Nbc Could Use A Brit For Proper Golf Coverage

The pictures were wonderful, Johnny Miller was insightful, and Dick Enberg was solid as usual. What NBC lacked in coverage of its first Grand Slam golf tournament was the flair of the obligatory Brit.

There was no one at the U.S. Open last week to warn us in the king’s baleful English that Greg Norman had “found a watery grave,” no one to bemoan the “utter tragedy” of Nick Price’s naughty niblick, no fanciful musings on Jumbo Ozaki’s “woeful predicament in the gorse.”

What NBC needs is an Andy Rooney with a bumbershoot.

ABC, which did the U.S. Open until last year, has Peter Alliss, the former BBC broadcaster who was rumored to be on NBC’s shopping list before re-signing with ABC last year.

And CBS has the stylish Ben Wright, who nearly met his own tragedy in the gorse when he supposedly rambled on about lesbians in the LPGA and the flawed swings of wellendowed women.

On second thought, maybe NBC is just as well off without the obligatory Brit. After all, they do have Roger Maltbie, who once was tied for the 54-hole lead in the New England Classic.

Can you say “watery grave,” Roger?

Out takes

NBC’s two-day weekend average in overnight Nielsen ratings was 5.4, 4 percent better than last year’s overnight average on ABC while bringing viewers 2 hours, 15 minutes more coverage.

Saturday’s average was 4.7, down 6 percent from ABC’s 5.0 one year ago. Final-round coverage Sunday got a 6.0 rating, up 13 percent from last year.

Both Corey Pavin and Greg Norman undoubtedly helped Sunday’s ratings. Pavin, who can no longer be called the best golfer in the world without a major championship, is an emotional player whose facial expressions and gestures make for good TV. And another Norman swoon is always worth a look.

A young roustabout in blue jeans and tank top waved an “NFL on Fox” baseball cap toward the TV crew in the stands at Giants Stadium and enthusiastically set aside his power drill. Fox was trying to film an “Under The Helmet” anti-violence spot with Giants quarterback Dave Brown, and the baseball cap was a bribe to keep quiet.

The young man was a Grateful Dead roadie helping set up the stage for a concert, which brought up the subject of role models.

“I disagree with Charles Barkley. I think athletes do have to be role models,” Brown said, adding TV had to accept part of the blame for athletes’ poor behavior.

“Deion Sanders was a showboat in college, but he was just a good player. All of a sudden, he’s a showboat in the NFL, and he’s a superstar,” Brown said. “That’s a direct result of all these sports channels that celebrate his kind of behavior.”

Brown finished the anti-violence spot, then did a promo for Fox’s coverage of the NFC. Not bad for a guy from Duke.

“But don’t give up my day job, huh?”

Fox drew a 4.0 overnight rating for its coverage of the opening night of the Stanley Cup playoffs Saturday and, more importantly, won the night in both New York and Detroit. Fox did a 7.4 early Nielsen in New York and a huge 18.0 in Detroit.

ESPN begins its overage of the Stanley Cup finals tonight with Game 2 from Detroit. While the graphics, animation and music will be distinctively ESPN, the look will be much the same as the Fox look.

Tom McNeeley, ESPN’s hockey producer, said he will use 21 cameras, seven of them remote controlled, including robotic cameras at each end of the rink above the nets. It’s those “end zone” cameras that have given TV coverage by both Fox and ESPN such a distinctive, new look this year.

Suddenly, hockey isn’t exclusively a 50-yard-line, back-and-forth sport anymore.

“I think we’ve done a great job of making the game more viewer friendly,” McNeeley said. “You can feel the speed and the hard hits of the game.”

McNeeley said the robotic cameras not only have changed the viewers’ perspective but allow directors to isolate on more individual players.

“We’re now capturing a lot of stuff away from the puck that you wouldn’t pick up in casual viewing,” McNeeley said.