Thursday, February 23, 2006

New Beasts of the East-How 'Bout them VOLS

Typically, winter is a slow season for sports fans, particularly University of Tennessee sports fans. I mean lets' face it, who watches the NBA anymore? When the Super Bowl is over, it's hibernation time until the MLS cranks up (that would be Major League Soccer to the uninitiated), and/or until football cranks up again, both pro and college. Speaking of soccer, this year is a "bonus year", as we have the World Cup cranking up this summer. More on that later.

What a special treat this winter has been. Although I have not blogged about it, the Winter Olympics has been great. It reminds me every 4 years of the finer things and finer sports that surround cold weather.

But the real surprise and the real treat has been the performance of the Vols Men's Basketball team. I'll bet we've watched more basketball this winter than the past 10 winters combined. Check out this article from the Knoxville News Sentinal about the stunning victory last night over the Gators.

'Survivor' producer Mark Burnett looks to Web

'Survivor' producer offers tips

Mark Burnett sees a complete revolution of how television is watched, particularly as broadband continues it's march across America, and as DVR's (aka TIVO devices) become commonplace in homes.

That is probably pretty much common sense. But what is fascinating to me is that Burnett is working his way towards the internet and will begin producing "shows" available only on AOL, and other huge portals.

And then he wants to take on newscasts for the web to produce news shows as they have never been produced.

This guy will be fun to watch in the coming years. Which begs the question--why is Katie Couric reportedly going to leave the Today Show and move to anchor the CBS evening news?