Fox is close to finalizing a deal to lure ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas for its upcoming reality show, The Next Great Champ, sources have told NYP TV Sports.
With 2½ years remaining on his ESPN deal, Atlas will still be a regular on ESPN2’s Tuesday and Friday Night Fights. Atlas’ ESPN contract gives the network veto power if he analyzes fights for another entity. This summer, ESPN is allowing Atlas to work the Olympics for NBC.
For the Fox show, Atlas will not be an analyst. Rather, he will be a trainer on the program.
“ESPN has been supportive of the project and has been assured by Teddy that Tuesdays and Fridays are his first priority,” Atlas’ agent, Gary Rosen, said.
ESPN spokesman Dan Quinn said, “We have not received any official word that Teddy is part of another series.”
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CBS recently brought in a series of candidates, including former Jet quarterback Neil O’Donnell, to try out as NFL game analysts. Rod Woodson and Steve Beuerlein impressed CBS execs the most. One of them may land with the network.
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In what would be a wise decision, ESPN25 – a series that celebrates the network’s 25th year – predominately plans on focusing on the events of the last quarter-century, not on ESPN. The previews we have viewed brought back a smorgasbord of sports goosebumps. On SportsCenter on Sunday, ESPN begins counting down the top 100 moments.
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After TNT’s opening for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals from Minneapolis, it failed to have sound for five minutes. Ernie Johnson, Inside the NBA’s host, jokingly blamed the sound outage on Charles Barkley pulling a plug. Barkley responded, “It is hard to get power when you are in the middle of nowhere.” Officially, a TNT spokesman, using some TV jargon, said it was due to a routing problem.
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During ESPN’s Dream Job, Al Jaffe, the network’s vice president of talent and a judge on the show, chastised one of a contestants, saying that a SportsCenter host would never reference his alma mater. On Sunday, introducing a SportsCenter segment with George Karl, Stuart Scott said, “Just a couple of Tar Heels talking about the Western Conference Finals.” Both Karl and Scott went to North Carolina.
“Credibility is the most important thing we have in our relationship with our viewers,” said SportsCenter’s managing editor, Norby Williamson. “While we are as passionate about sports as our viewers, it is important we minimize expressing those individual passions on the air.”
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New York voters for a Sports Illustrated 50th anniversary poll picked John Madden (16 percent), Marv Albert (10 percent) and Phil Rizzuto (6 percent) as the state’s three favorite sportscasters.