A nuclear submarine is no place for childish games. But living beneath the ocean for weeks at a time without fresh air and, apparently, sports talk-radio, has a way of putting an entire crew on edge. Look no further than the U.S.S. Colorado, whose officers view the football world very differently. Who’s the better quarterback? Eli or Peyton? (Or someone else…?)
Click below for a clever bit from the cast of ABC’s Last Resort. READ FULL STORY »
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ABC will interview the young man whose 2009 allegations of sexual abuse led to the Penn State scandal and the criminal conviction of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
Attorney Michael Boni, who represents the teenager known in court papers as Victim 1, said Wednesday that ABC landed the first interview with his client, who has a book coming out this fall.
It’s unclear when the ABC interview would air. ABC didn’t immediately return a phone message left Wednesday seeking comment. The New York Post was first to report the ABC exclusive.
Sandusky was convicted in June of dozens of criminal counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys on and off campus. At age 68, he awaits sentencing, which likely will send him to prison for the rest of his life. READ FULL STORY »
Steve Sabol, who revolutionized the way sports are covered in America as the president of NFL Films, died on Tuesday from brain cancer, according to NFL.com. He was 69.
In the early ’60s, Sabol joined his father Ed Sabol in creating a new style of looking at the sport of football — it was intimate, passionate, and brought fans used to watching from the stands, or their living-room La-Z-Boys, closer to the field than they had ever been. It was one thing to watch a game on TV on Sunday, it was quite another to relive it the following week thanks to the Sabols, who brought an almost-mythic level of drama to the gladiatorial combat on the gridiron. Sabol worked as a cameraman, editor, writer, director, and producer for NFL Films, sharing a passion for the game that developed while playing football at Colorado College.
Over the next decade, the Sabols’ NFL Films segments became an institution. They were instantly recognizable to fans, not only for their on-the-field view of the plays and the players (who they often put tiny microphones on), but also for the stentorian narration of John Facenda — a man whose voice seemed to rumble down from the fog-shrouded peak of Mt. Olympus. READ FULL STORY »
Professional wrestling commentator Jerry Lawler collapsed during a World Wrestling Entertainment event on Monday night.
A statement from the WWE said that Lawler suffered a heart attack at the announcers’ table and was taken from the Bell Centre to a hospital.
Broadcast partner Michael Cole addressed the television audience and said that the situation is “serious,” but that Lawler was breathing on his own.
“Jerry “The King” Lawler suffered a heart attack while commentating during last night’s broadcast of Monday Night Raw in Montreal,” the WWE said in its statement. “We are hopeful Jerry makes a full recovery and returns to WWE in the near future. Our thoughts are with Jerry and his family.”
Though the 62-year-old Lawler occasionally wrestles, he mainly works on WWE broadcasts as a commentator.
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With the National Football League season’s first game on NBC, the Democrats were battling more than just the Republicans on Wednesday night — at least in the ratings war. And while more than 20.5 million viewers tuned in to watch the Giants and the Cowboys face off, Bill Clinton’s speech drew virtually an identical amount, 20.6 million — though he couldn’t match Michelle Obama’s television audience from Day 1. Moreover, for the second night in a row, the Democrats edged the Republicans in the number of eyeballs that tuned in to this year’s conventions. (Twenty million people tuned in to see Paul Ryan give his convention speech last week.)
The figures were down, however, compared to Day 2 of the 2008 convention, when 22.2 million people tuned in to hear Hillary Clinton make her address, endorsing her one-time rival, Barack Obama.
With Brian Williams and the NBC team taking the night off, the biggest beneficiaries were ABC and Fox News. During the prime speaking hour of 10 o’clock, ABC’s total viewers were up 42 percent, while Fox News scored a 29 percent uptick. ABC and CBS both leapfrogged over MSNBC to finish first and second for the night. READ FULL STORY »
Major League Baseball and ESPN extended their television contract through 2021 on Tuesday, a deal that almost doubles the amount of money the network will pay annually for baseball content while also all but eliminating local blackouts for ESPN games on Monday and Wednesday nights. The deal was announced on Tuesday. It combines rights for TV, radio, digital and international that had been separate. The new single contract adds new rights to air a wild-card game, along with additional rights to highlights and digital content. It also gives the network more flexibility to show games involving popular teams.
The previous contracts were worth close to $360 million a year combined. A person with knowledge of the new combined deal says it will be worth about $700 million a year over eight years. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the financial figures were not released. READ FULL STORY »
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Bob Costas is going for comedy gold: The veteran sportscaster — who recently finished anchoring NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage — will guest-star as himself on Matthew Perry’s new Peacock sitcom, Go On. READ FULL STORY »
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Football games this season are about to get some music star power.
It’ll all start at the first game of the NFL season, on Wednesday, Sept. 5, when Mariah Carey and No Doubt will perform a live pre-game show at Rockefeller Plaza. The hour-long show will air at 7:30 p.m. EST on NBC before the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys go head-to-head at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
No Doubt will be following up on another engagement with the NFL — they performed at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2003. READ FULL STORY »
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The Mindy Project has just lined up some slam-dunk guest casting: New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire, free agent guard Baron Davis, and Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger will play themselves in the fourth episode of Mindy Kaling’s new Fox comedy, EW has learned. In the episode, Kaling’s gynecologist character goes on an outing with her co-workers to a nightclub, where she winds up hanging out in the VIP section with the three NBA players . READ FULL STORY »
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VH1 is distancing itself from #85. Last weekend, veteran NFL player Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson was arrested and released on bail after a domestic violence charge. The former Dancing With the Stars contestant was subsequently released by the Miami Dolphins — and VH1 has just announced that it no longer plans to air a reality show he was filming for the network called Ev and Ocho.
“Due to the unfortunate events over the weekend and the seriousness of the allegations, VH1 is pulling the series ‘Ev and Ocho’ from its schedule and has no current plans of airing it,” a representative said in a statement. The series was set to premiere this September. VH1′s website has deleted its page about Ev and Ocho, although its name still appears under the site’s “shows” tab.
Read more:
Chad Ochocinco, football player and former ‘Dancing with the Stars’ contestant, catches fiancee
‘Dancing With the Stars’: Sizing Up the All-Star Pairs
‘Glee Project’ exit shocker: Double elimination! ‘Some people might not like it, but that’s me’
NBC has been taking heat for its time-delayed Olympic coverage (there’s even a parody Twitter). But never did viewers think that in addition to avoiding the Internet, they would need to avoid NBC’s own coverage of the games.
Last night, minutes before airing Missy Franklin’s time-delayed victory in the 100-meter backstroke, NBC ran a promo for Tuesday morning’s Today show that announced, “When you’re 17 years old and win your first gold medal, there’s nobody you’d rather share it with,” and showed footage of Franklin standing on the medal stand with her gold medal, as well as reuniting with her parents, effectively ruining the suspense for viewers. READ FULL STORY »
The late-night landscape is about to receive a jolt of testosterone. On Aug. 27, ESPN will plant its flag with UNITE, a 60-minute entertainment show geared towards the college-aged male sports fan. Airing each weeknight at midnight on ESPNU, the new program aspires to bring a focus on social media to the sports-viewing experience. “The way that we consume sports television is different than it was 15 years ago — than it was two years ago,” says Yaron Deskalo, UNITE‘s coordinating producer. “Our audience already knows the headlines before they tune in, so they are no longer tuning in at midnight to wait 20 minutes to watch a 45-second highlight. What we need to do to be successful is to find the social conversation in these events, to find that little nugget that will keep people around.” READ FULL STORY »
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Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader is hoping for one more — in the form of a TV show. EW has learned that TLC has begun production on a reality series starring Pete Rose, the polarizing 17-time All-Star who was banned from his beloved sport for gambling on games while he was a manager for the Cincinnati Reds. READ FULL STORY »
James Hibberd
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Lynette Rice
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