Some "Memorial" Mistakes Surround Holiday Weekend

We all know that not all sportscasters are up to date on every sport they cover or talk about. It is especially understandable when former pro athletes turn sportscaster and do not have the expertise of other sports for their first couple of years. Some that have always been sports reporters don't always pay as close attention to all of the sports they cover either.

 

Mark Schanowski has been a TV sportscaster for many years in Chicago. For just over one year, he has been with WLS-TV, the ABC station handling weekends. On Saturday (5/28), Schanowski was doing the station's 5:00 PM news sports segment. Toward the end of his report, he mentioned the running of the Indy 500 to take place the following day. Obviously, it's an important story.

Schanowski finished the story by saying (to the effect of), "And you can see that race right here tomorrow morning starting at 11 AM!". There was one big problem with that. Mark's report was on the local ABC station, while the Indy 500 airs on the local rival NBC-TV station. It's likely that Schanowski was supposed to refer to the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix rate, which aired on ABC later on Sunday afternoon after the scheduled ending of the Indy 500. There was no other mention of anything else related to auto racing during his entire sports segment.

A minor double checking would have prevented Schanowski from promoting an event on a rival channel and allowed him to promote what his channel was showing. Ooops.

 

Another holiday weekend mistake was unintentional, but does provide a lesson for TV crews. On Saturday (5/28) evening, YES Network was showing some of Yankees Manager Aaron Boone's post-game press conference. The angle of their camera clearly showed the post of the Tropicana Field wi-fi and password information. 

 

Although this information is only for people within the stadium (insert Rays attendance joke here), this should serve as a warning about posting of wi-fi information in relation to where media members could be using cameras.

 

Elsewhere on the sports media scene, NBC Sports has confirmed that Al Michaels will continue to work for NBC even after taking on Amazon Prime's Thursday Night Football telecasts beginning with the upcoming season. Michaels will call at least one NFL post-season game for NBC as well as being involved with Olympics telecasts. 

 

Mark Chernoff, after some time off following his 28 years with New York's WFAN, is returning to airwaves this week (May 31) with a lower profile. He will join 101.7 The Boss in Monmouth/Ocean New Jersey as morning sports anchor. He will be a part of the Robby & Rochelle morning show.

 

Meanwhile, WFAN 101.9 and 660 has added Rutgers University football and basketball to its play-by-play roster beginning with the upcoming season. WFAN will air the football games when there are no broadcast conflicts, while sister station WCBS will air the basketball broadcasts. This adds to an already crowded local play-by-play schedule which includes the Yankees, Giants, Nets, and occasional Devils broadcasts. 

 

University of Iowa football broadcasts will be heard in Chicago. Starting with the upcoming season (Sept. 3) season opener of Iowa vs. South Dakota State, WCKG 1530 will air the games via the Iowa Football Network. Gary Dolphin, who has called Iowa play-by-play since 1996, will again be joined by Ed Podolak as analyst.

 

 

Should Be Where Over When

It's understandable and appreciated how much the NFL does to keep football in the media throughout the year, especially in the off-season. Somehow gaining so much publicity and coverage around the country of mini-camps, draft preparation, and events such as the combine are like a public relations person's dreams come true.

However, the release of the upcoming season schedule this past Thursday (5/12) brought this way too far over the edge. Clearly the presence of USFL games has the NFL concerned, while chances are it won't need to be. The onset of the USFL must be reason why the NFL went overboard with the schedule info, especially with tactics such as releasing certain key dates in the days and hours leading to their "official" announcement.

Some of the blame for this unnecessary hype goes to the media. The networks which televise live games are desperate for opportunities to remind their audience that they are home to NFL games. The sports stations around the country love to have anything "new" as an excuse to talk about the NFL.

The problem with all of this wasted time is that we already knew the opponents for each team, as well as which games will be home and away. Consequently, just knowing which order and which days and times for specific games does not carry the appeal that the NFL and the media were acting like.

In recent years, the coming season's opponents and home games have been announced within a couple of days after the conclusion of the regular season. For those that are fans of a team heading to the playoffs, that announcement doesn't mean very much at the time.

How can this be solved? If the NFL wants true excitement about announcing its schedule, then don't announce the coming season's opponents both home and away months before their "schedule release party". If fans didn't know for sure who the non-divisional opponents will be and who their team will host ahead of time, there would be some suspense.

If the NFL insists on maintaining this format, this schedule release party stuff will be right "down there" with the stupid mock drafts that many media outlets thrust upon us as if there is some importance to it.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the NHL on increasing interest in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Those of us who were critical of the NHL for choosing multiple partners (ESPN and TNT) after all the years with NBC doing such a solid job doing it all stand corrected.

Though the first round of the playoffs, the two families of networks have combined for a roughly 9% increase in viewership. What makes this even more significant is that the Chicago Blackhawks, long one of the highest rated and most nationally televised teams, failed to make the post-season. (If they had the feeling is that this ratings increase would have been in double digits this early into the playoffs.)

At the same time, NBA telecast ratings (also shared with ESPN/ABC and TNT) also went up during the simultaneous (to the NHL playoffs) second round of playoff games. The surge for the Golden State Warriors this season is a big part of the ratings increase.

Even with the NBA and NHL playoffs in full swing and the NFL sneaking its way in to the TV schedule, MLB is seeing some progress on the ratings front. A month in to the season, ESPN Sunday Night Baseball ratings are up roughly 4%. (Perhaps the absence of Alex Rodriguez from the primary telecast is a factor.) The ratings for the opening Sunday Morning Baseball telecast on Peacock (from 5/8) were the highest that MLB has had for a Sunday afternoon window in more than three years.

Peacock having a consistent start time (11 AM ET for now, soon to be 11:30 AM ET) will probably be a factor in stronger ratings than TBS used to have for Sundays, when its start times varied almost every week by as much as three hours.