CBS Gearing Up for Super Sunday

There are likely millions who question the wisdom of four hours of pregame before the Super Bowl. Eric Mann is not one of them.

As senior producer for The NFL Today, Mann would love to hear Sean McManus, the president of CBS Sports and News, tell him one day that the Super Bowl version of the show will run even longer and air earlier.

"My dream one day is to do 'Sunrise at the Super Bowl' and just start that way and keep going,' said Mann, a 14-time Emmy winner.

We'll let you all in on a little secret: Mann, and his counterparts at FOX and NBC would get a longer show, if their respective sales departments could sell the advertising time.

You see, the Super Bowl pregame shows have grown in length over the years because there aren't enough commercial slots within the game itself to satisfy advertisers who want in, hence four more hours of programming to meet a need, as it were.

And while viewer interest is obviously concentrated on the game, Mann says the pregame manages to get everyone's attention as well, on some level, even if they're not zeroed in for the full four hours.

"It's at least on in the background," Mann said. "I'm not saying they're watching intently, but everybody has it on. They have it on in the background and all of a sudden, they hear something that draws them to the set. They want to see something."

Already planned for The Super Bowl Today is a conversation between Dan Marino and Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, a feature from reporter Sam Ryan on the Indianapolis receiving corps, as well as a Boomer Esiason piece on the Colts' defense, focusing on defensive ends Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric is scheduled to do a walking tour of New Orleans with Saints quarterback Drew Brees, while James Brown takes a look at the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, while examining the city's connection to its football team.

The festivities commence at 2 p.m. ET.

Hall of an Announcer

Jon Miller, probably the best baseball play-by-play announcer of his generation, has received the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Though Miller, 58, will be honored at the Hall's enshrinement ceremony this summer, he will technically not be enshrined at Cooperstown, as Andre Dawson will be this summer.

However, anyone who could make the Baltimore Orioles' 21-game losing streak to start the 1988 season entertaining, as Miller did in his time there, ought to be in the Hall of Fame. His election Monday by a blue ribbon panel before his 60th birthday – a relatively youthful age for a legendary baseball broadcaster -- is a nod to his prodigious talent.

Indeed, Miller, who has called play-by-play for the Oakland A's, the Texas Rangers, the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles and his hometown San Francisco Giants since 1997, is as much a troubadour as he is a baseball announcer.

Miller, whose impersonations of Vin Scully and Harry Caray are spot-on, is technically brilliant beyond his skills of mimicry. Besides keeping an old fashioned egg timer in his booth to remind himself to tell the audience the score and count every three minutes, Miller passes with flying colors the ultimate test of a baseball announcer.

Specifically, with Miller on the call, a listener is able to figure out where the batter, base runners and the ball are, on a play where, say, runners are on second and third and there's a shot to the gap. That's a lot to juggle in a brief period of time, and Miller keeps it all moving nicely.

Of course, Miller is best known as the voice of ESPN's Sunday night telecasts since 1990, but his winning the Frick Award is an acknowledgment that baseball is best observed on the radio, and no one does it better..

The Presidential Seal

CBS went slightly overboard Saturday in documenting President Obama's presence at the Duke-Georgetown game. Beyond his turn at the microphone, a couple of shots of the commander in chief at his seat and one on his way out would have been sufficient.

That said, the president did demonstrate a measure of verbal dexterity when he joined Verne Lundquist and Clark Kellogg for a few minutes during the second half.

It's clear that Obama knows basketball and is quite adept at displaying that knowledge. He marveled at a spin move from a Georgetown guard, noting that it worked because there was no backside help from Duke defenders.

And he took Lundquist's question about his ability to go to his right – Obama is a left-hander – and drove it out of the park as if he'd been served a batting practice fastball, with a quick quip about his meeting with Republican congressmen.

If he, in fact, does come after Kellogg's analyst slot in "three or seven years" when his term is up, Obama may have a future.

By the way, McManus really should consider permanently pairing Lundquist and Kellogg together at the top of the network's NCAA basketball package.

Lundquist is already CBS' No.1 college football play-by-play man and he and Kellogg have such a natural rapport. And tellingly, while Jim Nantz passed up the basketball season premiere in December, there he was front and center for the network's golf debut Saturday and Sunday.

It's obvious that basketball is a sidelight for Nantz, while Lundquist would do the Final Four and its audience justice.

Magical Conflict

Look, no one will confuse an NBA telecast with 60 Minutes or even Outside the Lines or any other broadcast journalism endeavor, but the viewer has the right to expect at least a half-hearted attempt at propriety.

ABC/ESPN should have found someone, anyone else to "interview" Phil Jackson than Magic Johnson for the piece that ran at halftime of the Los Angeles-Boston game Sunday.
For one thing, no new ground was broken in the brief discussion. Much more importantly, both Johnson and Jackson are part of the Lakers' front office, with Jackson the team's coach and Johnson listed in the team's media guide as a co-owner and vice president.

The site of the discussion was Washington where the two men appeared last week at the White House to be feted by Obama, which only boosts the whiff of a conflict of interest.

Johnson has many important insights to share with an audience, as he did when he was with Turner. For as long as he is a Laker official, Johnson should be barred from any interviews with Los Angeles players, and his connection to the team should always be disclosed whenever the topic of the Lakers comes up while he is there.

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