Costast told host Bill O’Reilly:

“I don’t back up on anything I said, but I think it might’ve been more effective if I said, ‘Look, if we’re looking for perspective on this, we’re going to have a serious discussion within sports, an ongoing discussion… about domestic violence, about the culture of the game itself, about the easy access to guns, about steroids, drugs and alcohol.’”

WATCH part 1:

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Not surprisingly, Bob Costas will be anchoring NBC’s primetime coverage. This will be Costas’ 10th Olympics, and ninth as primetime host. The network’s weekend and weekday daytime programming will be led by the team of Al Michaels and Dan Patrick. Michaels of course called the famous “Miracle on Ice” game at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. It will be his second Olympics for NBC. The games will be Patrick’s first as anchor, though he served as a correspondent in Vancouver.

The late-night action will be led by Mary Carillo, who is making her 11th Olympics appearance, and third-straight as late night anchor. She will also serve as a correspondent for the games.

Other correspondents will include Ryan Seacrest, former gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi and–making his Olympics broadcasting debut–the bad boy of tennis John McEnroe.

NBC News correspondents and NBC Sports contributors will be named closer to the games.

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Don’t believe us? Among the attendees were Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, Fox News anchors Brian Kilmeade and Jamie Colby, ABC’s Katie Couric and Andrea Canning, NBC’s Matt Lauer, Brian Williams and Savannah Guthrie, CNN’s Piers Morgan, CBS’ Chris Licht and Gayle King and, just for good measure, Whoopi Goldberg, Star Jones, singer John Mayer, John McEnroe, Cablevision CEO James Dolan and movie tycoon Harvey Weinstein, among many others.

You can see more names at the Michael’s New York Twitter feed.

Update: Our own Diane Clehane was there, and spotted Regis Philbin, Bill O’Reilly, former New York Governor George Pataki and plenty of others. Her report and photos are here.

In other words, it was quite the crowd. Couric and Ailes even had a nice chat, as Niche Media founder Jason Binn noted on Twitter.

(photo via Jason Binn)

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The Storied series will debut Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. ET on ESPNU with Herschel, on former University of Georgia running back Herschel Walker. The second documentary is slated for December and will focus on the first SEC football championship game. The one-hour Storied documentaries will re-air on ESPN or ESPN2.

“We pride ourselves on our dedication to storytelling,” said John Dahl, executive producer, ESPN Content Development. “The SEC’s rich, layered history certainly lends itself to a series of this kind. We look forward to sharing these captivating stories with SEC fans.”

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Ron Artest joined Pardon the Interruption Wednesday and explained why he wants to change his name to Metta World Peace.

I can’t wait until the NBA starts selling World Peace jerseys.

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Under the terms of the deal, Universal Sports Network will launch on a free preview basis to all DirecTV customers in early August before moving to the Sports Pack and other select packages on Oct. 1. DirecTV customers will also have access to Universal Sports’ programming on the Internet, mobile devices and tablets in the near future. continued…

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Those numbers are down slightly from last year’s Game 5 between Boston and Los Angeles, which earned a 12.8 overnight rating. It still ranks as the second-highest rated Game 5 in the last seven years.

Thursday’s broadcast peaked with a 16.3 rating from 11:30-11:45 p.m. ET. continued…

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First on SportsNewser: The Onion is releasing The Ecstasy of Defeat this October and SportsNewser has an exclusive first-look at the finalized cover. Published by Hyperion, the book is a collection of the most memorable Onion sports articles, from the classics to recent news stories such as, “Andy Pettitte Retires To Inject HGH Without Being Harassed About It,” as well as “‘And Now For a Thrilling Tennis Season,’ Nobody In Nation Says.”

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Here’s the link for further information.

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“Many media types I know hold the fans in contempt. It’s sad when, say, a cheese-heavy local baseball blogger thinks he knows it all but fails to see himself for what he is: a glorified stenographer with a bloated ego and a sweet gig. It’s the misguided elitism that rankles. Reporters don’t consume sports the same way fans do, and few of them have made much of an effort to understand your perspective….Boo whomever you like. Or don’t. It’s up to you. Just don’t let anyone dictate the terms of your passion. They aren’t you, and they shouldn’t pretend that they always know what’s right.”

Passively accepting the commentary of, say, Bob Costas is for lemmings from the Midwest, Gonzalez says.

“Context is important. Let’s not forget where all this supposedly unsavory conduct occurs. We don’t live in St. Paul, Minn., or St. Louis. The fans there are Stepford automatons, blinking and cheering and slobbering on cue. It’s frightening. Many of the people (in Philadelphia) take pride in being the opposite of the typical mindless water-and-sprout mutants filling seats in stadiums across the country. Philadelphians have long seen themselves as open, honest brokers – fans who will tell you exactly what they’re thinking instead of what you might want to hear.”

So in conclusion: Philadelphia fans can tell you what they’re thinking (even when you don’t want to hear it), but Philadelphia announcers cannot.

– Photo Los Angeles Times

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Terms of the agreement, including the price paid, were not disclosed, but sports Business Daily reports that the deal is worth around $5 million a year.

“I don’t think America truly moves to springtime until the first Saturday in May and I am delighted that we will be bringing this iconic American event to homes across America for five more years,” said Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports & Olympics in a statement. “We’re excited to extend our relationship with the Derby and our business partnership with Churchill Downs, a partnership that is one of the finest examples of two organizations coming together to build an event.

More information in the press release after the jump.

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One big change: for the first time PBR will produce the telecasts this season. For the past eight years Versus has produced them.

In any case, you can expect another year of men being thrown from large beasts to be readily available for your viewing pleasure.

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“It won’t be straight down the middle, it won’t be non-biased, it will be structured just the way you would have a discussion with anybody interested in having a civil, rational conversation,” Parker, a Washington Post columnist told TVNewser soon after the announcement.

While CNN is certainly not abandoning the field of journalism, the new program will not be based on firsthand reporting, though the final format is still being developed.

Spitzer, the former New York governor who resigned from office after his involvement in a prostitution scandal, says that the program will present their opinions and the opinions of guests, but that “we are not going to present them in a way that is bombastic and unrelenting.”

In a memo to employees Wednesday, CNN/U.S. president Jon Klein defended the decision to hire commentators for one of the network’s most valuable and prestigious timeslots. Specifically, Klein argued that while Spitzer and Parker are commentators, they will base their comments on facts:

[O]ur new hosts’ backgrounds and perspectives bear obvious differences. But they agree on at least one thing: that honest, vigorous, wide-ranging debate and discussion – driven by facts, not hysteria – is the best means of uncovering the solutions America craves.

Of course, political commentators have traditionally not let facts get in the way of a good point, as CNN’s “Crossfire” showed. In one of his first orders of business as CNN’s new boss in 2005, Klein canceled “Crossfire” telling the New York Times he wanted to move CNN away from “head-butting debate shows.”

But the new show does seem to contradict what Klein told advertisers at its upfront presentation in April:

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