In his column in the Miami New Times, Luther Campbell, the former leader of the rap group 2 Live Crew and former Miami-Dade mayoral candidate, lambasted the sports media for having the audacity to say that Cam Newton struggled in his first NFL preseason game (even though he did). Campbell said the big reason why black athletes like Newton, Tiger Woods and LeBron James get heavily criticized, while Eli Manning, John Daly and Brett Favre supposedly get free passes, is because “sports news outlets are dominated by white faces.”

Campbell’s column is short enough that we could have pasted it here in full. But this outtake below is a good indication of his general tone and attitude: Read more

A preview of the screen adaptation of Michael Lewis’s seminal baseball book Moneyball will air on Entertainment Tonight this evening, building on this teaser from yesterday’s broadcast. Brad Pitt stars as Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane, whose unconventional approach to statistics — in particular an emphasis on drafting and acquiring players with high on-base percentages — helped lead to a revolution in baseball scouting and player development.

Notre Dame’s television contract with NBC runs through 2015, but school athletic director Jack Swarbrick is already envisioning a Fighting Irish network akin to the University of Texas arrangement that was negotiated between ESPN and the Longhorns. In a wide-ranging interview with The Chicago Tribune, Swarbrick discussed the nationwide interest in Notre Dame, a football power that signed a contract with NBC back in 1991 and has rewarded fans by winning zero national titles in the interim.

There will be a Notre Dame Network, but people sort of envision that in traditional terms of something dramatic and new. You’ll sort of grow into it as you produce more and more digital programming and distribute it more broadly, and we’re committed to that.

What is central to our ability to really build out of a viable network is the increased delivery of broadband video to homes. Texas is a cable platform, because they have dense geography. Ours is the inverse of that. We have fans everywhere – not a huge concentration in one cable market. And so we’re going to be really well-positioned, as technology advances here, and we’re spending our time now building our digital programming.

Former Tampa Tribune sports editor and columnist Tom McEwen died Sunday morning at his home in Davis Island, Fla. He was 88.

McEwen had battled cancer and poor blood circulation that led to one of his legs being amputated a year ago, according to his son, Rick McEwen.

“He’s not suffering anymore,” said his wife of 41 years, Linda. “He has been through a lot. We were pals. We had so many adventures together. We’re all going to miss him so much.” Read more

After his teammate Rashard Mendenhall attracted a firestorm of criticism for going on Twitter and saying some questionable things about 9-11 and Osama bin Laden, Steelers safety Ryan Clark went on the radio and said “social media is ruining the world.”

First, here are Mendenhall’s comments about 9-11: “We’ll never know what really happened. I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

Looks like someone has seen “Loose Change” and been rather impressed with the “findings.”

Then here are his comments about bin Laden’s death and the widespread joy that greeted the news: “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side.”

Needless to say, a lot of people took exception to these opinions. Clark, for his part, put some of the blame on Twitter, which gives everyone the ability to quickly (and sometimes regrettably) share their knee-jerk reactions.

“Facebook and Twitter are probably going to be responsible for more divorces than infidelity coming up here soon,” Clark said. “(Mendenhall) didn’t claim that those opinions were shared by anyone else but himself. That was what he chose to put out there. I knew he was going to catch a lot of flak for it, I knew there was going to be a lot of backlash toward those comments, but he’s entitled to put whatever he wants to put on his Twitter page. The thing you have to know these days, though, if you do put those type of things out there, people are going to comment on them. It’s going to make news. It’s going to be a big deal when you do something that controversial. A long as he can stand by his statements then he’s free to do whatever he wants.”

Well, Mendenhall chose to erase the tweet about a plane being able to take down a skyscraper, but his comment about bin Laden’s death remains on Twitter.

(Source: Pro Football Talk)

The 2011 Final Four on Saturday earned an average fast national household rating/share of 8.9/17, which ties with 2010 as the highest rated Final Four since 2005.

Butler vs. VCU and Kentucky vs. UConn averaged 15.4 million viewers, the highest for the two Final Four games since 2005 (16.6 million).

“We are very pleased that this year’s Final Four ratings matched last year’s strong numbers which were the best in five years,” said Mike Aresco, Executive Vice President, Programming, CBS Sports. “We are excited about the Championship game which features two of the most remarkable stories of the season in Connecticut and Butler.”

Let’s see how excited CBS is about Butler vs. UConn when the ratings come out on Tuesday.

While he’s not officially retired, pitcher Jamie Moyer will spend this season working as a analyst for Baseball Tonight. ESPN is expected to formally announce the addition of Moyer on Wednesday and his debut will come on Thursday.

Moyer had surgery last December to replace the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow. He suffered the injury while pitching in the Dominican Winter Leagues.

At 48, Moyer hopes to pitch again in 2012.

“It’s been mentioned that I’d do well, blah, blah,” Moyer told USA Today on his new television career. “And as a player, you never know when your last year will be. And I’m not convinced I’ve had my last day.”

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and World Wrestling Entertainment have launched a new partnership after a series of offensive raps from John Cena on Monday Night Raw.

On Feb. 21, Cena addressed The Rock by saying, “Just don’t go racing to Witch Mountain, Rock, cause your mountain is Brokeback.”

One week later on Raw, Cena called out the WWE Champion “The Miz,” and dropped another homophobic line by rapping, “Do you really want to look back years from now and realize you shared your legacy with another man?! ….Wait don’t answer that.” Read more

The first full day of March Madness coverage delivered the best Thursday overnight ratings since 1991 for CBS Sports and Turner Sports, the companies say.

Coverage on CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV combined to deliver a 5.7 rating/13 share Thursday, compared to a 4.6 rating/11 share in overnights last year.

The biggest growth was during the day, with the first window (12-4:15PM) up 42% from last year, and the second window (3-6:45PM) up 46%. The evening/primetime windows delivered higher ratings than daytime, but saw slightly less growth, improving by 8% (7-9:45PM) and 12% (9:15PM-12:30AM).

Following Grant Hill‘s Op-Ed column in The New York Times, Jalen Rose looked to clarify his “Uncle Toms” comments that were directed towards black Duke players.

The Fab Five executive producer left a lengthy voicemail for Michael McCarthy of the USA Today on Wednesday evening.

“First, says Rose, his comments about Duke preferring to recruit “Uncle Tom’ African-American athletes were said from his former perspective as a high school athlete; not as a 38-year old man. He’s irritated that one comment is overshadowing the rest of the documentary.

“I know a lot of people are trying to circumvent a great documentary that was two hours of quality content and paraphrase a statement that I made and look at the headline but not read the story. That’s basically when I talked about my recruiting as a high school student as it related to Duke. I just want to make sure I verify how I felt about that. I was clearly talking about a framework from 1991-1993, not about 2011.” Read more