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mikemarc1

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Nov 28, 2005
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Mike Torico is leaving ESPN and Monday Night Football for NBC Sports.

Will work NBC's new Thursday Night Football NFL games, and take over Sunday Night football when Al Michaels retires. Will also reportedly anchor Olympics coverage.

Also, Brad Nessler, ESPN's lead college football announcer, is leaving for CBS. Will take over for Verne Lundquist on the SEC package when he retires. ESPN losing 2 pretty big names

Wonder what all this means for ESPN's dedication of live game broadcasting and if it will effect a B1G rights bid.

Interesting stuff
 
Also being speculated McDonough, who I think is ESPN'S best play by play, will replace tirico on MNF.

That means ESPN has to replace 2 of their top 3 college football guys.

True, not really MAJOR news for the casual fan, but ESPN, who's been the leader in sports for decades, losing this type of talent to other networks may be a signal times are changing.
 
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Upstream said:
This is major news? I'm not even sure it is minor news.
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We're all big football fans....it's definitely worth mentioning here in that context.

Here's what I want to know....what do the readers of this forum think of Gus Johnson? He's getting the big push from Fox, so he may feature in the future of RU's B1G era.
 
Ataylor1989x said:
We're all big football fans....it's definitely worth mentioning here in that context.

Here's what I want to know....what do the readers of this forum think of Gus Johnson? He's getting the big push from Fox, so he may feature in the future of RU's B1G era.
Click to expand...

Not a big Gus fan. Definitely over does it alot.
 
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mikemarc1 said:
People who cover sports media are classifying it as such.

U r right..not major news. But as my title said, in the broadcasting world..if u r into thats, it's pretty big
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Just to put this into perspective: Major sports broadcasting news is something like Curt Schilling getting fired by ESPN last week.
 
Upstream said:
Just to put this into perspective: Major sports broadcasting news is something like Curt Schilling getting fired by ESPN last week.
Click to expand...

I'd agree that's the bigger "news story" and that's a story you'd likely see more from a traditional news outlet.

But in terms of broadcasting and the ripple effect this will cause on two networks..this is much bigger.
 
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scarletrat said:
not surprising, ESPN has overextended financially with its deals for rights fees and is now trying to cut back where it can...
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Scarletrat has it right. ESPN is happy to lose its highest paid staff. Lots of hungry guys waiting in the wings.

Besides, more money to offer the BIG!
 
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It is major news . Tirico is ok . Anchoring Olympics coverage ? I thought that was mostly Costas and some fill ins . I like Gus Johnson , always thought he was great for the tournament and sad he left to fox .
And when exactly are Michaels and lundquist going to retire ? Both have some good years left .
 
oldtimer67 said:
Scarletrat has it right. ESPN is happy to lose its highest paid staff. Lots of hungry guys waiting in the wings.

Besides, more money to offer the BIG!
Click to expand...

So ESPN is selling off their fat? It's possible

The B1G and the sec will be the last two giants standing, this because of the smart moves pulled off by their leadership. I'm not sure how many people realize the life raft we were given at the last second. Rutgers gets another chance at being the power it should be - and of course it does - we started this whole college football thing.
 
Sorry some of you aren't going to want to hear this but you're reading this wrong. I'd anything this signifies how strong ESPNs position is. That they have such good content they realize that the talent isn't why people watch live sports the content is.

If you think that the salaries of college football announcers make any sort of dent on Disney's bottom line you are extremely off base.
 
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ruready07 said:
So ESPN is selling off their fat? It's possible

The B1G and the sec will be the last two giants standing, this because of the smart moves pulled off by their leadership. I'm not sure how many people realize the life raft we were given at the last second. Rutgers gets another chance at being the power it should be - and of course it does - we started this whole college football thing.
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Not just because of the bolded quote. They also have the best football product, tradition and the most ardent football fans. It helps the leadership to be able to develop and sell what the fans want.
 
Since Howard Cosell died, no sportscaster doing anything short of violent crime qualifies as "news." That being said, it is interesting how ESPN first cuts back on some of its high-priced talent and then appears willing to let other guys go.

But, as noted above, content rules. You will put up with mediocre announcers to see the games you want to see. (And Tirico doesn't even reach "mediocre" to me.)
 
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mikemarc1 said:
Mike Torico is leaving ESPN and Monday Night Football for NBC Sports.Will work NBC's new Thursday Night Football NFL games, and take over Sunday Night football when Al Michaels retires. Will also reportedly anchor Olympics coverage. Also, Brad Nessler, ESPN's lead college football announcer, is leaving for CBS. Will take over for Verne Lundquist on the SEC package when he retires. ESPN losing 2 pretty big names Wonder what all this means for ESPN's dedication of live game broadcasting and if it will effect a B1G rights bid. Interesting stuff
Click to expand...

Upstream said:
This is major news? I'm not even sure it is minor news.
Click to expand...

YOU must see the bigger story here! YES this is really big news as it looking like we will lost our long standing announcer Chris Carlin as ESPiN needs to replace all their lost talent
 
BoroKnight said:
Since Howard Cosell died, no sportscaster doing anything short of violent crime qualifies as "news." That being said, it is interesting how ESPN first cuts back on some of its high-priced talent and then appears willing to let other guys go.

But, as noted above, content rules. You will put up with mediocre announcers to see the games you want to see. (And Tirico doesn't even reach "mediocre" to me.)
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With the networks' NFL games, on-air announcers are overrated. Content is king and people will watch regardless of broadcasters. Torico is plain vanilla to me - you don't really notice he's doing the game (not always a bad quality). Nessler I think is very good and there is viewer competition for college games so I think he's a bigger loss for ESPN. Obviously, budget cutbacks at ESPN play a role here, but if you hadn't posted this I wouldn't have noticed that either dude was on a different network.

Baseball is a different ballgame though - with so much down time during the game and local homer-ism, personality matters much more.
 
Regardless of your thoughts on Tricio, he's a competent, professional broadcaster. It seems like ESPN isn't making much effort to keep the professional broadcasters and journalists. Not when they can give more time to clowns like Bayless and Stephen A.
 
ESPN has been bringing in younger on air people at I assume a much lower salary for a while. There are places where they can cut costs and places they can't right now. On air talent is one they can.
 
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It seems that Tirico has been around for a long time. Yet he isn't even 50 years old. Good for him. The guy can settle down. He traveled an awful lot in his days at ESPN. Probably more than anyone in sports. Met him flying out of Atlanta on the night of the Super Bowl. He worked that week and was flying to Syracuse to do a basketball game. He was in 6 different cities in the next 7 days. That's not an easy life.
 
Speaking about ESPN, Bob Ley was at the restaurant I work at Sunday. Spoke to him for a bit.

No, didn't talk about RU, the B1G, or ESPN's agenda. Wasn't appropriate. We talked about his days at Suburban Cablevision prior to the big move up.
 
Nosoj said:
Regardless of your thoughts on Tricio, he's a competent, professional broadcaster. It seems like ESPN isn't making much effort to keep the professional broadcasters and journalists. Not when they can give more time to clowns like Bayless and Stephen A.
Click to expand...

SirScarlet said:
this on the other hand is MAJOR news...the less people who have to listen to this jagoff the better

View embedded media
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I stand corrected lol
 
Agree with the above posts about ESPN cutting costs where they can. I believe Fox is going to pay Bayless between 5-6M/yr, for all the good it'll do them. I'm sure most of the other on air talent that has left have also gotten raises by leaving. It's the right move for ESPN. I've never tuned in for any on air persona. I tune in to watch sporting events that I'm interested in. Having on air talent that I prefer versus ones that I don't isn't going to change my behavior as long as they have content that I want to watch. I suspect it's the same for most sport fans.

The place they can't cut back on costs, at least not appreciably, is on content(the actual sports) that people want to see. It's their lifeblood, not any on air personalities. So they're still the king but just can't spend lavishly on every single area like they might have in the past and have to be smarter in how they spend their dollars.
 
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