Two Games Two Sports No Problem

It's fun for play-by-play announcers to handle more than one sport over the course of a year, but now we have a number of announcers doing so within the course of a couple of days. This includes one or more on a national level.

Joe Buck at Fox continues his busy stretch of crossing over from NFL games to the MLB Post-season, even with the World Series in progress. Adam Amin, a rising star at Fox, catches a break this coming weekend by not having to travel for multiple events. Amin is scheduled to call the NBA game between Chicago and Utah for NBC Sports Chicago on Saturday night (10/30) which is being played in Chicago. On Sunday, he calls the NFL game for Fox between the Bears and visiting San Francisco 49ers. He will then travel to Boston to call the Bulls vs. Celtics game on Monday night. 

Steve Levy had quite the experience this past weekend. Levy got the gem of an assignment for any hockey announcer by getting the Seattle Kraken home opener (Oct. 23) against Vancouver. Although he had not called an NHL game on national TV since 2004, you would have sworn that he calls them all the time. He needed to be in Seattle anyway, because, as coincidence had it, he was there to also call his usual Monday Night Football game (10/25) with the Seahawks hosting New Orleans.

CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has a multi-year extension in place for Bulls broadcasts to continue. The Score has been airing the Bulls since 2018. Chuck Swirsky, now in his 14th season as radio voice of the team, will continue in his role. 

WASHINGTON D.C.: A familiar name for the locals, Steve Buckhantz, is returning to NBC Sports Washington. He will serve as analyst for this coming Saturday's (10/30) telecast of James Madison vs. Elon, working with Curt Dudley, who will call the game. Buckhantz is expected to be added to more games in the near future.

National With A Local Flare

Milwaukee sports fans now have two national voices calling local team play-by-play on their telecasts, with the naming of Lisa Byington as the new play-by-play voice for the Milwaukee Bucks. Byington was chosen to replace Jim Paschke, who had called the Bucks games for the previous 35 seasons. Paschke gets to go out "on top" with the Bucks having won their first NBA Championship in 50 years back in July. 

Byington has been calling college basketball for Fox Sports and the Big10 Network, in addition to having been the first woman to do play-by-play for Turner Sports and CBS during this year's NCAA Tournament. She also called a football game for Big10 Network back in 2017. 

In addition to becoming the first woman to be named primary play-by-play announcer for an NBA team, she adds this to her incredible year which also includes calling Olympics events for NBC.

The other "national" voice calling games in Milwaukee continues to be Brian Anderson, who also calls NBA games, as a primary play-by-play voice for TNT's coverage. Anderson continues as the lead voice of Brewers TV for every game his TBS/TNT baseball and basketball schedule allows him to. Although the networks generally don't want national telecasts to include the local team's announcer, it is worth noting that TBS will carry the National League Division Series and the NLCS. Look for Anderson to call the series not involving the Brewers in the NLDS. If the Brewers advance, it will be interesting to see if TBS goes with Ernie Johnson on the call instead of Anderson.

Speaking of TNT, the network is preparing to debut its NHL coverage next month with a number of national games. Adding none other than Wayne Gretzky to their studio staff brings them major credibility. Kenny Albert and Brendan Burke will share play-by-play duties. For primary analyst, the network will have a Chicago Blackhawks flavor. Ed Olczyk joins TNT as primary analyst to work with Albert, while continuing as local analyst for every Chicago Blackhawks telecast his TNT schedule allows. Working with Burke most night will be Darren Pang, who also played in Chicago for most of his career.

If Sports Is About Competition, What About Sports Radio?

We don't need still another example of what's wrong with radio today, but the sister sports talk stations in Indianapolis have provided one. First, it should be stated that David Wood is an excellent radio executive, as his role of overseeing a cluster of stations within this market prove beyond a doubt. It's just that the corporate decision to add to his duties is the example. Wood has also (the important word here) been tapped to oversee programming on both Sports Talk 93.5 AND 107.5 The Fan. 

 

Let's get this straight. We have two stations going after the same audience of sports fans all day and all night long. Now we have the same management person overseeing them both. How ironic that stations which are based around sports and competition each have the same leader. I suppose that if New York City were to have the same General Manager making acquisitions for both the Yankees and the Mets that there would be outrage from fans filling up the sports stations with content.

You would think that the parent company of these stations would look at this much differently. Imagine assigning separate management responsibilities to different people, while assigning the same budget and opportunities. Whichever delivers the highest ratings gets a bonus or incentive. I suppose that's asking too much these days.

The reach of the Las Vegas Raiders shows during the preseason with the availability of the local telecasts. Their exhibition game telecasts, as called by Beth Mowins and Rich Gannon, are being seen well beyond the Las Vegas and Salt Lake City market. In addition to being shown on KRON-TV San Francisco (understandable, at least for now), their exhibition games also air in both Anchorage and Fairbanks Alaska, Honolulu, and in Los Angeles. 

Speaking of preseason telecasts, the duplication was amazing last weekend (8/21) when the Dallas Cowboys played the Houston Texans. A total of 10 TV markets within Texas had both the Cowboys and Texans telecasts available to them at the same time. The Cowboys telecasts are also seen in Oklahoma City as well as two markets in Arkansas and two in Louisiana.

DENVER: Rachael Vigil has joined KKFN 104.3 The Fan as a digital host and producer, coming over from a similar role with the Western Athletic Conference.

 

 

Field of Dreams, But Nightmare For Baseball Fans

If only Fox Sports hadn't treated Thursday's (8/12) Field of Dreams telecast like it was a movie. Would have been nice, and helpful to keep baseball fans up to date. Fox is supposed to be the big player for Major League Baseball. 

 

Perhaps it is being a White Sox fan that added to the frustration, but I would imagine that other avid baseball fans felt it too. Here was Fox Sports, which will be airing the World Series again this season and has NFL telecasts coming up, forgetting to use their usual scroll of scores and updates at the bottom of the screen for the entire night. Making it even worse, there was no mention of scores of other games in progress, or that had been played earlier in the day.

 

The "earlier in the day" was significant to this "Dreams" game. Cleveland, which is a distant second to the White Sox in the A.L. Central, had already lost during the afternoon, raising the White Sox division lead to 11 games at game time. At the time, this was the largest lead the White Sox held over Cleveland all season. That was news that White Sox fans wanted to hear. Instead, we got Joe Buck saying that the "lead was 10 and 1/2 games going in to today's action". Did the lead network for MLB not know there were other games taking place?

 

Early in the game, the White Sox scored on a homerun by Jose Abreu. It so happened, as many White Sox fans knew, that this homerun tied Abreu for #3 on the franchise's all-time homerun list. Given the history of the franchise, which played a role in the movie Field of Dreams, this was a big deal. Yet, zero mention of that accomplishment from Joe Buck or anyone else on the telecast.

 

But the horrible lack of information was not just aimed at White Sox fans. While I can understand not having a camera for the bullpens, we were rarely told which pitcher was warming up for either team. Even worse was a pinch-hitting appearance by Danny Mendick of the White Sox in the all important 9th inning. 

 

As a Sox fan, I had no idea that Mendick was on the active roster. There was zero mention on the telecast about how and why he was in the game. (It so happened that MLB, for some strange reason, allowed both teams to add a 27th player. Until finding this out on my own, I was falsely worried that there was an injury I hadn't heard about.) Joe Buck and company didn't even mention who Mendick was hitting for. Sheesh.

 

However, Fox was ready with all kinds of graphics and video about the movie Field of Dreams throughout the telecast. It's OK to do that under these circumstances, but there is no excuse for not even making an effort to inform the fans of what's going on.

 

The Pittsburgh Penguins will have Josh Getzoff calling all games on radio starting with the upcoming season. Getzoff called the team's road games over the previous three seasons, adding home games this past season when Mike Lange opted out due to the pandemic. Lange, who called Penguins games on radio for 46 seasons, is giving up his play-by-play role after 50 years total of calling hockey. He will continue to be a part of Penguins broadcasts throughout the coming season. Ray Borque continues as analyst.

 

The ESPN Monday Night Football crew with Steve Levy and Brian Griese will get to do some local pre-season telecasts this year as a warmup. The pair will call the locally available Denver Broncos telecasts. These will be in addition to the pair of exhibition game telecasts which will air on ESPN.

 

Mike Golic will serve as an analyst for Westwood One NFL regular season broadcasts this season. This will be in addition to Mike's weekly football show which will be distributed by Westwood One.

 

How exciting can this week's NBA Summer League telecasts sound? With Gus Johnson scheduled to do play-by-play on Friday (8/13) on NBA-TV, we are likely to find out.

A Performance of Olympic Proportion

Just as NBC did with the NHL contract over the past few years, NBC did a tremendous job with its just coverage of the just concluded Olympics. Using its family of networks while making specific sports and events relatively easy to find added to the quality production value. Mike Torico was superb as primary "studio" host, making it clear to all that he had done his homework and was on top of everything going on around him.

This makes it even harder to swallow that NBC lost the NHL contract and lacks content to continue with NBCSN starting very soon.

However, while NBC Sports deserves applause on that count, it is quite the opposite for college football fans, especially of Notre Dame and Toledo University. NBC wants to promote Peacock, especially it's premium version which costs $4.99 per month. They are trying to slip it under the radar that the Notre Dame home opener on September 11th against Toledo will ONLY be available to paying customers on Peacock. It will be treated as a regular NBC telecast, with Mike Torico calling the game. This game also marks the debut of Drew Brees as analyst.

Yet, fans of both schools (including Toledo University, which, because of this, gets robbed of the national spotlight) are expected to pay to watch this game, while the remaining telecasts will be as usual on NBC.

It's not up to me, but if they must make a money grab, put the "regular" telecast on NBC as usual. Offer up a $4.99 expanded telecast only on Peacock with no commercials, expanded pre and post-game coverage, and perhaps a player or coach on each time mic'd up. Do things that would make the avid fan willing to spend the money, but not rob the casual college football fans of a telecast.


With no teams calling, Robert Griffin III appears to be headed to an analyst role for the coming football season. Looks like ESPN noticed his quality work for Bleacher Report during their 2021 NFL Draft coverage. As of press time, he was reportedly completing a deal to join ESPN to work on both college games and its NFL coverage.

Over at CBS, the network has reportedly increased the role for analyst Jay Feely for the coming season. As the network prepares to unveil its NFL announcing teams, all signs point to Feely being teamed with Spero Dedes on regional telecasts. This comes after word that Adam Archuleta will now be paired with Greg Gumbel.

Local preseason telecasts will, once again, feature network play-by-play voices where possible. Ian Eagle will call the lone local Jets telecast (with Peter Schrager as analyst), Adam Amin will call Chicago Bears games (with Jim Miller as analyst), while Buffalo will have both Andrew Catalon and Steve Tasker on its exhibition games. Justin Kutcher will call Atlanta Falcons games. The champion Tampa Bucs fans will have Chris Myers and Ronde Barber on their telecasts.

NFL exhibition games will be upon us later this week.

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The Big Game Lacks The Typical Big Audience

If they executives of the major pro sports are not concerned about their ability to generate billions of dollars of income without opening the gates, they should be now. It has been one thing to have had regular season and early post-season ratings down across each of the sports since last March. But now that the Super Bowl ratings dropped, the ramifications could be coming over the next couple of years.

The Tampa Bay win over Kansas City finished as the lowest rated Super Bowl telecast since 2007, becoming only the 2nd telecast since then to generate under 100 million viewers. The audience was down roughly six million from last year's game.

Going in to this game, all signs pointed to record high audiences, even without the added drama of Brady vs. Mahomes for the championship. The pandemic caused far more people than usual to be at home or in limited gatherings to watch the game. The ratings of past years do not reflect the number of people viewing from large gatherings such as restaurants and bars. With millions fewer patronizing such establishments, there should have been an increase.

In addition, there was one more important factor. This year, betting on and around the "big game" was legal in many states along with online betting services able to advertise prominently within sports related programming. Point spreads and prop bets were more commonly discussed via the various media outlets.

Estimates in past years were that billions of dollars changed hands, whether legal or otherwise, because of the game. This includes the ability to bet on topics such as the length of the national anthem, last player to score, the coin toss, and so on.

These lower audience numbers happened despite including a record number of streaming minutes of the CBS telecast. Reports show that this was the first sports event ever to generate more than one billion streaming minutes, finishing with a "per minute" average of more than 5.5 million "streamers".

Despite these factors which were expected to add significantly to the audience, viewership was down. It means that during the pandemic, all four major sports have now experienced declines in championship series ratings. The leagues and teams cannot point to fans being in the stands or large gatherings to view.

All of this will make it tough for the TV networks to bid the billions of dollars they typically do or did. They are already faced with economic cutbacks and reduced advertising budgets from many large companies.

For that very reason, this could be a significant development in the sports world. The first major test figures to be the NHL, which needs to put a new deal in place before the 2021-22 season. NBC's deal runs out after the current season, while NBCSN will be going away sometime after the current NHL season and playoffs end. Indications are that NBC will not be aggressive with renewal efforts. It will be interesting to see if or how much Fox Sports and ESPN compete for future NHL rights given the current viewership climate.



LOS ANGELES: It's rare to have the son retire before the dad, but Jorge Jarrin is doing just that. Jorge decided to retire from the Dodgers Spanish radio broadcast team following the team's World Series win. Although he was on the broadcast crew for only 6 seasons, he leaves behind a 35 year on-air career in L.A., including his long tenure as a traffic reporter for KABC 790. Jamie Jarrin, Jorge's father, continues as the primary Spanish play-by-play voice.

CHICAGO: WSCR 670 The Score has added long time host and producer Matt Spiegel back to its weekday lineup. Spiegel has been with the station for most of the past 28 years. He joins afternoon host Danny Parkins as co-host on the 2 to 6 PM shift after doing fill-in and weekends since 2018 when he was pulled from co-hosting middays.

 

MADISON: Bill Michaels, who left WSSP 1250 The Fan in Milwaukee last month, has jointed WOZN 96.7 and 1670 The Zone (Madison) for the 10 AM to 2 PM shift starting this week. His show is also airing on WAYY-AM Eau Claire and WKTY LaCrosse, with plans to add other regional markets.

NBC Says NB See Ya To National Network

Some expected it and others were surprised, but the upcoming end of NBCSN will have an immediate impact on the sports media landscape. Despite some ratings success over the past couple of years, it appears that the pandemic caused the NBC brass to consolidate even more than they already have.

Staff cuts on its regional sports networks hit last summer, with another round since the first of the year. With NBCSN able to move any remaining sports programming to USA Network, they can reduce production staff and operation costs while not having to fill air time with wasted programming.

Back in the 80's, USA Network was a major sports presence on cable, more so than ESPN at the time. USA Network had Thursday Night Baseball with MLB doubleheaders, as well as NHL regular season and playoff telecasts. (This was where NHL fans first heard Doc Emrick calling games at the national level.)

This season is the final one of the NBC contract with the NHL. While NBC has done a superb job with its coverage, including showing every playoff game on one of its networks, the NHL remains the only one of the four major sports which has only one network controlling its telecasts. While it is possible that NBC retains its national game presence, it is also possible that Fox Sports would be a player, needing more content for FS1 and FS2.

Word is that NBCSN will go away during 2021. It is understandable that they do not have a date yet. Due to the pandemic, we are not sure if and when there will be Olympic Games in 2021. Nor are we certain that the NHL Playoffs would end in July as currently planned.

Events such as NASCAR and Premier League soccer would be assigned to USA Network. Speculation has its Peacock service also carrying some of the events via that platform. Peacock already carries roughly 175 matches currently.

It is not known, as of press time, how much (or how little) the impact of the pandemic was behind this decision. As we commented on last week, even with millions of people spending more time at home, viewership of the major sports is down from a year ago and beyond. This makes us wonder if we will see more cutbacks on all sports networks as a means of sending a message to the pro leagues that rights fees may start to decline during upcoming negotiations.


Over at ESPN, it's looking like the Monday Night Football broadcast crew might be staying in place for more than the one season. Word is that Steve Levy, Brian Griese, and Louis Riddick have passed the audition and will be brought back for at least the 2021 season. Word is that ESPN is looking to add the just retired Philip Rivers to its roster of analysts. Hard to imagine Rivers being added and not made a part of the network's weekly telecast.


While CBS prepares for the Super Bowl telecast, there is more emphasis this time around on making its streaming of the game more readily available. Finally, it will be available without additional cost. Viewers will be able to stream the game on CBSSports.com, Yahoo Sports, along with Verizon Media for its customers. ESPN Deportes will air the Spanish version.


Meanwhile, VIZIO has now joined Samsung in having a variety of sports apps available to their Smart TV owners. VIZIO now has free channels available including NFL Channel (different from NFL Network), CBS Sports App, and the Pac 12 Insider. Samsung allows Smart TV owners to access paid apps such as MLB for its owners.