Nbc Sports

Mike Fratello, who quit as the Atlanta Hawks' coach last April 23, will take the NBA analyst's job with NBC Sports that Detroit Piston Coach Chuck Daly turned down in favor of trying to win a third straight NBA title. NBC said Fratello had signed a multiyear contract at an undisclosed sum to join Marv Albert and Bob Costas on the NBA broadcast team. Former Laker coach Pat Riley is NBC's studio host.

NBC, which reported extensively on the legal drama over Butch Reynolds' quest to run in the Olympic track and field trials, ended its Saturday coverage without a resolution to the story. NBC concluded its show at 3 p.m. PDT, with host Bob Costas saying the 400-meter preliminaries would be run no earlier than 5 p.m. The story was updated on the "NBC Nightly News." The preliminaries were moved to today at 10 a.m. PDT NBC Sports spokesman Ed Markey said had the event been run Saturday at 5 p.m.

Brent Musburger, reporting on CBS during NFL halftime breaks Sunday morning, gave viewers the results of the Skins Game, the made-for-television golf event that would be televised on a delayed basis on NBC later in the day. Musburger informed viewers that Lee Trevino won $310,000, with $175,000 coming for a hole-in-one on the 17th hole. A nice little promo for an NBC event? Not according to NBC.

CBS, which a month ago fired Brent Musburger, has lost another member of the "NFL Today" television cast. NBC announced Tuesday that it has signed Will McDonough to a four-year contract. Terms were not announced, but a source said the deal is worth $2 million. McDonough, 54, a sportswriter for the Boston Globe for more than 30 years, also worked for CBS the past four years. He will continue with the newspaper, but in a more limited role.

Usually, golf tournaments, even majors, don't get live coverage on a major network during the first two rounds. But the 97th U.S. Open, beginning today at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., is an exception. NBC will have two-hour blocks of coverage today and Friday, beginning at noon, sandwiched between ESPN's morning and afternoon blocks. This will be the second consecutive year NBC has done live coverage during the first two rounds of the tournament.

Heading into the Summer Olympics the smart money had NBC bleeding lots of red ink and struggling to land a big audience in an era of jaded viewers watching cynical and expletive reality shows. The smart money was wrong. Instead, NBC executives will leave London smiling. At worst, NBC and its parent, Comcast Corp., will break even on the games and may even make a tiny profit. NBC averaged 31.1 million viewers for the 17 nights of coverage it aired and overall almost 220 million people watched some of the games.

With the Olympic flame going out Sunday, it won't be long before NBC turns its attention to the 2014 Winter Games. There's no such thing as an extended break when you have $4.38 billion invested for the rights to the next four Olympics. NBC will prepare for its trek to Sochi, Russia, in 2014 buoyed by ratings and financial success that far exceeded expectations for London. The 17-day extravaganza shows its Olympic franchise is stronger than ever. Yet it wasn't a completely smooth run for the network.

Bryant Gumbel, an avid golfer, has agreed to serve as the main host for 12 of the 19 golf tournaments NBC will televise this year. The new assignment is expected to have little effect on his role as the host of the "Today" show. Over a six-month period, he may miss only four days. NBC has named golfer Johnny Miller as its top analyst. He and Gumbel will work from the tower at the 18th hole. Gumbel and Miller replace Vin Scully and Lee Trevino, NBC's main golf team since 1983.

If NBC Sports' Summer Olympics effort can be called successful--and its overall production generally has been solid to date--much of the credit, ironically, should go to competitor ABC. ABC Sports, for better or worse, established an Olympic tradition over the past generation, and NBC's 1988 Seoul success is one part beg-and-borrow from ABC and one part build-and-blossom from within.

Pat Riley, who last week announced he was resigning as coach of the Lakers, today was hired by NBC Sports. Riley will serve as the host of the network's pregame shows when it begins covering the NBA next season. After a New York press conference, Riley said for the first time that he decided to leave the Lakers in February. He said that's when he and Lakers owner Jerry Buss first had discussions about him resigning. "We then decided to table those discussions until after the season," Riley said.