Wednesday Night Links

I figured I would give you an update before closing the blog for the night.

First, Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star came over to inform me that he’s fixed his link to the video of Versus’ Rod Thulin making the wrong call in the Stanford-USC upset last Saturday. You can actually head over to Versus’ website and listen to Thulin mess it up. And give credit to Versus for actually putting the video up. Thanks, Jim.

In my afternoon update, I had a link to CNBC’s Darren Rovell’s blog entry doubting agent Scott Boras’ contention that his client, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was worth $30 million to the YES Network. Following that story, Boras called Rovell and explained his rationale.

Neil Best of Newsday laments that ESPN Ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber is better at critiquing her own network than he is.

I wanted to thank Sports Business Daily for linking to my Tuesday Morning Links in its Blog Hound section today. The Blog Hound was looking at comments about TBS’ coverage of the League Division Series. I would give you the link, but SBD requires a subscription. You can sign up for a trial 2 week subscription if you so choose.

Two stories from Chris Pursell of TV Week. First is on ESPN snatching the US rights to air the first two rounds of The Masters next year. And from his Pressbox blog, Chris writes that Fox and CBS will have the featured games this weekend while NBC and ESPN will have to make due with disappointing matchups.

As I mentioned, Fox and CBS have the featured NFL matchups this week. CBS has the 5-0 Dallas Cowboys hosting the 5-0 New England Patriots at 4:15 p.m. ET and Jim Nantz will have a feature on the NFL Today with Cowboys QB Tony Romo. And CBS Sports gives us some quotes for this week from Phil Simms and Steve Tasker, plus a look at the announcing team assignments for Weeks 6-8.

John Ryan of the San Jose Mercury News writes in his Morning Buzz blog that Comcast has added the NHL Network to its sports tier.

Let’s go back to the Masters to ESPN story. Stan Awtrey of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a short blurb on Augusta National signing with ESPN. John Dempsey of Variety writes that ESPN will show three hours of coverage each in the first and second rounds of the tournament.

In a story which I don’t quite understand, ESPN’s new TV magazine, E:60 was on hand when the body of the late George Gipp (yes, the same one of legendary Notre Dame “win one for the Gipper” fame) was exhumed. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports. And we have a version of the story from the Associated Press. ‘

John Consoli of Mediaweek reports that ESPN Classic and ESPN will air a live night of boxing on October 16 featuring three boxers who took part in “The Contender” reality series. And Consoli writes that FSN’s Best Damn Sports Show Period has signed Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard to cover various sporting events for the program.

Mark Snyder of the Detroit Free Press has the Big Ten Network releasing its ratings, but warns that the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

By the way, if you have a chance to watch Inside the NFL on HBO this week, there was a good story on two NFL scab players who helped the Washington Redskins to a 3-0 record during the 1987 NFL players strike. But the reaction by Dan Marino, Cris Collinsworth and Chris Carter who all were on the picket lines back then was amazing. Marino says the two players did nothing and took away game checks from the men who were on strike. You can still see bitterness on Marino’s part to this day. If you have HBO, watch the program and you’ll see it. Very interesting.

That’s it for now. Good night.