Entries Tagged as 'Sports'

Where To Watch The NBA Draft (Now With 100 Percent Less Stephen A. Smith)

By Ryan

I’ll readily admit that the NBA Draft is not something I typically take a great deal of interest in. This year, I am exceptionally disinterested because 1) This draft class is horrible, and 2) There will be no Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s draft coverage. Over the past few drafts, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Stephen A. Smith Heckling Society of Gentlemen and the work they’ve done at the NBA Draft. The SASHSG will be back this year, but it appears as though it will be their final appearance:


Details of ESPN’s NBA Draft coverage (and last year’s awesome tribute to Cheez Doodles) after the jump:

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Where To Watch The U.S. Open Golf Tournament

By Ryan

woods_tiger_0608_webThe U.S. Open Championship golf tournament from the Black Course at Bethpage State in Farmingdale, N.Y., tees off Thursday, June 18, at 10am ET on ESPN. Tiger Woods, who won last year’s U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff thriller against Rocco Mediate, returns to the site of his 2002 U.S. Open win.

ESPN and NBC share coverage of the first two rounds on Thursday and Friday, with NBC taking over coverage of the third and final rounds. ESPN and GOLF CHANNEL have plenty of highlights and news/analysis shows surrounding the open.

Full tournament TV schedule with additional broadcast plans from NBC, ESPN and GOLF CHANNEL after the jump:

[Update: ESPN has coverage of the final round (delayed from Sunday) on Monday, June 22, from 9-11:30am ET, and has coverage all day on ESPN360.com. NBC will pick up the remaining coverage from 11:30am until the conclusion.)

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A Jolt Of Joe: Joe Buck Talks About HBO’s “Joe Buck Live”

By Ryan

joe-buck_0609_webFOX Sports’ MLB and NFL play-by-play announcer Joe Buck gets to leave the confines of the broadcast booth and stretch his legs as host of a new sports talk show this month. Joe Buck Live premieres June 15 at 9pm ET on HBO (HD), and will air quarterly.

When Bob Costas left HBO earlier this year to join MLB Network, a spot opened up for Buck on HBO’s roster. But Joe Buck Live won’t be Costas Now with Buck’s name on it. “I think it would be the worst thing in the world for me to go in and try to imitate Bob. I think Bob is the absolute best doing what he does,” Buck tells us. “I think this is my chance to try and do something different.” Whereas Costas Now often confronted the big sports issues, Joe Buck Live will be lighter in tone and content. “I’m going to attempt to have some fun with these guys or girls, whoever the interviewees are, and try and bring out the light side of sports from time to time and mix that with the hard questions and the serious issues. I think we can cover it all, and at the end of the day have a good time doing it.”

Sports fans who’ve heard Buck in the FOX broadcast booth over the years might be a little surprised at the sportscaster’s comedic chops. “I think most people might be surprised that I can handle different things,” he says. “I don’t know that the average fan is aware that I have other sides to my personality than just ‘Ball 1. Strike 2. Touchdown.’”

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Where To Watch The NBA Finals

By Ryan

lakers_bryant_0207webThe NBA Finals tip off Thursday, June 4 at 9pm ET on ABC, with Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic taking on Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers. It’s not the Kobe vs. LeBron series we were all expecting, and it’s likely a lot of viewers will dismiss it. Nobody even seems to care about this matchup — they’re all still fixating on LeBron’s media and handshake snub. Obviously, the “Can Kobe win one without Shaq?” storyline will dominate. There’s also debate about ESPN/ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy being on the broadcasts with his brother Stan being the Magic’s head coach. But if those are the only things that can generate any interest, then … yawn.

But really, the matchup is intriguing, even if the storylines really aren’t. The Magic dispatched both the Celtics and the Cavs to get here, and they’re not to be underestimated. That said, I’m taking the Lakers in seven games.

Full NBA Finals schedule after the jump.

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About That Stanley Cup Finals Schedule…

By Ryan

The NHL has plenty of TV issues they need to deal with. Maybe they should start with this one: Set a date for the Stanley Cup Finals and stick to it. It’s not hard. We’ve known for months that the NBA Finals begin June 4, and they have the same playoff format as the NHL. It’s likely that the NHL fears getting hammered in the ratings by the NBA, and they want to get in as many games as possible before the NBA Finals tip off.

The NHL had originally set June 5 as the date for Game 1 of the Finals, but left May 29 open as an alternate date if the Conference Finals only went to four or five games. Pittsburgh swept their series and Detroit beat Chicago in five games, but the finals start date is going to change yet again.

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Where To Watch The Indy 500 And NASCAR Coca-Cola 600

By Ryan

The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend has become the best day of the year for auto racing. There’s the one IndyCar race people still watch, followed by the early evening NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. Here’s the TV schedule of events for both races:

Indianapolis 500

Sunday, May 24 on ABC

12pm ET — Prerace Show. The one-hour prerace show will include interviews with many of the 33 starting drivers as well as four special features, including a look at the roller-coaster year of polesitter Helio Castroneves; the special relationship between Danica Patrick and her father; the “Super Team” of Scott Dixon and Dario Franchitti; and the Allure of Indy — why drivers will risk everything just to be able to compete in the Indy 500:

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Spelling Bee Finals Live Blog Announcement!

By Ryan

For the third year in a row, we’ll be doing our live blog of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals. My colleague johnnysweeptheleg (renowned for his blogging of Lost and The Office on this site) and I have a good time covering this event, and there’s always some good-natured ribbing of the bee geeks participants. The Bee finals are Thursday, May 28 at 8pm ET, live on ABC.

This year, we’re going to do something different — the whole live blog will be done via Twitter, not here on the Channel Guide Magazine blog. We’ll be sending out a flurry of tweets full of our own unique perspective of the hot and heavy spelling bee action!

To join in on the live Twitter, follow us: Ryan (ChannelGuideRAB) and johnnysweeptheleg (BtotheD)

And if you have your own snarky things to say during the bee, we’d be happy to read them! To have us follow your tweets during the bee, send an @reply to ChannelGuideRAB and BtotheD!

Cincinnati Bengals To Be On HBO’s “Hard Knocks” For Some Reason

By Ryan

Good news: HBO is returning another season of Hard Knocks in August. Bad news: It’s going to be about the Cincinnati Bengals. Good news: It can double as a season of COPS.

HBO Sports, NFL Films and the Cincinnati Bengals will team up for an all-access look at what it takes to make it in the National Football League when Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Cincinnati Bengals debuts Aug. 12 at 10pm ET/PT on HBO (HD). It is the show’s fifth season. Other seasons have followed the Dallas Cowboys (twice), Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs.

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“The Haney Project: Charles Barkley” Recap: On My Own

By Ryan

So it’s been a while since we’ve seen Sir Charles swing the golf bats on The Haney Project. The last episode, “Lights, Camera … Hesitation?” aired nearly a month ago. So the show gives us a little recap of what we’ve seen so far, and it’s a video montage interspersed with words pulled from those motivational posters: OPTIMISM… HOPEFUL … FRUSTRATION… RECOMMITTED…

It’s been 30 weeks since Charles began working with Hank, and after the debacle that we saw in the last episode, Charles is going to go back to work and fully commit himself to fixing his game. But he’s going to play a round in Atlanta just for fun with Ahmad Rashad, Jerome Bettis and Charles’ buddy Chico Robinson, a security official at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters. Hank Haney is nowhere to be found, so Charles is on his own. “I’m going to kick [Hank's] ass when the show is over,” Dammit Charles says. “I’m so tired of getting yelled at.”

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NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXV On SPEED Channel

By Ryan

The NASCAR All-Star Race is an event that gets tinkered with so often, fans might need Digger the NASCAR on FOX gopher to explain the current rules and format in layman’s terms. But for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXV, May 16 on SPEED Channel (HD), you only need to know two things: 10 laps and $1 million. This year’s race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.H., will feature a 10-lap shootout with a $1 million prize as its final segment, something that has provided some of the event’s most spectacular finishes, including Dale Earnhardt’s 1987 “pass in the grass” and Rusty Wallace spinning out Darrell Waltrip entering the last lap in 1989.

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