Monday Afternoon Links

Let’s start off with more stuff from Neil Best of Newsday who wants everyone to know he’s back. When I published my first entry today, he had 10 entries. As of 2:25 p.m. ET, he has 23. The man is a blogging machine! He did break some news with the fact that WFAN has renewed its contract to broadcast New Jersey Nets games. Neil also got former Steeler coach Bill Cowher to admit that he’s still pulling for his old team. I have to admit, it’s tough keeping up with Neil when he’s like this. LOL.

Let’s go to the World of ESPN, which as we know, it’s a world we just live in. I don’t know what that means. Anyway, Michael Zuidema of the Grand Rapids Press says that the producers of Monday Night Football look to improve the product. It does appear that there will be guests tonight as opposed to an article written by Michael Hiestand of USA Today in which he said there wouldn’t be any. Chick Ludwig of the Dayton Daily News says ESPN is coming to Cincinnati in a big way for tonight’s Monday Night Football season opener. Dustin Dow of the Cincinnati Enquirer says ESPN is shining its spotlight on the Queen’s City tonight. And Kerry Duke of the Cincinnati Post says the city’s Chamber of Commerce couldn’t buy the publicity from ESPN.

Brian Christopherson of the Lincoln (NE) Journal Star says ESPN’s College Gameday is bringing its show to the site of the USC-Nebraska game this Saturday.

Shahnaz Mahmud of Adweek says ESPN is turning on the hype machine for the FIFA Women’s World Cup which begins today.

In the wake of the Big East announcing all of its men’s basketball games being televised, the Big Ten makes the same announcement today with all of its 235 men’s games shown on the Big Ten Network, the ESPN family of networks and CBS Sports.

John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury News in his Morning Buzz blog has a review of Week 1 of the NFL on the four network partners (harsh words for 10 year old Jason Krause. Harsh).

Jeffrey Flanagan of the Kansas City Star in his Morning Briefing looks at how CBS’ Ian Eagle and Solomon Wilcotts interpreted the Kris Wilson’s fumble which essentially handed the Houston Texans the win over the Chiefs yesterday.

Sharon Linstedt of the Buffalo News writes about NFL fantasy leagues cutting into work productivity. How about doing a story on blogging? LOL.

NBC won the last night’s ratings thanks to Sunday Night Football, but Fox’ NFL overrun and “The O.T.” and CBS’s US Open overrun and 60 Minutes beat NBC’s Football Night in America rather handily.

Sports Business Daily reports that last night’s season opener for NBC was down 7.5% (13.6) from last year. It also says late game for Fox highlighted by Chicago-San Diego earned a 14.2 rating, but still down from last year. CBS’ 1 p.m. regional coverage received a 10.6 and 23/share, up 19%. And for the first time since CBS re-entered the NFL in 1998, the NFL Today beat Fox NFL Sunday, 3.2-3.1. I can’t link to the story since Sports Business Daily requires a subscription, but you can sign up for a two week trial if you so choose. (Sports Business Daily)

NFL Films has signed a contract with Ion Media Networks to air the NFL Game of the Week and other programming. Linda Moss of Multichannel News has the story. Game of the Week had been on the NFL Network since 2003.

At the 38Cliches blog, LC makes an impassioned plea for the Red Sox to get rid of Glenn Geffner. I listened to the games in Baltimore and really feel he hasn’t improved one iota since he started doing Grapefruit League games in Spring Training. Not one bit. Remember I had an entry in May titled “Glenn Geffner is getting worse”? Well, he’s worse now than when I wrote that. Usually, you’re supposed to improve as the season progresses. Not Glenn. He’s gotten worse. Not three steps forward. More like ten steps back. And it’s not Glenn who suffers, it’s Red Sox Nation listening on radio. This has got to stop. He cannot be allowed to broadcast postseason games. Remember Naked Gun when Reggie Jackson said, “I must kill the Queen.” I must remove Glenn Geffner.

Those are the links for now.