Bowl coverage.

Now let’s go to some stories from the Sports Business Journal. The SBJ has an in-depth section on college sports media. The following stories are from that section.

First, John Ourand talks about ESPN and CBS trying to make their numbers work for their new college football contracts.

John writes that regional sports networks are also trying to stay ahead of the changing landscape in college sports.

Michael Smith discusses how colleges are trying to manage their web content.

Michael looks at how Raycom Sports is fighting to keep the rights to the ACC after losing the SEC syndication rights to ESPN.

And the SBJ lists the people to watch in college sports media.

Now to stories from this week’s SBJ issue.

Tripp Mickle and John Ourand give us the major players in the Olympics US TV rights negotiations.

Tripp says the United States Olympic Committee is going into overdrive to sell sponsorships for the 2009-2012 period.

John Ourand has some predictions for the sports media in 2009.

Don Muret profiles the architect who helps to fix sports stadium projects when they go awry.

There’s the Terrible Towel and now Terry Lefton says the Super Bowl gets a “trophy towel”.

Eric Fisher says the NFL is now marketing high definition online game replays.

Jon Show says golfer Vijay Singh has agred to make Stanford Financial the dominant logo on his bag and clothing.

Plenty of links from the SBJ and thanks to Bill McGrath for letting me know what stories are available each week. It’s greatly appreciated.

The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick feels the NFL Wild Card games were overloaded with statistics and useless replays. This is the first time in months that I actually agree with Mushie.

The Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager shares some notes that he scribbled during the Ravens-Dolphins game yesterday. And Ray says Baltimore watched the NFL playoffs even when the Ravens weren’t involved.

Tom Jones of the St. Petersburg Times reviews the weekend in TV sports.

Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News wonders why it took so long for Bill Cowher to announce that he’s not going to coach in 2009. Barry also looks at the weekend in the NFL. Finally, Barry sees Morning News colleague Tim Colishaw taking a sports radio gig.

Ed Sherman of Crain’s Chicago Business talks about the ratings success of the NHL Winter Classic. And Ed talks about Jay Mariotti joining AOL Fanhouse.

Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune says the MLB Network shows some early promise.

Leonna Heuring of the Sikeston (MO) Standard-Democrat writes that a local native who competed for the Miss USA title and now a model, will appear in a Super Bowl ad.

Dusty Saunders of the Rocky Mountain News says the MLB Network is off to a “perfect” start.

The San Francisco 49ers have announced that Ted Robinson will become its radio voice starting next season.

William Houston of the Toronto Globe and Mail writes that the death of a junior hockey player has sparked debate among Canada’s hockey analysts.

Chris Zelkovich of the Toronto Star says TSN’s Gord Miller and Pierre McGuire went a bit overboard with the praise at the end of the Canada-Russia game during the World Junior Hockey Championships.

Thanks to the Big Lead for the following links. Apparently, Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports.com has lost his mind, attacking fellow writers and wanting someone to police us sports bloggers like AJ Daulerio of Deadspin. Of course, Deadspin reponds.

This will do it for now. More later.