Brett Favre could soon get TV offers?

Fox Sports president Eric Shanks on whether Fox could still be interested in signing Brett Favre as an analyst: “Have we called him yet? No. But it’s not out of the question for any network to pick up the phone and call Brett.” — USA Today

Chris Berman more popular than Bob Costas?

Nielsen’s strategic collaboration with E-Poll Market Research, N-Score provides the most comprehensive, in-depth look at a sports figure’s overall endorsement potential. A potential endorser’s N-Score is the result of a model that factors in awareness, appeal (how strongly one likes or dislikes an individual) and 46 specific personal attributes. The N-Score is available for over 1,000 athletes, coaches, broadcasters and other sports personalities, on both a national basis and in 30 local markets.

Commentators N-Score Rating

  1. Terry Bradshaw 378
  2. Mike Ditka 344
  3. Dan Marino 260
  4. Chris Berman 192
  5. Bob Costas 182

Source: Nielsen

Former Cowboys star splits from wife

Fox football analyst and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman confirmed on Monday night that he and his wife, Rhonda, have split. Continue reading for more details.

FOX rejects Jesus, Obama Super Bowl ad from conservative comedy site

Fox has rejected another proposed Super Bowl ad, this one from conservative comedy site JesusHatesObama.com, according to published reports. Continue to read this story, for info on what the spot featured

Former NFL player takes red carpet gig from Ryan Seacrest

Fox will formally announce Friday that this will be an appropriate question on its Super Bowl pregame show: Who are you wearing? As in, which designer. A former NFL star has taken the celeb greeting gig away from Ryan Seacrest.

CBS is home of the NFL’s chattiest TV announcers

A study this season by The Count looked at every major NFL announcing outfit and counted how many words-per-minute the play-by-play and color men said. Hats off to CBS’s Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots, who amassed an amazing total of

Eagles QB and FOX broadcaster at same New Years Eve dinner

Eagles QB Kevin Kolb spent New Year’s Eve at DelFrisco’s (15th & Chestnut) dining in a party of six. Fox NFL sideline reporter Tony Siragusa also was there among a group of Fox folk. — Philadelphia Daily News

Fox News’ personality thinks Michael Vick should be executed

Tucker Carlson filled in for Sean Hannity Tuesday night on Fox News and made a shocking claim: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick should be executed. — Huffington Post

NFC West hurt FOX ratings

A battle of NFC West opponents was anything but a ratings magnet for FOX Sunday afternoon. The first game of Sunday’s NFL doubleheader on FOX, featuring 49ers/Rams in 61% of TV markets, earned an 8.8 overnight rating — down 26% from Week 16 last year (BAL/PIT*: 11.9, CBS), but up 10% from Week 16 in 2008 (AZ/NE*: 8.0, FOX). The 8.8 overnight is the third-lowest of the season for the NFL on broadcast TV, and the second-lowest on FOX. — Sports Media Watch

FOX NFL Broadcaster plays Santa Claus at nudie bar

Three hundred-pound former NFL giant and Fox sideline reporter Tony Siragusa played Santa Claus at gentlemen’s club Rick’s Cabaret, donning a Santa hat as he entertained ladies Continue reading

Top 10 U.S. TV Programs 2010

  1. Super Bowl XLIV    CBS    2/7/10    36.5
  2. Super Bowl XLIV Post Game CBS 2/7/10 25.8
  3. Super Bowl Kick-Off CBS 2/7/10 20.8
  4. FOX NFC Championship FOX 1/24/10 19.8
  5. AFC Championship on CBS CBS 1/24/10 16.1
  6. Academy Awards ABC 3/7/10 14.3
  7. Undercover Boss CBS 2/7/10 13.2
  8. FOX NFC Playoff-Sun FOX 1/17/10 12.9
  9. AFC Divisional Playoff-Sun CBS 1/17/10 12.2
  10. FOX NFC Wildcard Game FOX 1/10/10 11.8

Source: Nielsen

Soccer league wants SEVEN times more in TV money

Major League Soccer has asked Fox Soccer Channel to renew its TV deal at $20 million a year — nearly seven times more than the $3 million that FSC has paid annually since 2007, according to several sources. Continue reading

FOX could add music soundtracks to Super Bowl game coverage

A new kind of NFL scoring: adding music to TV game coverage. Don’t laugh. Fox will formally announce today that it will do that on its regional Arizona Cardinals-Carolina Panthers game Sunday (1 p.m. ET) after an unannounced test on last week’s Seattle Seahawks-San Francisco 49ers game. Fox Sports President Eric Shanks on whether such soundtracks will pop up on Fox’s upcoming Super Bowl: “It’s a possibility.” Given you’re bombarded with mood-prompting music in TV shows, ads and movies — and in stadiums and arenas during games — it’s seems inevitable that sideline shots of, say, Bill Belichick could end up being accentuated by Lady Gaga’s Poker Face. That’s Jay-Z’s I Know What Girls Like taking us inside the heads of kickers who just made game-winning field goals. Cue It’s Raining Men as players run out of tunnels. Everything going wrong for a team? Who you gonna call?Ghostbusters! Fox’s Shanks says game playlists could include famous artists — “the rule is you use it just once and don’t edit it” — but will also draw on original medleys. For Sunday’s game, Fox has 15 new cuts from James Cardoni, who has composed music for the prime-time show CSI. But having cuts you’d hear in movies, like spooky chords when babysitters find out the calls are coming from inside the house, is one thing. Knowing when to use them is another. “This is all in the execution,” Shanks says. “Just like music in movies, you have to use it at the right times. And imagine trying to score a movie the first time you’re seeing it.” Plus, he says, announcers during last week’s test game needed to get their groove on “to get a feel whether to keep talking or let the music build the suspense or drama for the next play.” — USA TODAY

NFL games could get sound track?

Fox is actually considering adding a sound track to its NFL football game coverage after testing the idea by adding snippets of music to its coverage of Seattle-San Francisco on Sunday. Says Fox spokesman Dan Bell: “It’s in the experimental stage. But yes, we’d consider doing it again.” Don’t laugh. Lots of sports movies — not to mention all those NFL Films shows whose highlights are backed up with heroic scores — make use of music. Actual stadiums, in various sports, go crazy with background music but TV would have a big advantage: Unlike stadiums that have to cut off the tunes just before the action, TV networks could let its melody build to a crescendo as plays unfold. — USA Today

Former NFL ref will be in Super Bowl broadcast booth

Mike Pereira’s rookie season at Fox will end up pretty well. He’ll be in Fox’s broadcast booth for its Super Bowl coverage. Probably “just standing in the corner,” he says, although “this means I’ll get another nice suit from Fox. … They manage to make me look halfway decent on camera, with the blanket they put on my face.” The idea will be for Pereira, who retired from overseeing NFL officiating before joining Fox, to be in the booth on Fox’s NFL playoff action as well as its Jan. 2 AT&T Cotton Bowl for his usual on-air cameos during instant replay reviews. This season, he has monitored NFL games from Fox’s Los Angeles studios and has gone 34-for-34 in predicting on-air what refs will decide. “I hold my breath every time. To be honest, I watch other networks’ games, and there have been a couple I got wrong. I’ve been lucky.” Fox Sports President Eric Shanks says Fox initially considered using Pereira for analysis online or on-air but via audio. Ultimately, he says, Fox decided to show him on-air because “people need to know he’s a real person.” — USA Today

TV deal with Fox estimated to bring Big Ten up to $25 mil per year

Speaking of smart, the Big Ten obviously was wise to add Nebraska and create a title game. It promises to pay for a lot of shoulder pads and lacrosse sticks. A source said the league’s six-year agreement with Fox Sports will be worth between $20-$25 million per season. At $22 million, divided equally among 12 campuses and the conference office, each school will get $1.7 million richer each year. The $22 million figure is more than analysts had estimated, given that the SEC title game is believed to be worth $14-$15 million a year. — Chicago Tribune

Bucs QB Josh Freeman gets national interview

Fox NFL Sunday will air a piece on Bucs QB Josh Freeman, who was interviewed by Pam Oliver on Wednesday at One Buc Place. The segment will also include an interview with Morris. — St. Petersburg Times

NFL broadcaster was spitter during career

No doubt Michael Strahan was speaking from experience on Fox’s pregame. Commenting on Channing Crowder’s allegation that Baltimore’s Le’Ron McClain spit in his face, Strahan said: “That (spitting) is the lowest disrespect you can show someone.” That was the “message” Strahan sent to ESPN’s Kelly Naqi in 2006 when he spit particles of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her face during a locker-room tirade. — NY Daily News

FOX NFL broadcasting star plans to work into late 70s

Terry Bradshaw admits he’s not good at picking winning teams as an analyst on “Fox NFL Sunday.” “I suck a lot,” the former Steeler quarterback told Maxim. “Everybody’s laughing at me, and that hurts. But you know what really burns my butt? [Co-host] Jimmy Johnson was winning them all the first few weeks.” Bradshaw, 62, sees himself in the gig until he’s in his late 70s, although his contract expires in four years. “I’ll be 66. That’s still young enough,” he said. “I’m in good shape and I’m cute as a button.” — NY Post

Top teams Oregon and TCU play TV games on small cable network

Versus will air games Saturday involving No. 1 Oregon and No. 3 TCU. The cable channel reaches about 75 million households —ESPN and ESPN2 reach 100 million and broadcast networks go to 114 million — and its games draw an average of 0.4% of cable TV households, less than one-fifth what ESPN’s games average. Versus got TCU vs. San Diego State because it has rights to Mountain West games. It got Oregon, playing at California in prime time, because ESPN/ABC passed. ESPN/ABC had to pick its Pacific-10 game for this Saturday’s prime time well before the season started and took Southern California-Arizona for ABC. ESPN/ABC does carry seven Oregon games this season. Then Versus, which sub-licenses Pac-10 TV game rights from Fox Sports Net, got a little lucky. FSN doesn’t have a nationally distributed Pac-10 TV game Saturday, so Versus got the Ducks and a game, if the 5-4 Bears are up to it, that might scramble the national title hunt. — USA Today

BCS ratings down 11 million on ESPN

Speaking of diminishing returns, are you watching the BCS Countdown show this year on ESPN? I didn’t think so. Through five weeks, the show is averaging 1.1 million viewers. Last year’s weekly updates were seen by an average of 12.1 million viewers on Fox’s NFL postgame shows. — Houston Chronicle

TV exec blames politicians for blacked out World Series games

News Corp.’s Chase Carey, the man who oversaw Fox’s talks with Cablevision Systems Corp. during a two- week blackout, has advice for government officials who want to keep more TV channels from going dark: Stop meddling. News Corp. last month cut off World Series games and shows including “Glee” to Cablevision’s 3 million customers after the two sides couldn’t agree on how much Cablevision should pay Fox. One problem, Carey said, was that the government wasn’t clear about whether it would intervene, leading Cablevision to think it might get better terms if it held out until the U.S. weighed in. “This process would have been resolved more easily, more quickly,” said Carey, chief operating officer and second-in- command to Rupert Murdoch. “I would actually contend we wouldn’t have gone off the air at all.” — Bloomberg

Fox’s Joe Buck: I’ll read anything at end of a broadcast put in front of me

As decisive Game 5 wrapped up Monday, Fox popped a graphic on the screen showing a glimpse of life in the United States in 1954, the last time the Giants were atop the baseball world. It showed, as Buck discussed: The price of gas was 21 cents a gallon, the president was Dwight Eisenhower, the top TV show was “I Love Lucy” … and no MLB teams were west of the Mississippi. Just one problem. The Cardinals have been playing just off the west bank of the Old Man River since the late 1800s, in Buck’s home town of St. Louis — where he has worked in the booths of that team that his dad broadcast for decades. Chalk it up to the perils of live TV, and Buck is having some fun with the flub. “This obviously proves I’ll read anything at the end of a broadcast put in front of me, which is exactly what got Ron Burgundy in trouble,” he quipped. (Burgundy was the bumbling newscaster portrayed by Will Ferrell in the 2004 comedy classic movie “Anchorman.”) Buck’s partner, analyst Tim McCarver, played in more than a thousand games for the Cardinals and also missed the miscue. “We never majored in geography,” Buck deadpanned. – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

FOX protects TWO Packers games from flex scheduling

Fox Television has protected the Green Bay Packers’ games at Minnesota (Nov. 21) and home against the New York Giants (Dec. 26), according to an NFL source, meaning they can’t be moved to the NBC Sunday night prime time game as flex scheduling allows in Weeks 11-17. As part of the flex scheduling, Fox and CBS are allowed to “protect” five games each that can’t be moved to NBC’s prime time broadcast. That means Fox used two of its five protections on the Packers. — Green Bay Press-Gazette

Pats owner talks Brett Favre scandal at dinner

Dallas Cowboy Troy Aikman dining at Davio’s Foxboro with Pats owner Bob Kraft and his wife Myra and Fox Sports correspondent Pam Oliver. Rumor has it Brett Favre’s current controversy was the hot dinner topic. — Boston Herald

FOX sells out Super Bowl spots

Fox Broadcasting sold the last of its commercial spots for the 2011 Super Bowl, which it will air in February, The Wall Street Journal said, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter. The last sale comes months earlier than usual, the newspaper said. A 30-second ad will sell for between $2.8 million and $3 million, above this year’s rates, the Journal said. — Bloomberg

11.6% of FOX NFL Pregame show spent laughing

An analysis of the CBS and Fox pregame shows before Week 5 shows that the hosts do spend a lengthy amount of time laughing—sometimes at nothing, sometimes at their own jokes and, occasionally, at things that are funny. The amount of time they laugh, though, is what sets them apart. The five hosts on Fox’s show—Curt Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jimmy Johnson—had a combined laughing time of two minutes, 22 seconds. That’s about 11.6% of the 20 minutes, 27 seconds they were shown on set together. Mr. Bradshaw was easily the laughing leader, going for about 92.4 seconds—including 2.5 seconds at the start of the show before anyone said anything. The CBS crew—Greg Gumbel, Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Shannon Sharpe and Boomer Esiason—only laughed for 43 seconds. That’s about one-third as much chuckling as the group at Fox. CBS declined to comment. Fox Sports spokesman Lou D’Ermilio says, “If we didn’t tell the guys to stop they would laugh and crack jokes 100% of the time.” — Wall Street Journal

ESPN trying to steal away Longhorns Network from F

ESPN has countered a bid by Fox Sports to operate a University of Texas channel and is now viewed by industry insiders as a legitimate competitor to partner with the school on a Longhorns network. ESPN’s pitch has been buoyed by John Skipper, the network’s executive vice president of content, who recently has engaged officials from Texas and the school’s multimedia rights holder, IMG College, in the negotiations. Though Skipper has not traveled to Texas for these negotiations, sources said he has been more engaged with IMG College, which is handling the bidding process. While Texas and IMG originally expected to have a network partner selected by the end of the month, sources say the timetable has shifted and likely will move into November. August is targeted for the formal launch of a Longhorns network, with programming from all of the school’s athletic teams on the channel. – Sports Business Journal

Manager joins Fox Sports World Series pregame show

For the Series, Fox will bring back Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on its pregame show and, in late innings of games, allow him to occasionally interact with game announcers Tim McCarver and Joe Buck. Fox’s Dan Bell says the network also plans to use a cable-cam, that will zip over the field, on games at AT&T Park in San Francisco. — USA Today

MLB umpire up for Mustached American of Year

The 19 finalists for the 2010 “Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year,” selected by the American Mustache Institute certified mustacheologists from a pool of more than 200 nominees, comprise a broad cross-section of qualified candidates including Sacramento Mayor and former NBA All-Star Kevin Johnson, Minnesota Twins pitcher Carl Pavano, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, Fox Sports Radio personality Pat O’Brien, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville, UTEP’s mascot “Paydirt Pete,” and MLB umpire Jim Joyce. — American Mustache Institute

FOX new MLB tagline features pitching

Fox adds ex-pitcher Mitch Williams, from MLB Network, as a pregame analyst for its National League Championship Series Games 1 and 2. Fox, in a takeoff of old Nike ads, debuts ads Friday with the tagline: “Chicks Dig the Fastball.”USA Today

University of Texas to partner with FOX for TV Network

Fox Sports has emerged as the front-runner in the competition to partner on the University of Texas’ fledgling television network. IMG College, the Longhorns’ multimedia rights holder, has been in talks with a number of potential partners for several months including Fox and ESPN, industry sources said. IMG is still engaged with ESPN, but a deal between the two is considered more of a long shot, as Fox has emerged as the favorite. IMG College and Texas intend to select a partner by the end of the month, sources said. The structure of that partnership could take many different forms, but that won’t be determined until after a partner is selected. Distributors, including DirecTV, AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Cable, as well as private equity investors, have had discussions with IMG College about the possibility of partnering with the agency on the channel. — Austin Business Journal

Former NFL coach gets shampoo endorsement

Legendary NFL coach Jimmy Johnson will return as the Denorex spokesperson and re-launch the iconic brand. Jimmy Johnson, a commentator for Fox NFL Sunday Pre-game show did commercials for Denorex back in 1996 and has been using Denorex ever since. “Everyone jokes about my hair, but the secret is I have been using Denorex for years. It really works at fighting dandruff while keeping my hair shiny and looking good.” — Ultimark Products

FOX exec joins World Cup USA bid

Fox Sports chairman David Hill has joined the board of directors for the USA Bid Committee attempting to lure soccer’s World Cup back to the United States in 2018 or 2022. The committee already includes names like ESPN executive vice president for content John Skipper, The Walt Disney Co. president and CEO Robert Iger, MLS founding investor Philip Anschutz and Univision CEO Joe Uva. Former President Bill Clinton is its honorary chairman. — MultiChannel News

90% of TV advertising sold for baseball’s playoffs, World Series

Rates for commercial spots during Major League Baseball’s postseason on Fox are up 8 percent from last year, with about 90 percent of the ads sold before the first pitch. News Corp.’s is Fox 25 percent to 30 percent ahead of ad sales in 2008 if it stays on the current pace, and double where it stood a year ago, when the economy slowed advance commitments. — Bloomberg

Jimmy Johnson: 18-game NFL season is just overtime

Fox’s Jimmy Johnson suggests the NFL going to an 18-game season “is no different than a company asking its workers to put in a little overtime” although he conceded rosters should be expanded for player “safety and overall health.” That’s so true. Who hasn’t worked a little overtime and found themselves at the bottom of a pile of squirming co-workers and competitors who, collectively, weigh a couple tons.