Major League Baseball broadcast rights holders, meeting here yesterday to discuss the movement of games from free to cable TV, will seek the elimination of broadcasting restrictions on Wednesday and Sunday nights in ESPN’s four-year contract with baseball to begin in 1990. John Serrao, chairman of the board for the Association …
What does it take to join the new NBC Sports? Its NFL coverage now includes O.J. Simpson (the running back of the ‘70s), Bobby Beathard (the executive of the ‘80s) and Bill Walsh (the coach of the ‘80s). Not exactly broadcast journalists by trade, but Executive Producer Terry O’Neil figures they’re the fresh …
NBC Practices ABCs: Analysis and Banal Commentary Read More »
When Roone Arledge seized the day—or, to be more precise, seized the night—in 1970, Mondays were transformed forever in America. More than just a successful television series, “Monday Night Football” shifted a nation’s habits, altered its cultural landscape and cemented the burgeoning National Football League as the sport of preference from Washington, D.C., …
Bobby Beathard is happy in self-exile from pro football management at the moment. From his home in San Diego, the Redskins’ former general manager said yesterday he will honor his one-year contract with NBC Sports regardless of interest in him among NFL clubs and “wait to the end of the season” to determine …
Beathard Places NFL Work on Hold, Will Hold On to Job With Network Read More »
In the National Football League, the TV apple cart is about to be turned over. Whoever picks up the apples—and they are quite expensive—could determine how viewers get the NFL for years to come. In an increasingly complex and dizzying sports television universe, the NFL has been an oasis of stability …
Thanks to Cable, Window of Opportunity Is Open Wide for the NF Read More »
But in defeat, the Giants might have won a couple of postgame battles: they made sure that some TV and radio sports directors and newspaper sports editors will at least think twice before sending women into their locker room again and that one local radio reporter knew where he stood the next time …
Equal Access Merely Means Unequal Abuse to the Giants Read More »
He reported that running back Joe Cribbs would return to the Buffalo Bills. Cribbs denied it. He reported that the FBI was investigating the major league umpires union’s handling of its money. The umpires denied it. He reported that the Sullivan family was interested in selling the New England …
King Just Reports What He Hears, And Then Ducks as Denials Pour In Read More »
In the latest episode of “Rich Man, Richer Man,” one group of wealthy sports folks the NFL, NBA PGA, NCAA, “Hey, we no longer can foot all of your bills, in other words, stop feeding those pampered athletes gourmet TV dinners at our expense.” For the past 18 months, CBS executive …
CBS’ Pilson Broadcasts Word on Sports: Party’s On Read More »
Bob Wolff, Washington’s pioneer television sportscaster, witnessed and reported all of that bad baseball. As a permanent scar of sorts, he remembers most of it. “I would never say, ‘Well, the Senators are leading, 12-1. It looks like a good day for them,’ because there were still two more innings to …
Bob Wolff: Voice of the Senators Was Talk of the Town Read More »
If Bud Greenspan worked for ABC Sports, which is about as likely as Sylvester Stallone making English-language films, the network of the Olympics might actually cover them as well as they promote them. “I could never make it at the network,” said Greenspan, who describes commercial sports television as “an industry …
