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Lampley nearing most-called OlympicsTORINO Jim Lampley is about to break Jim McKay 's record for most Olympic assignments. But over a pizza as he prepares for his 13th TV Olympics, Lampley isn't looking for any medal stand: "Since I've never been a prime-time host, it's a little like saying the custodian has been in the building longer than the CEO."
Still, this is one versatile custodian. Lampley, who might be best-known now as HBO's blow-by-blow boxing announcer, has touched plenty of broadcasting bases. After being the first sideline reporter in college football, his jobs included calling NFL games and golf, being the first on-air host of the first 24-hour sports talk radio station, New York's WFAN, and anchoring local TV news in Los Angeles.
But as Lampley hosts NBC's daytime and late-night coverage, his boss, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol, was the first person who talked to him about getting into TV. In 1974, ABC Sports head Roone Arledge wanted to start using college football sideline reporters in part, says Lampley, because ABC's coverage of the hostage massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics showed the technical possibilities of dispatching reporters with radio-frequency mikes. Lampley was contacted by Ebersol, then Arledge's assistant, to be one of 432 candidates to try out.
Then a graduate student at North Carolina, Lampley thought he didn't get the job. He tried to land a job as an ABC Olympic researcher, but that one went to current NBC Sports Olympic programmer Peter Diamond. He then got a job in ABC Sports programming. Ebersol, Lampley says, called to offer the sideline job: "He said, 'Come on, it will just be one fall. Then you can do programming.' "
Didn't happen. Before long, Lampley was calling wrist-wrestling and demolition derby on ABC's Wide World of Sports and worked his first Olympics in 1976.
But he says he's seeing something new in the NBC assembled here. "It's the most unusual organization ever in sports television," he says, citing its "cooperation, equanimity and unity." At ABC under Arledge, who created the Olympic TV formula, "it never mattered if you liked anybody. That was the last thing you cared about. Roone thought energy came out of chaos. He was a divide-and-conquer emperor."
Such tactics can work. Hannibal, near the site of the Olympic Alpine ski venues, crossed the Alps in 217 A.D. with his famous elephants and used divide-and-conquer to rack up big wins over the Romans. And, Lampley says, those tactics are history in Olympic TV: "There are no hidden agendas here. It's not network TV. I call it Stepford television."
NBC parent GE does make microchips.
Stateside
With sideline reporters Bonnie Bernstein and Armen Keteyian leaving CBS Sports, the network might not replace them. CBS Sports executive producer Tony Petitti says for the NCAA men's basketball tournament, CBS might deploy game analysts or play-by-play announcers — from announcing teams that otherwise would be done with their role in the coverage — as sideline reporters starting with the regional finals. On the NFL, he says, "We're trying to figure out if we'll use sideline reporters at all."
ESPN plans to lavish attention on the North Carolina-Duke college basketball game March 4. As ESPN airs normal coverage, ESPN2 will show the game only from cameras above each rim; ESPNU will show split-screen coverage combining regular coverage with shots from a hand-held camera in the Duke student section; ESPN 360 will add lots of extra stats on its broadband coverage; and ESPN International sends the game to 120 countries. Still, this doesn't seem like enough.
Spice rack
Although Texas quarterback Vince Young won't be an NFL draft pick until April, he already has an Internet/TV gig — for basketball. TNT, to hype its Feb. 19 NBA All-Star Game, will use Young to "host" its section on nba.com for daily reports next week and two appearances on TNT's Thursday night NBA TV coverage this week and next week. Says TNT's Jeff Pomeroy: "Using online is a great way to experiment with guest reporters."
ESPN says it's heard of at least 22 babies named ESPN. So promising to do that probably won't be enough to win a contest to get married on Mike & Mike in the Morning, an ESPN radio show also simulcast on ESPN2. Couples try to win online votes by saying which coaches or mascots they'd have at their on-air wedding. Sports on TV
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