By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

• The announced closings of the Boston Globe’s foreign bureaus this week brought to mind the matter of what cutbacks might make sense for the Sports Desk. Because, let’s face it, if the Globe is doing away with something as substantial to the paper’s ideals as permanent foreign correspondents, they surely are demanding all sections to trim the fat.

So forgive us if we chortled a bit when we noticed this week’s datelines of John “Man of Olympic” Powers, who this week is bringing us “foreign” US Figure Skating Championships coverage from Spokane, Washington (in a non-Olympic year, of course). He does so at a time when USA Today’s skating guru is bylining a column entitled, “Once-popular figure skating losing heat.”

We know, we know. The Globe and Big Daddy, New York Times have long prided themselves on having superb Olympic sport coverage. Powers is the virtual Gammons of his beat and advertisers supposedly love the reach such sports can extends into, like the tony suburbs where skating and skiing are hobbies and investments. But it’s not like they’re selling any ads because of a Kimmie Meissner feature.

Also, if you’ve noticed, even the Outdoor Man, Tony Chamberlain – another sacred cow position at the Globe - has been “joint ventured” with ExploreNewEngland.com. The web is most assuredly the future home of all such coverage and the niche-ification of such coverage is a prudent move by the Globe. They just need to go further and stop wasting paper space with material better suited for the web.

It says here that further prudence would be shown in scaling back the print presence of guys like Powers to allow them to grow their web presence. And to try and re-focus what the print side’s best use will be. You need to cut paper and ink costs, there’s no better place to start than with the Gender Equity/Olympic coverage.

. . . The truth of the matter is that if budgets are so damn tight, than there’s little reason to be staffing an off-year championship all the way across the country. The head count of last week’s Globe contingent to Indianapolis was staggering. And when editor Joe Sullivan, in his weekly hoops blog, wrote that “(A) trip to Indy to coordinate coverage of the Patriots game meant less college basketball for me over the weekend and prevented me from posting (on his regularly scheduled day),” we had to chuckle a bit.

Sullivan didn’t just coordinate, he contributed (not that he had to, mind you). While we’re all for different bylines and all-out major event coverage, we’re just not sure how to take the fact that the Page’s No. 1 editor is “on-site coordinating” and “on-site writing.”

Ben Bradlee wasn’t doing sidebars for Woodward and Bernstein, was he?

. . . Further, someone needs to explain how last Saturday’s sports section – one day before the AFC Title game – had ZERO columns from Bob Ryan, Dan Shaughnessy or Jackie MacMullan. Travel schedules be damned, someone should have written something. The “Brady finding money in his pocket” column could have gone 1,000 words and still not exhausted all the hyperbole that would have emanated from one of those talented crafter’s fingertips.

• Speaking of Basketball Bob, during his championship round 30 seconds of “Around the Horn” time on Thursday, he guaranteed a win on Saturday for Iona’s Jeff Ruland at home against league-leader, Loyola. As a MAAC basketball observer, I can tell you that is about a 7 on the 1 to 10 boldness factor – and doesn’t quite take into account just how snake-bitten the Gaels are. But we love that Bob gave half a minute to the Big Man and his program on national TV and we will always remember him for that gesture. As will Rules, once he gets into the ’06-’07 win column.

By the way, you can see Shots’ take on the Big Man’s Big Losing streak at CSTV.com’s new feature, “Game Faces.” (You can also go to WFAN.com to hear the fabulous interview Ruland did on Wednesday with Mike and the Mad Dog.) And be sure to check out the new Cindy’s Diary which will appear on Mondays and Fridays.

• Nice work by NESN giving viewers the pressers live from Foxboro and Indy last Friday.

. . . Glasnost? Perestroika? Something’s in the air, as NESN was airing a Brian Cashman “Exclusive” interview on Thursday night. We couldn’t find the clip at the website, but we’re guessing it will be up soon. We only caught the end so we can’t be sure who got the sit down duties, perhaps Tina Cervasio?

• A few leftovers that accumulated during the Pats playoff run:

. . . Larry Bird’s nest for sale.

. . . The Sox are reasonably valued at $1.5 billion. Beyond the maneuverings and the “cashing ins” that are starting to gurgle, let’s also take note of the expanding portfolio of sports properties which is about to get very interesting when John Henry gets into partnership with Roush Racing, a story that’s been leaked out slowly over the past couple of weeks.

Notice how Roush is embracing the idea of taking things to an emerging “market, the northeast; it is in stark contrast to the club’s recent downplaying of the Matsuzaka Effect in Asia (great work again by Rob Bradford with that one).

Either way, the moves by the Sox represent expansion in global terms and that kind of expansion is high risk, high reward. And again, the man behind it all, is this mysterious figure with the working man’s name of John Henry. This franchise never ceases to be fascinatingly complex.

There is nothing about NASCAR that easily translates up here aside from the Loudon facility that gets to buzzing a couple of weekends a year. So the challenge is formidable. But it’s not without foresight. The key piece of this (and any Red Sox deal, we could argue) is the involvement of Mike Dee’s Fenway Sports Group. FSG is going to be able to start “packaging” NASCAR and Boston College tie-ins to lure some of the southern gentlemen (and their belles) to Boston for racing-related events and promotions. The ACC member schools are the heart of NASCAR country and the FSG is in no way tied to simply marketing its products in Greater Boston. In fact, Greater Charlotte and Greater Tallahassee are two of many places where the money is just as green and just as legal and tender as that of the greenbacks in Greater Worcester and Greater Hartford.

Why are we starting to think this is the world’s first $2 Billion franchise? (We’d have to assume, that any way.)

• Interesting Rick Pitino stuff from my new favorite provider of income, CSTV:

“On Sunday, January 28 at 8:00 pm ET, CSTV will air a special episode of the critically acclaimed series ONE2ONE PRESENTED BY TIAA-CREF, featuring a provocative interview with one of the most prominent and successful college basketball coaches today, University of Louisville coach Rick Pitino. During the interview, conducted by CSTV and CBS Sports college basketball analyst Seth Davis, Pitino talks in-depth about a myriad of topics, including:

-Regretting his decision to leave University of Kentucky for the Boston Celtics

-The death of his six-month old son Daniel

-How his two years at Providence were the best time of his life

Click here to see Pitino explain how money factored into his decision to leave Kentucky for the Boston Celtics.

• Some follow-up with Jim Courier, who Shots reported last week, will be moving his now-annual, May Boston Tennis Event to the Agganis Arena:

Via Email, January 19, 2007

Shots: You’ve got a bigger facility in Boston for the Cup tour - Agganis is a great space and in the city - how does this change your event?

Courier: Champions Cup Boston had a fantastic first year in 2006 at Bosse Sports in Sudbury and with sell-out crowds we had a high class problem…we needed to grow.

Agganis is the perfect fit for our needs. We will scale Agganis for just over 3,000 seats initially with the ability to go bigger in the coming years as needed. Agganis is quite central in Boston, it’s a beautiful new venue and the Boston community will more conveniently be able to drop by for some world class tennis after work. The tennis will remain excellent as it was last year but the event should be more accessible and visible for all.

Shots: Just a bit on your work with Channel 7 in Australia and how it differs from the work you were doing at USA?

Courier: My work on Channel 7 is a bit different than what I do for USA Network during the US Open. On Channel 7 I am the lead analyst for all of the major men’s matches from the beginning until the end of the tournament and occasionally drop into the studio for rain delay fills, quick match previews, etc. At the US Open I am primarily the studio analyst of the days highlights. I cover some live day matches but it is not my focus.

. . . You can also expect some more local tennis news of note midweek if what we’re hearing is correct. Stay tuned. . .

• ESPN.com’s Wright Thompson just about everyone’s ass. The perfect of example of hiring a guy and letting him go be himself and giving him a long leash to find worthwhile stories - and then write the heck out of them.

• Speaking of which, Yahoo! Sports AGAIN had a banner week with its continuing investigation of the Reggie Bush filthiness. If you only realized how skeletal the Yahoo! staff is compared to some of the Big “Established” Boys of sports media (Hello, ESPN.com), you’d appreciate even more the efforts of Dave Morgan’s team.

• Sounds like ESPN Radio Boston will be on Radio Row next week from Miami. That’s the information I got from about 30 minutes of the Felger Show on my way down to Providence/Villanova on Tuesday night. It was also the call-in time for Basketball Bob, which is always a good listen.

Beyond that, I’ve avoided the other sports talk radio station all together. All the while, I was thanking my lucky stars that we didn’t have to endure two additional weeks of the Hoarse-Voiced Braggarts.

. . . It’s not entirely possible to avoid the WEEIdiots, and that was proven again during a news piece on the Lincoln-Sudbury incident, which ran on NBC7, WHDH this week. Interviewed outside the school in his trademark coat, Smerlas saw a microphone and was drawn to it like Pete to meat. The local affiliate – surprise, surprise – neglected to identify the fact that they actually employ Smerlas on a regular basis (for Sports Xtra) or that he is a local sports talk radio rabble rouser.

. . . Our only suggestion if you really want Super Bowl coverage (and it’s a tradition for Shots to always either attend or watch the Commish’s State of the League Address) is to leave it on the NFL Network. They were doing Under Armour Senior Bowl practice break-downs all this week; just wait until there’s a REAL bowl to cover.

• Support your Drowned Hogs this weekend and then check out the Hull Chowda Fest. And then come visit Shots in the medical tent.

David Scott writes from a seaside shanty on the shores of Hull, Mass. And can be reached at shotsATbostonsportsmedDOTcom