Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Venter leaves a cult hero for exposing interview hypocrisy
Brendan Venter, Saracen’s idiosyncratic coach, has returned home to South Africa leaving opinion sharply divided in Britain after a surreal televison interview which has won him a cult following on YouTube.
In response to nine questions in 57 seconds, Venter parodied a parody after Saracens had lost a Heineken Cup match to Racing Metro.
Venter, who was fined for his outspoken comments in a post-match interview last October, this time decided to emulate a character in the spoof film “Mike Bassett; England manager”.
To this end he repeated or agreed to the questions asked by an increasingly frustrated Sky television interviewer.
from MediaFile:
No Super Bowl blues; expect big TV ratings
The U.S. economy might be weak, but the Super Bowl still scores with consumers.
The CBS broadcast of the National Football League's championship game on Feb. 7 between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints should draw strong TV ratings, possibly challenging viewer levels not seen since the late 1990s.
"We're looking at a big rating," said Neal Pilson, former CBS Sports president and head of his own sports consulting firm. "The fact that the two conference championships got better than usual ratings usually indicates that there's a lot of public interest."
No Woods, no problem … but for how long?
Tiger Woods hacked and shanked his way to a two-round score of five over par at this year’s British Open, missing just the fifth cut of his professional career and only his second in a major championship.
Facing a Tige
r-less weekend must have had television executives and sponsors sweating. The 2008 British Open, which Woods missed recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, saw TV ratings of the final round on ABC plummet 13.3 percent from the previous year.
