The question for CBS Sports Network, known as the CBS College Sports Network until it was rebranded two months ago: What should viewers think it is?
By Carlos Osorio, AP
Former Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez has joined CBS Sports Network as an analyst.
By Carlos Osorio, AP
Former Michigan head football coach Rich Rodriguez has joined CBS Sports Network as an analyst.
Sport-specific channels don't have that problem. But CBS' cable TV channel, like NBC's Versus, are general-interest sports channels — and searching for obvious identities that go beyond their tie-ins to broadcast networks.
CBSSN President David Berson says replacing weekday reruns with talk shows — "live, daily topical coverage" — are in the works. Berson, in a move to be formally announced Wednesday, says "the first one out of the gate" will debut in August: Tim Brando Show, a simulcast of the CBS announcer's Sporting News Radioshow that will now move to a TV studio.
CBSSN, which carries Mountain West and Conference USA football games, will also add ex-Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez as an analyst. Berson says CBSSN, in about 43 million homes and available to an additional 52 million on pay tiers, will keep tying in with CBS' announcers and events and look for more of its own events — "but the sports rights landscape is incredibly competitive now."
So what will be the channel's hook for viewers? Says Berson: "A combination of compelling events and personalities that engage fans around the clock."
The devil, of course, will be in the details.
Chris Evert: Everybody is a critic. Chris Evert, on ESPN2's Wimbledon coverage in a return to TV after a decade away, on what bugs her on TV tennis: "The thing that annoys me is when someone's going on and on about what this player at 8 years old was doing and that his father was this. I'm just more interested in what's going on in a match rather than whether somebody's father was a soccer champion." So why is Evert coming back on-air? "I'm a little different person than I was 10 years ago. After I retired from tennis I went the next year to NBC — that was the thing to do after you retired. Now I'm going back because I want to."
Spice rack: Sports marketing expert Bob Dorfman's idea for an ad off the NBA Finals: "Wouldn't you love to see a commercial featuring David Stern washing out Mark Cuban's mouth with Ivory soap?" Well, yes. …ESPN Classic will try something new on weekends: 50 hours of sports films, largely documentaries. Call ESPN if you can figure out an obvious reason for ESPN Classic to exist. … Harold Lederman, a pharmacist who's scored boxing matches for HBO for decades , gets his first chance to call a fight. With HBO announcer Max Kellerman's wife expecting a baby, Lederman calls the Adrien Broner-Jason Litzau fight in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Saturday.
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