Booth movement and some major college football news.....in MAY

So because they no longer have the rites to Monday Night Football, ABC is pooling their resources to put together a major college football primetime package beginning this season with Notre Dame at Georgia Tech.

The goal is to pair some of the top match-ups of the season in this package, and get the "big named" teams their primetime slot. Among the teams featured, Notre Dame will be on three times, against Tech, Michigan State and USC (and maybe again in the Rose Bowl if they fall there), Ohio State is featured twice, Michigan twice, and USC three times.

(Editors note: The highlight for me personally is that October 14th game with the Alma Mater extracting revenge on Mecheatagain at Beaver Stadium. Finally we get them at University Park for the first time since 2001. Go ask THE Ohio State's Troy Smith how much he enjoyed last year's primetime game at the Beav. Oh, and your homegrown referees won't save your ass this year either.)

But the package itself is a great idea, it's the first time that network television will carry a college football primetime series, and the weeks where there is a dual broadcast, the other game will be picked up by either ESPN or ESPN2 meaning you get three primetime games likely in one weekend.

ABC is smart in the sense that they have picked college football "cash cows" USC, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan to lead this new adventure and they are also going with a 12-day selection package too, meaning that games from November 11 on, they will select the games they will air 12-days before hand. Good choice, this way, much like the NFL Flex schedule they can get the best match ups from the conferences they choose to air.

ABC is also carrying the Rose Bowl (only) during the BCS, so they keep some of the traditional Rose Bowl teams like Ohio State, Michigan, and USC close to the vest in the hopes that maybe they can land a match up with any one of those three in their lone BCS game. Remember the other three BCS games move to Fox beginning this season.

There are other movments in the college football world as well.

• NFL Network will air the Insight.com bowl beginning this year, this to go along with their airing of live regular season NFL games for the first time. That, plus they will take the top five games from each week and re-air them in full, it's the network broadcast too.
  

• Keith Jackson announced his retirement weeks ago, so ABC will scramble to fill his shoes and the booths are being switched around right and left. Brent Musberger will work with Bob Davie on the ABC Primetime game, Mike Patrick and Todd Blackledge (who moved from CBS) will do the ESPN primetime game, and former ABC'er Gary Danielson takes Blackledge's roll as lead analyst on CBS' coverage of the SEC this season. This means that (my idol) Brad Nessler and Bob Greise will be the lead afternoon team on ABC and they will keep Gary Thorne on the other game during the afternoon (Since Mike Tirico is now the MNF guy)

• All we know about Fox's coverage of the BCS is that Thom Brennaman will call one of the games (the title game, maybe the "Plus-one" game?) and the rest of the crew, analysts and all will be named later. You could stay in house and get guys like Joe Buck or Troy Aikman, but it might be wise to go outside and get someone else. As long as it isn't the guys they use on the Fox Sports Net studio show during Saturday telecasts, it'll be OK. But Fox definitely has the shallowest of broadcasting talent pools, specifically when it comes to play-by-play and college sports.
  

• Those changes are inline with what the NFL booths look like with Greg Gumball moving back to play-by-play, James Brown jumping from Fox to CBS and Michaels and Madden jumping to NBC, Collonsworth and Bryant Gumball jumping to NFL Network.
  

It just goes to show that the booth movement is almost as crazy as free agency in other sports.

World Series

The first two games of the series are played in the home ballpark of the team awarded home-field advantage; the next three are in the other team's ballpark, and the final two, if necessary, are back in the first team's ballpark. That has been the pattern since 1924, with the exception of World War II, when travel restrictions were in place. Until 2003, the team given the home-field advantage was switched every year between the American League and the National League. Starting with the 2003 World Series, the league that wins the mid-season All-Star Game has been awarded home-field advantage.

World Series

The World Series is the championship series of Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada, the culmination of the sport's postseason each October. It is played between the pennant champner of the American League and the pennant champner of the National League. The Series champner is determined through a best-of-seven playoff (except in 1903, 1919, 1920 and 1921 when the champner was determined through a best-of-nine playoff) and is awarded the World Series Trophy, as well as World Series rings.