Make Us Happy Campers This Year

The start of NFL training camps is a time that millions of fans look forward to as it signals that the football season is almost upon us. If only most of the sports media would be able to keep this in proportion. The first day or two with players reporting and coaches giving an early impression is the welcome sight.

However, after that we have day after day of hype forced upon us which has all of the glamour of a blowout exhibition game. It's the endless hours of sports radio "covering" the local team in camp.

There will be the "We will be live from training camp on Thursday morning!" promos. The beat writers and reporters seem to interview each other constantly in hope of creating a story bigger than the third string linebacker missing the last 10 plays of the afternoon drill because he sneezed.

We will hear about which of the rookies will start at safety in the exhibition opener as if this matters to the hard core fans or judging the point spread.

It has gotten to the point where if and when some actual important news is made during training camp it loses impact because so many other reports that don't matter have watered it down. Player interviews can be interesting, but only when they are more in depth than every player liking his team's chances to improve this season.

Same with the TV side. We realize that ESPN and Fox Sports have endless hours to fill all day long and that both networks air NFL games and related programming. This should mean that both networks should have access to every player, team management, and league officials throughout training camp. However, it seems that we get the "Who will be the opening day QB for (name of team)?" question and speculation all day long on every show.

In this respect, it's as though there should be training camp for the media. Bring us quality interviews, facts, player information which could be good for those who go to great lengths to plan their fantasy team(s). There is plenty of room for improvement over interviewing other reporters for their opinions and straining to come up with minor and useless news items.


On the baseball side, the fact that the All-Star Game ratings were reasonably consistent with last year's should not be considered a surprise. Even though most fans are glad that this game no longer determines home advantage for the World Series (as was the case last season), it means that this game is back to being nothing but an exhibition game.

In the old days before interleague play and every MLB game televised locally, the All-Star Game was a rare chance for fans to see certain players bat and play the field. Now, we get to watch players around baseball daily with local and national telecasts. Seeing them in the All-Star Game is nowhere near what it used to be. The feeling here is that a "flat" rating, consistent with last year, is a positive, since it shows that all who want to watch did so once again.

To that point, Nielsen Media has confirmed the Fox Sports findings about the general success of baseball telecasts on local and regional networks. For roughly the first half of the 2018 season, 11 regional sports networks which show MLB teams finished first in the prime time ratings among all TV networks. The next 11 teams on the list all rank in the top three for prime time. Thus, many fans are no longer compelled to wait for their local team player to get his one at bat in an exhibition game.


Chicago Cubs fans, however, need a scorecard for this weekend's 5 game series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Not to tell the players. It's to find the telecast.

This may be a first when each of the 5 games will appear on a different channel locally. The series opener on Thursday (7/19) is the ESPN featured game resuming after the break, which is an exclusive telecast also serving Chicago. The Friday afternoon game appears locally on NBC Sports Chicago.

On Saturday, the teams have a make-up game which makes it a day-night doubleheader.
The Saturday day game will air on WGN-TV, while the night game will be a Fox Sports regional telecast. For the finale on Sunday, it will air on WLS-TV as part of its 25 game telecast package. There you have it. Five games on five different outlets.

At least most of them know it is a five game series because of an earlier postponement. However, WLS-TV Channel 7, which airs 25 Cubs games and has already had its share of embarrassing moments, forgot to check the schedule of the only only local team whose games they air.

On Wednesday (7/18), WLS-TV sportscaster Jim Rose told viewers that the Cubs and Cardinals "start their four game series tomorrow". We take it he includes the game his station will air as one of them.


ESPN/ABC has announced its college football announcer pairings for the coming season. The biggest change is the return of Sean McDonough to the ESPN Saturday prime time game, where he will work with Todd Blackledge. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit continue as the ABC Saturday night crew, while Steve Levy, Dave Pasch, Mark Jones, Beth Mowins, Adam Amin, and Bob Wischusen continue in the Saturday positions.

Jason Benetti and Kelly Stouffer will now team up mostly for Friday night telecasts, especially after Benetti's commitment to Chicago White Sox television ends in September. One announcing team no longer in the mix, and who will be missed, is Mike Patrick and Tommy Tuberville. Patrick is no longer with ESPN after 35 years of calling games there.


Speaking of change, the Westwood One radio broadcast of Monday Night Football will have a new analyst this season. Boomer Esiason announced (on his WFAN Radio show) that he is giving up that role effective immediately, and will only do the opening night broadcast from Philadelphia on Thursday Sept. 6. During his time, Boomer worked with Howard David and Marv Albert before current play-by-play voice Kevin Harlan took over.

No replacement named as of press time, although Kurt Warner is expected to be the choice.