Michael Phelps is now etched forever on Mount Olympus.

Aquaman’s eight-gold-medal-pool performance lifted him to the top of the individual Games podium washing away Mark Spitz’s Munich mark in its wake—much to the delight of Dick Ebersol and millions of American TV viewers.

The Lord of Baltimore -- with big assists from Jason Lezak’s come-from-behind final lap in the 4x100 freestyle to help pin gold No. 2 and Milorad Cavic (just touch the wall, baby) coming up short in the 100 meter butterfly for No. 7 -- captivated the Nielsens and a nation.

'The Phelps Phenomenon' helped NBC ring up unexpected ratings that evidently surpassed the 15.0 primetime guarantee the Peacock promised to advertisers and led NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker last week to proclaim the viability of broadcast networks.

Yes, sports and a culturally trans...Read More

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The ethereal opening ceremony, which used technical and engineering wizardry to give us a bird’s eye view from the “Bird’s Nest” that showcased China’s history, culture, people and symbolic hope for a harmonic future (so said Mssrs. Costas, Lauer and Cooper Ramo on NBC’s presentation), is in the books. (Note to opening ceremony and TV directors: Maybe you shouldn’t have gone to close-up on Li Ning as he was about to light the Olympic cauldron -- the suspension wires kinda ruined his flight effect.)

Now, the Beijing Games have officially arrived and so is the counting.

Will the host nation bridge its 102-63 me...Read More

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The ghost of Roy Hobbs was in The Bronx last night.

Josh Hamilton put on an incredible power display for more than 53,000 in Yankee Stadium and ESPN’s international television audience during the 2008 State Farm Home Run Derby. The Texas Rangers outfielder shattered the event record, cracking 28 home runs in the first round, including 13 in a row at one juncture.

Not a Stadium homer, among them -- you know the pop fly variety into the short porch in rightfield, made famous in relatively recent vintage by Graig Nettles and the late Bobby Murcer, God rest his soul.

No, Hamilton delivered a few lasers down the rightfield line. Most were towering drives into the upper deck, or deep into the rear rows of the bleachers. A couple of parabolas made it into the black seats in centerfield.. His second homer, struck just above the Bank of America ...Read More

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It's just after 2 p.m.(ET) on the Fourth of the July. But I'm betting the top image on SportsCenter today will be YES's frame of Kevin Youklis' shot falling out of Johnny Damon's glove as he crashed into the left centerfield wall, and the ball then resting atop the fence. The ball teetered and then fell back into play. Damon, with a fan emphatically pointing through the plexiglass toward the sphere on the warning track, fired it back in as the Bosox tied the game at 3-3 with the two-run triple.

Yes, the New York Yankees hosting the Boston Red Sox at the Stadium (25 years after Dave Righetti struck out Wade Boggs to complete an Independence Day no-no at The House...Read More

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Could the U.S. Open set up any better for ESPN to break its own cable ratings record for golf?

Probably not! The top three players in the world -- Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott,
respectively -- are being paired together at San Diego’s Torrey Pines for the first two rounds of the national championship event.

During the second round of The Masters on April 11, ESPN holed a 3.1 household rating and 3.01 million impressions with its coverage from 4 p.m. to 7:44 p.m.. The performance marked the first time one of the first two rounds of The Masters, previously televised by USA Network, surpassed the 3 million household mark, making it the most-viewed golf telecast in cable history.

As you read this, the trio, whic...Read More

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On the day he passed, the TV sports calendar paid tribute to Jim McKay.

The face of ABC’s Wide World of Sports and a commentator/host of a dozen Olympics for three networks, McKay died of natural causes at age 86 on June 7. From cliff diving to wrist wrestling, gymnastics to weight lifting, track and field to the links and the ponies, plus countless other forms of competition in between, McKay was on the scene. Spanning the globe, he did bring the constant variety of sports into our living rooms, including the tragic news of the Israeli massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

News about Paul Pierce's status for Game 2 of the NBA Finals and Major League Baseball aside, the June 7 calendar reflected the gamut and internationalization of games, that McKay, along with the late Roone Arledge, had helped usher in nearly five decades earli...Read More

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“So are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced?  Well I have. Ah, let me prove it to you.”

Jimi Hendrix, Are You Experienced?

There was no feedback or fuzz guitar. But there were plenty of bells and whistles and TV screens. Did I mention TV screens, which is ironic in a sense, because NBC Universal’s Experience -- its party/tour substitute for a more formal/traditional upfront presentation to advertisers Monday evening -- was supposed to immerse clients in all the programmer/content provider can proffer.

And to that extent, it did. In what amounted to some parts carnival, arcade and sponsors' village, the Experience began with a multi-level floor walk -- steered traffic pattern is the phrase at retail -- through the NBC Universal Store, adjacent to 30 Rock on 49^th Street. Atten...Read More

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A double-double is a good thing for basketball players.

Good for the networks that carry the games, too -- as in double-digit gains in viewers and demographics. That’s where national cable carriers TNT and ESPN stood with the first round of the NBA playoffs.

Makes sense. Both networks posted double-digit ratings and audience segment increases during the 2007-08 regular season, one of the most exciting in league history. A ...Read More

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Sports fans had some national choices Saturday afternoon and evening.

TNT tipped off game Game 4 action in the Toronto-Orlando opening-round playoff series, while the Los Angeles Lakers looked to go three up on Allen Iverson, Carmello Anthony and the rest of George Karl’s (for how long) Denver Nuggets.

Over on Fox, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver were weighing in on young right-hander Ian Kennedy’s continuing struggles for the New York Yankees in what ultimately became a 4-3 loss to the Cleveland Indians.

The big elephant in the living room, though, was ESPN’s coverage of the NFL draft (sorry, NFL Network, no Cablevision carriage, no other mention).

The annual pro pigskin pick-em party, also known as “Mel Kiper’s Meat Market,” was moved back three hours from its usual noon start, kicking off instead from 3 p.m...Read More

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When it comes to the National Football League, $1.1 billion apparently doesn't buy you much.

That's ESPN's annual rights payment under an eight-year, $8.8 million dollar deal. For its 2008 outlay, the total sports network has received a 17-game Monday Night Football schedule featuring just two games matching playoff teams from the 2007 season: the week 8 Colts-Tennessee Titans battle on Oct. 27 and the Pittsburgh Steelers-Washington Redskins contest the week after on Nov. 3, the night before the presidential election. 

All told, ESPN gets 10 playoff teams from a year ago, including a trio of appearances from the Brett Favre-less Green Bay Packers and two Steelers contests.

Past that, ESPN only gets one game --week 6’s New York Giants-Cleveland Browns tilt -- where winners from last year crack helmets and three others squari...Read More

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The San Antonio and Tampa runs are done. Brackets aside (thanks, John Calipari and Mario Chalmers for making me a tad richer), the action was fairly maddening.

First the men. Four No. 1 seeds for the first time. College basketball royalty in the form of UCLA, UNC and KU. The fourth entry: the upstart men from Memphis, top-ranked in the land for most of the season. The group should have produced big Nielsens for CBS. But the action in the semifinals didn’t comply. UCLA missed tons of open shots, the Tigers’ Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts were superior in the backcourt and you never got the feeling that the Bruins were in the game in the second half.

In the Final Four nightcap, UNC came out flat; Kansas amped. The result a 40-12 lead for the eventual national champions and the sound of many TV clicking to Spike TV and TNT’s presentations of...Read More

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Opening Day, er Opening Night, is in the books at the Stadium. The last one in the “House that Ruth Built.”

It’s supposed to be a happy occasion, the birth of a new season, the arrival of spring and the celebration of baseball’s Cathedral. But it’s bittersweet. As they said after the fifth inning when the contest became official, there are only 80 regular-season games left at Yankee Stadium, where Joe Dimaggio, Mickey Mantle and Bernie Williams once roamed. And unless the young pitching staff realizes over-inflated expectations, the Sept. 21^st contest against the Baltimore Orioles will mark the end of the line for the "Big Ballpark in the Bronx" (unless you count a proposed NHL game; don’t get me started on that).

If you’ve ever spoken to me, then my voice lets you know. If you have...Read More

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