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By George M. Thomas
Beacon Journal sports writer
POSTED: 12:38 p.m. EDT, Aug 07, 2008
Is anything happening in the world of sports Friday? Oh, yeah. The Olympics ''officially'' kick off Friday.
''Officially'' because I caught a glance at the U.S. women's soccer team taking one on the chin against Norway on Wednesday morning.
Amazing how we've not officially begun the games and bad things and minor faux pas have reared their pesky little heads. First China flips on censorship and then U.S. cyclists, worried about breathing that pristine Beijing air, arrive wearing surgical face masks. Sweet.
But enough of controversy. (Like this will be the last of it). Let the games begin, and trust me, NBC and its broadcast partners are going out of their way to ensure that Olympics junkies overdose on this stuff.
In addition to NBC putting the games on all its cable channels, including MSNBC (there goes my Morning Joe), CNBC, USA, Oxygen (What? No Hydrogen?), Universal HD and Telemundo, video providers are aiding and abetting the cause.
Time Warner has all of those channels, and they will also give subscribers access to video-on-demand content via In Games on Demand, allowing folks to pull up the best action and highlights of the day.
More intriguing, and useful, is that the suits in charge of what's airing realize what will be the draw for this Olympiad. Sorry, it isn't gymnastics, it isn't archery and it certainly isn't water polo. There will be one channel devoted exclusively to soccer (Channel 452) and another for basketball (Channel 451) where viewers will find 12 hours of coverage each day.
That saves some of us the time of having to sift through that other stuff hoping to get to what we want. Like many of you, I'm interested only in what the men's basketball team does.
The rest? While those athletes deserve praise for hard work in the name of their country, well, thank God for mediocre preseason football and the NFL Network.
AT&T has similar plans with its U-verse video service, but the focus is on its ''three-screens strategy'' (television, computer, phone). AT&T has added NBC Olympic 2Go to its wireless television lineup for the length of the games for live streaming.
U-verse folks, don't feel left out. Turn on the menu button and Olympics aficionados will arrive in heaven. There's an entire area devoted to this event, access to the entire rosters for the current Team USA, a medal tracker and on-demand programs available via broadband on the Internet. And yes, U-verse also will have the specialized soccer and basketball channels on positions 82 and 83, respectively.
MAC's back again
The Mid-America Conference's football teams must have done something right last year. The league has signed up for another year of broadcasts on ESPN's regional television network.
Last year's launch of the Big Ten Network forced ESPN Regional Television to seek out programming to replace C-list Big Ten games they normally would have broadcast.
Of particular note, the Oct. 4 meeting between the Kent State Golden Flashes and University of Akron Zips will air on the network, including WEWS (Channel 5). The network also will air KSU's game Sept. 27 against Ball State.
Former voice of the Cavaliers and passionate football fan Michael Reghi will lend his knowledge and confident voice to telecasts along with Doug Chapman. The season kicks off Sept. 13 for a six-week broadcast schedule.
George M. Thomas can be reached at sportswriterabj@sbcglobal.net. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/sportsblitz/.
Is anything happening in the world of sports Friday? Oh, yeah. The Olympics ''officially'' kick off Friday.
''Officially'' because I caught a glance at the U.S. women's soccer team taking one on the chin against Norway on Wednesday morning.
Amazing how we've not officially begun the games and bad things and minor faux pas have reared their pesky little heads. First China flips on censorship and then U.S. cyclists, worried about breathing that pristine Beijing air, arrive wearing surgical face masks. Sweet.
But enough of controversy. (Like this will be the last of it). Let the games begin, and trust me, NBC and its broadcast partners are going out of their way to ensure that Olympics junkies overdose on this stuff.
In addition to NBC putting the games on all its cable channels, including MSNBC (there goes my Morning Joe), CNBC, USA, Oxygen (What? No Hydrogen?), Universal HD and Telemundo, video providers are aiding and abetting the cause.
Time Warner has all of those channels, and they will also give subscribers access to video-on-demand content via In Games on Demand, allowing folks to pull up the best action and highlights of the day.
More intriguing, and useful, is that the suits in charge of what's airing realize what will be the draw for this Olympiad. Sorry, it isn't gymnastics, it isn't archery and it certainly isn't water polo. There will be one channel devoted exclusively to soccer (Channel 452) and another for basketball (Channel 451) where viewers will find 12 hours of coverage each day.
That saves some of us the time of having to sift through that other stuff hoping to get to what we want. Like many of you, I'm interested only in what the men's basketball team does.
The rest? While those athletes deserve praise for hard work in the name of their country, well, thank God for mediocre preseason football and the NFL Network.
AT&T has similar plans with its U-verse video service, but the focus is on its ''three-screens strategy'' (television, computer, phone). AT&T has added NBC Olympic 2Go to its wireless television lineup for the length of the games for live streaming.
U-verse folks, don't feel left out. Turn on the menu button and Olympics aficionados will arrive in heaven. There's an entire area devoted to this event, access to the entire rosters for the current Team USA, a medal tracker and on-demand programs available via broadband on the Internet. And yes, U-verse also will have the specialized soccer and basketball channels on positions 82 and 83, respectively.
MAC's back again
The Mid-America Conference's football teams must have done something right last year. The league has signed up for another year of broadcasts on ESPN's regional television network.
Last year's launch of the Big Ten Network forced ESPN Regional Television to seek out programming to replace C-list Big Ten games they normally would have broadcast.
Of particular note, the Oct. 4 meeting between the Kent State Golden Flashes and University of Akron Zips will air on the network, including WEWS (Channel 5). The network also will air KSU's game Sept. 27 against Ball State.
Former voice of the Cavaliers and passionate football fan Michael Reghi will lend his knowledge and confident voice to telecasts along with Doug Chapman. The season kicks off Sept. 13 for a six-week broadcast schedule.
George M. Thomas can be reached at sportswriterabj@sbcglobal.net. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/sportsblitz/.
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