Watchdog
Neil Best leaves no stone unturned in the world of sports media.
Neil Best
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, then returned in 1985 after a two-year stint covering college hockey for The Anchorage Times in Alaska. From 1985-90 he covered New York City high school sports, then spent five years as Newsday's beat writer for St. John's and Big East basketball. From 1995-2005 he covered the Giants before leaving that beat to become a reporter, columnist and feature writer focused on off-field topics such as sports media and business. His SportsWatch column debuted on Sept. 30, 2005.
Wheeler, LeBron are ratings hits
Photo credit: Getty Scott Cunningham
Big night in sports Tuesday, even for those of us who had to miss some of it for the high school track and field awards banquet. (Did I mention my daughter set a school record in the pole vault?)
Many people certainly watched. SNY scored its highest Mets rating of the season for Zack Wheeler's first MLB start, averaging 3.23 percent of New York-area homes after entering the night with a season...
Read more »'Seinfeld' DVDs are Bobby Ojeda-bound
Photo credit: AP Images
Remember my blog post Friday in which SNY analyst Bobby Ojeda revealed that while he is a fan of Jerry Seinfeld - who had called Ojeda his favorite person on TV in a Twitter post two days earlier - he never has actually seen Seinfeld's iconic 1990s show, "Seinfeld"?
Well, if not, check the link above or read the cut and paste below. Anyway, Ojeda's admission shocked many fans of...
Read more »O.J. Simpson chase chased NBA Finals off NBC in some markets
Photo credit: AP, 1995
O.J. Simpson's slow-motion white Bronco chase remains a where-were-you-then moment for most Americans over age 30 or so - 19 years to the day later.
Mine? I was at Madison Square Garden covering Game 5 of the NBA Finals, which presented some unusual challenges.
Some of my fellow journalists were in the media work room, watching the game on TV for logistical purposes, then found themselves...
Read more »Bill Simmons at it again
Photo credit: Getty Images, 2011
Bill Simmons has a history of trouble with the Twitter police at ESPN – including twice being banned from tweeting for a time – for sharing blunt opinions with his more than two million followers.
But that hasn’t deterred him. Thursday night he was at it again. First he tweeted a complaint that a crack he made about Dwyane Wade was deleted from late editions of “SportsCenter’’ and added a...
Read more »Bobby Ojeda is Jerry Seinfeld's favorite person on TV
Photo credit: AP
Jerry Seinfeld is among the most iconic figures in television history, thanks to his eponymous sitcom of the 1990s, but who does Seinfeld himself most like to watch on TV?
The answer came Wednesday, when the avid Mets fan posted this on his Twitter feed: “Bob Ojeda is my favorite person on TV.’’ Then he added the following hashtags: #insight #smart #energy #justlikehepitched.
Wow! What...
Read more »ESPN turns off 3D
Photo credit: Getty Images
Fans over age 8 or so might recall the 3D TV fad of 2009 and ‘10, during which several sports marked milestones with their first-ever live, 3D telecasts, a period during which I wore a variety of unflattering glasses in public.
Well, all that appears to be over now, with the news Wednesday that ESPN will discontinue its 3D channel by the end of the year, citing lack of interest.
Someday...
Read more »Super Bowl officials prep for rough sledding
Photo credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
NFL officials announced Tuesday that Super Bowl Boulevard (a/k/a Broadway) will feature a 60-foot-high, 108-foot long toboggan run in Times Square that could handle up to 50,000 rides in the days leading up to the big game.
No word on whether it will be converted into a new TKTS booth afterward.
But more mundane prep work continues for Super Bowl XLVIII, too, covering everything from...
Read more »
