FOX announces BCS broadcast teams
By Michael Hiestand The Associated Press
Fox has formally announced the complete on-air lineup it has cobbled together to cover the biggest games in a sport the network otherwise doesn't cover.
Fox this season inherits four of college football's Bowl Championship Series games — ABC retains the Rose Bowl — including the Jan. 8 national title game.
But since Fox doesn't cover college football — and didn't want to use ABC/ESPN or CBS announcers, even if they were made available — it will pop up with a college lineup borrowing heavily from its NFL ranks.
The final on-air slots being announced: Pat Haden, an analyst on NBC's TV package of Notre Dame home games, will work with Terry Donahue, a Fox NFL analyst, and play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian — who called XFL action and has proven it wasn't a career-killer — to call the Jan. 2 Orange Bowl.
Other Fox NFL announcers working BCS games include Kenny Albert, Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw on the Jan. 3 Sugar Bowl. But, says Fox's Dan Bell, BCS coverage won't cause anybody at Fox to miss any NFL on-air assignments.
But BCS coverage might slightly alter Fox's NFL coverage. Pat Summerall, who'll call the non-BCS Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, has called one Fox NFL game this season and might work another. Says Fox's Bell: "We want to give him some reps before the bowl."
Fox announcer Thom Brennaman, ex-Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez and TBS analyst Charles Davis — who'll call Fox's Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl and the title game — get reps Saturday when they do an off-air practice call of the Buffalo-Wisconsin game.
On tap — Bryant Gumbel, calling his first NFL game Thanksgiving night when the NFL Network kicks off its games with Denver-Kansas City, suggested Tuesday he doesn't see the broadcast booth as a bully pulpit.
In August on HBO's Real Sports, which Gumbel hosts, he had a commentary noting "the obscene amounts of money" that NFL owners are making. You'd think the league would have taken that as the ultimate compliment. But instead it drew guffaws over whether Gumbel would be too opinionated or forced to be too deferential on the league's own network — when the hubbub only made it impossible for the league's channel to fire Gumbel, since that would have hurt its credibility before it had ever covered a game.
Tuesday, Gumbel said he and partner Cris Collinsworth don't plan to be "rabble-rousers" or "stir the pot unnecessarily" or "bring our opinions and throw them in the pot arbitrarily." They won't have NFL "handcuffs," he says, but also won't "try to make people jump out of their seats."
Said Collinsworth, who also works for NBC and HBO: "I'm not going to change who I am for the sake of this network. And that's why I think I was hired."
Spice rack — Benny Parsons, a NASCAR analyst on NBC and TNT who just finished treatments for lung cancer, will be back on-air when NASCAR's new TV contracts kick in next year — in an unspecified role on TNT's six-race midseason package. Says Parsons: "How 'bout that! Old BP isn't dead! It's hard to express the gratitude for putting me in the game at 65. It's unbelievable because you're at an age when you wonder if you'll ever get a job again. Wow!"
•Says ABC/ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit, the ex-Ohio State quarterback who'll call Michigan-Ohio State on Saturday, about the rivalry: "It sounds sick. But all I've lived for my entire life is watching that game." It does sound sick.
• ESPN Monday Night Football's ho-hum Carolina-Tampa Bay drew a season-low 7.7 million households, the first time this season that MNF drew a smaller audience than ESPN's corresponding Sunday night game last season.
|
