Consider Randy Moss a trailblazer.
If the rumors come true and NFL Network and ESPN become partners, the companies already will have their first dual employee.
Moss, a member of ESPN's horse racing team since 1999, next week begins hosting a two-hour show four days a week on NFL Network.
“It's something I don't think will affect anything I do for horse racing,” Moss said of his new gig. “ESPN has been extremely gracious.”
That's good news for horse racing fans who have been treated to Moss' insight and analysis for nearly a decade. ESPN doesn't know how to televise an actual race – there's no award for most camera cuts and widest angle used – but Moss, along with host Joe Tessitore, analyst Jerry Bailey and others, ensures the rest of the program is top-notch.
Those three, plus reporters Jeanine Edwards and Jay Privman and handicapper Hank Goldberg, will be at Del Mar on Sunday for a two-hour showcase capped off by the $1 million Pacific Classic. The show begins at 5 p.m. on ESPN2 and includes three additional graded stakes races. All the races have Breeders' Cup implications, particularly since this year's event at Santa Anita will be the first to include races on a synthetic surface.
With Curlin unlikely to contest the Breeders' Cup Classic and Big Brown untested on synthetics, Moss said, “You look at the Pacific Classic field and it is extremely likely that some of those horses are going to have a huge impact on the Classic. That makes the race even more interesting.”
Moss, who began his career as a sportswriter and handicapper in Dallas and later Fort Worth, said morning-line favorite Go Between is “the horse I'm probably most interested in” for Sunday's Classic.
Moss and Goldberg also will appear from Del Mar on ESPN's coverage of tomorrow's Travers Stakes from Saratoga (1:30-3 p.m.). After Sunday's races, Moss will head to Los Angeles to begin his job at NFL Network hosting “Team Cam,” which promises interviews from the practice sites of all 32 teams plus debate and analysis.
Known for being extremely prepared, Moss has been “immersing myself” in studying all 32 teams in preparation for the “Team Cam” debut at 1 p.m. on Sept. 2.
“As long as I don't confuse Philip Rivers with Garrett Gomez,” Moss said, “I'll be all right.”
Around the rings
Props to NBC for doing the smart thing and showing the gold-medal basketball game live on the West Coast at 11:30 p.m. tomorrow. To accommodate that, the prime-time show will begin an hour earlier than normal, at 6:30 p.m. Unfortunately, today's U.S.-Argentina game is live at 7:15 a.m. only on the NBC Olympic Basketball Channel. It won't be on NBC until 10:15 a.m.
Olympics interest in San Diego remains high, with our market continuing to rank fifth among the major markets with an average prime-time rating of 22.6, down only slightly from the first-week average of 24.0. Four years ago in Athens, San Diego finished eighth with an average of 20.2. The national average through Wednesday was 16.9, a 7 percent jump from Athens. Viewership is averaging 29 million per night, up 12 percent.
Low blow by Fox last Friday, discussing the results of a Michael Phelps race during the Raiders-Titans telecast when viewers on the West Coast – like those in, say, Oakland – had yet to see it. If anyone cared about the Phelps race they would have been watching it live, except in the 18 percent of the country where that wasn't possible. What if people – like the friend who told me about this – were watching the football game specifically to avoid hearing Olympics results?
ESPN and Fox appear eager to bid on the U.S. rights for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics. John Skipper, executive vice president of content at ESPN, was quoted by the Hollywood Reporter as saying, “We would never put an event on tape delay. When we put 'live' on the screen, we mean 'live right now.' We don't mean live three hours ago.” He added that if NBC was having technical trouble taking the “live” bug off its tape, ESPN would lend its technical expertise “to help them remove (it).”
Flipping channels
For the few still paying attention to Padres telecasts, Channel 4 San Diego on Monday will introduce Padres Zone, which will allow viewers to see six camera angles at the same time in a mosaic presentation. It will be available only to Cox digital customers on Channel 74. Cox basic subscribers and Time Warner customers are out of luck.
I doubt Jerry Coleman will ever need another job, but if he does, I can think of one place that won't be hiring him: the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. During a Padres game this week from Phoenix, Coleman said: “You walk more than 10 minutes here, you drop dead. It's only about 110 degrees. . . . You want a place not to live, this is it.”
Jay Posner: (619) 293-1834; jay.posner@uniontrib.com
