For all the technical wizardry Fox has brought to the table over its five years of operating a sports division, perhaps its most significant contribution is adding fresh faces to the sportscasting mix.
Through Fox, national audiences have been introduced to such promising young phenoms as Joe Buck, Thom Brennaman and Josh Lewin, who have all become recognizable faces to the sports viewer and cornerstones of the network's operation.
"The reality is we've started out with these young broadcasters and all of them have grown and matured to where they've done a number of big events," said Fox executive producer Ed Goren. "Whenever we do get a new series, we look to stay in-house and reward the folks who have done the job for us."
You can add Kenny Albert to the list of the Fox "mod squad." The progeny of the famed Marv, Kenny Albert will be getting one of his first big national breaks this weekend, when he takes over hosting duties for Fox's new horse racing series.
Albert, 31, who will be taking over for Buck starting with Saturday's telecast of the Santa Anita Handicap, isn't promising to set the world on fire with his expertise on the sport of kings, which admittedly isn't high.
Rather, he's looking to do what he can to keep the telecast moving.
"Joe Buck did a great job on the Donn [Handicap]. He did a terrific job of laying things out for the viewer. I'm sure Joe saw his job as I see mine: as a traffic cop," said Albert. "I'm not going to pretend to be an expert."
Said Goren: "That's a healthier perspective for the broadcast, not to have four hard-core racing personalities, so that there's an even-handed feel to the broadcast. Besides, I was trying to find any sport that Kenny's father hadn't done that he could go home and say, 'Hey, Dad. Here's one.' "
The questions about his ability to do horse racing are nothing new for Albert, who did Baltimore Skipjacks games in the late 1980s and got one of his first big professional breaks doing Washington Capitals games for Home Team Sports.
"When Fox Sports started five years ago and I was doing football, I probably found the same questions then that I'm getting now," said Albert. "My answer then was 'Tune in to the telecast and make your decision after that.' "
Executive transactions
The easier part of giving away former ABC Sports President and ESPN Chairman Steve Bornstein's job responsibilities has been dealt with, as George Bodenheimer, who had been named ESPN's president in November and placed in charge of domestic operations, now takes over the company's financial and international areas as well.
The fun part will be watching to see who takes over at ABC Sports, where there are big decisions to be made, such as, whether there will be a third person in the "Monday Night Football" booth and who that person might be, as well as who will run the production end of things as executive producer.
Given that Bornstein, the new head of ABC, Inc., will have supervision over both the cable and broadcast wings of the operation, it's safe to say that the mingling of ABC Sports and ESPN will continue, but the extent of the mingling will have some say in that, as soon as he (or she) is chosen.
Slamming coverage
The seniors hit the course at Los Cabos tonight and tomorrow for the Senior Slam tournament, which pits the winners of last year's four majors on the Senior PGA tour.
Hale Irwin, the 1997 Slam winner who also took two majors last year, will meet Gil Morgan, who captured two 1998 majors as well as last year's Slam. Larry Nelson and Jay Sigel, who were third and fourth, respectively, on the senior tour last year in earnings, will round out the foursome.
Ernie Johnson, Bobby Clampett and Billy Kratzert will call the tape-delayed action on TBS, with each night's program kicking off at 7: 05.
Nitpicking
Hate to be anal retentive about this, but it's been more than a little bothersome to read and hear how teams like Duke and Connecticut, for instance, have clinched conference championships.
It's just not true, not yet, at least. In all but two conferences, the Pac-10 and the Ivy League, the regular season serves only as pretext to the conference tournament, where an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament is awarded to the tournament winner.
Most conferences don't even recognize a "regular-season champion" as such. So, for example, if Maryland wins this weekend's Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, they, and not, Duke will go in the books as the conference champion, even with the Blue Devils' 16-0 regular-season mark.
Meanwhile, for all its dominance of the Northeast Conference, the UMBC men are quite likely to find themselves bid-less this Sunday when the NCAA draw is announced, because, for the smaller conferences, the regular season means little if anything.
Just like the blanket and erroneous reporting of July 31 as some baseball trading deadline, this is just another example of a lazy media failing to tell a complete story.
Pub Date: 3/02/99