"Stay calm, and you'll all get out of this alive!"
You know you're getting old when you hear about an intriguing new venture like the SEC Network and your first thought is, "How much is this going to cost me?"
Australian Rules Football
West Coast Eagles vs. Western Bulldogs -- Fox Soccer Plus, 2:30 a.m.
College Baseball
South Florida at Notre Dame -- CBS Sports Network, 11:30 p.m.
Georgia at Tennessee -- ESPNU, 1 p.m.
Kansas State at Texas -- Longhorn Network, 2 p.m.
Alabama at Mississippi State -- CBS Sports Network, 2:30 p.m.
College Football
Inside College Football: Spring Special -- CBS Sports Network, 9 p.m.
College Lacrosse Ivy League Championship, Ithaca, NY
Yale vs. Princeton -- ESPNU, 11 a.m.
NCAA Lacrosse Championship Selection Special -- ESPNU, 9 p.m.
MLB has announced their broadcast plans for the 2013 Draft on MLB Network in its never-ending quest to make the casual fan care about their draft a fraction as much as they care about the NFL and NBA Drafts.
NBC's coverage of the Kentucky Derby comes your way later this afternoon. As part of the build up to the race, NBC sent Michelle Beadle up to the broadcast booth to call one of the many races that take place in the lead up to the Derby. With Fox attempting to turn Gus Johnson into a soccer announcer, it's NBC's turn to up the ante in the announcing game. The results show... potential?
When you write multiple articles a day for a sports blog, there's an easy temptation to use a lot of hyperbole and hype. Every clip has to be either the funniest or the most shocking or the most surprising. Every moment or soundbyte or screengrab has to be the best or worst EVER so people will be motivated to click and share. Sometimes you may even be tempted into using all caps in a headline to convey some kind of extra interest. It's some kind of game within the game within the game for sports bloggers to stir up interest in the slow drip of content pushed out ever day.
Having said that, what you are about to see is by far THE BEST AND FUNNIEST AND MOST AWESOME MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF ESPN AND MAYBE EVEN TELECOMMUNICATION.
Arena Football
New Orleans VooDoo at Tampa Bay Storm -- CBS Sports Network, 9 p.m.
Australian Rules Football
Richmond Tigers vs. Geelong Cats -- Fox Soccer Plus, 5:30 a.m.
Boxing
Floyd Mayweather vs. Robert Guerrero -- Pay per view, 9 p.m.
May Day Live: Countdown to Mayweather vs. Guerrero -- Showtime, 8 p.m.
Mayweather vs. Guerrero Post Fight/Press Conference -- CBS Sports Network, 1 a.m. (Sunday)
College Baseball
Florida at LSU -- ESPN2, 1 p.m.
Missouri at Texas A&M -- Fox College Sports Central, 3 p.m.
Kansas State at Texas -- Longhorn Network, 3 p.m.
Cal at Oregon States-- Pac-12 Network, 5 p.m.
Indiana at Nebraska -- Big Ten Network, 7 p.m.
Arkansas at Kentucky -- Fox College Sports Atlantic, 7 p.m.
Oklahoma State at Texas Tech -- Fox College Sports Central, 7:30 p.m.
Long Beach State at Cal State-Fullerton -- ESPNU, 11 p.m.
The Boston Celtics have won two straight games in their playoff matchup with the New York Knicks, but still trail the series 3-2. That's not stopping ESPN from invoking comparisons to the Yankees-Red Sox ALCS in 2004, when the Red Sox rallied back from a 3-0 deficit to win the series and later, the World Series.
On Thursday's SportsCenter, ESPN dragged in MLB analyst Curt Schilling to break down the series. Now, put aside the obvious ridiculousness of a baseball analyst talking about a basketball series. Comparing the two series is really only justified for two reasons: the cities involved, and the fact that the Knicks led the series 3-0 just like the Yankees did eight and a half years ago.
The 2004 Yankees and Red Sox had the two best records in the American League. The 2012-13 Knicks were the second best team in the East, miles behind the Heat, and the Celtics finished one game above .500, sleepwalking their way into the playoffs. The Celtics' 14 point loss in game three was also not anywhere near as ugly as the Red Sox' 11 run loss in game three of the ALCS. And remember: this is the first round of the playoffs. If the Celtics end up winning the series, they still need to win *three* more series to end up as champions. The '04 Red Sox just needed to win one more series, and they had to do it against a Cardinals team that was similarly dragged to a seven game series by the Astros.
If the Bruins end up playing the Rangers in the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I wouldn't be shocked if ESPN dragged in Schilling to analyze the series once again. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, though.
TSN SportsCentre anchors Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole appear to be the first anchors hired for Fox Sports One. A report surfaced earlier today from Toronto Sports Media signaling that the popular duo would be leaving TSN for Fox, and a press release from TSN confirmed the news but kept Fox's name out of it, instead saying that the pair would be "heading to Los Angeles for exciting new broadcast opportunities on U.S. television."
Editorial Note: We're proud to announce Dave Warner as an addition to Awful Announcing. This article appears courtesy Dave's site, What You Pay For Sports. We'll be syndicating some of Dave's work at AA and feature original pieces in the weeks to come.
Do you live in SEC Country? Do you pay for cable or satellite TV? Congratulations! Your cable bill is going up yet another 80 cents per month next year!
Of course, if you’re an alumnus or fan of an Southeastern Conference school, you probably won’t mind, as that 80 cents will pay for the new SEC Network, which was formally announced today in conjunction with ESPN. The new network will launch in August of 2014, and ESPN president John Skipper insisted that it would be a “national network” on par with ESPNU, which is currently in 74 million homes.
Getting the SEC Network into that many homes, of course, will require a bit of massaging. After all, this channel won’t be able to fetch nearly as much money in Michigan or California as it will in Alabama and Mississippi. The bulk of the SEC Network’s viewership will be in the 11 states where SEC schools are located. That’s where the subscriber fees will be the highest.
On Wednesday night, I flipped my TV over to ESPN at 7 PM to watch the Nationals-Braves game. I was planning on writing a review of ESPN's experiment with commentators at field level, but lo and behold, I was treated to a block of ESPNEWS instead. I immediately realized I was getting blacked out, which makes sense (since I'm in Washington's viewing area), but makes no sense at the same time since I was able to watch Monday's Nationals-Braves game on ESPN with no issues whatsoever.
That's right, two games in the same series fell under different blackout rules.
