BCS, NFL Network down, outdoor hockey up
Things were busy over the holidays while I was taking some time off. So to catch up, I'm just going to shake my notebook upside down and see what falls out.
The Bowl Championship Series is broke and can't be fixed. University of Georgia president Michael Adams is right when he says, "I believe the season is already too long and demands too much of athletes and the universities that serve them. But this year's experience with the BCS forces me to the conclusion that the current system has lost public confidence and simply does not work."
Adams suggested an eight-team playoff, but that ain't gonna fly. As Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said in an interview on XM satellite radio: "We've never seen a four-team playoff stay as a four-team playoff. So if you are concerned, and we are, about an eight-team, 12-team or 16-team playoff and what it would do to college football, we don't believe that you allow the camel's nose under the tent with a four-team playoff."
I don't know what Delany thinks he's saying about the camel's nose, but he went on to bemoan the weakening of the bowl system. And I do know Fox is getting dwindling returns out of milking the BCS. It seemed to me there was less interest in the Ohio State-Louisiana State match-up this year than in any so-called national championship game I can remember. It drew 23 million viewers, about what the first-round NFL playoff games did last weekend, and far short of the 30 million who routinely watched the Patriots' biggest regular-season games.
Forget the playoff; let's go back to ferocious and open-ended debates on who's No. 1. What ABC's Keith Jackson said six years ago still goes: "There's too much emphasis on money. It was wonderful the way it was in the '70s. It's a bother to see this pell-mell rush toward a pile of money, but that's what we've got. … I like the bowl games left alone. Don't mess with it."
The NFL Network is a crock. It was a nice acting job with the crocodile tears, but the NFL was never going to hold the Patriots-Giants season finale hostage for its network. By giving the rights to CBS and NBC as well, it generated interest and produced the most-watched game of the season at 34.5 million viewers, with CBS claiming the most at 16 million.
But the coverage was rank. Bryant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth raised editorial-independence issues with their coddling treatment of the refs, and the NFL Network never even had an isolation shot of Randy Moss on the game-winning touchdown. I maintain, self-run operations like the NFL Network, the Big Ten Network and NBA TV are bad ideas, and the sooner viewers can relegate them to inconsequence the better.
Outdoor hockey rocks. NBC's coverage of the New Year's Day Sabres-Penguins game at Buffalo's Rich Stadium was great, complete with the droplet-covered camera lenses. It did a humble 2.6 national rating, accounting for about 5 percent of the viewing audience, and Chicago was not one of the top-10 markets. (It did better numbers in Las Vegas.) But you can be sure John McDonough is already volunteering the Blackhawks for something of the sort next season at Soldier Field. It can't happen soon enough.
In the air
Remotely interesting: Chicagoan Jeff Miller dethroned Lombard's Jason Pisarik in the "Ultimate Couch Potato" competition at ESPN Zone downtown by watching TV more than 40 hours straight from New Year's Day into Jan. 3.
Cub TV announcers Len Kasper and Bob Brenly hold their second annual Len & Bob Bash at the House of Blues downtown at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with Sun Volt headlining. Tickets are $30 in advance, $33 at the door, with proceeds going to Chicago Cubs Charities. Sorry, kids; it's 21 and over.
End of the dial: WMVP 1000-AM sped past WSCR 670-AM in fall Arbitron ratings released this week. WMVP posted a 1.7 percent share of the overall audience 12 and older, while the Score did a 1.5 share. Dan McNeil's show on WMVP and Dan Bernstein & Terry Boers on the Score were 1-2 with men age 25-54 from 2-6 p.m.
WMVP picks up Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser's half-hour "PTI" at 7 p.m. starting Monday. Kornheiser's radio show has been picked up by XM, which is also running Dan Patrick's new show. … The Score has signed a two-year deal to air the Arena Football Rush games. Tom Dore and James "Big Cat" Williams remain in the booth.
-- Ted Cox