The prime-time rating for Wednesday night's coverage was a 10.0 rating with a 15 share. If it seems there is less interest in these Winter Olympics than previous ones, a Seton Hall Sports Poll indicates a shift in that direction. The poll showed that of the people polled from Feb. 17 to 21, 26% said they are less interested, while 60% said their interest is about the same.

Maybe what the Olympics need is more drama such as what Italian ice dancers Barbara Fusar Poli and Maurizio Margaglio provided after they fell. They stared each other down and wouldn't speak. Then they hugged and kissed after their final performance on the ice.

Carol Lewis, commentating on the men's and women's luge, skeleton and bobsled events, provided one of the bright spots for NBC. The former track star, who is Carl Lewis' sister, became the first African-American woman to cover a sled event, and the first athlete of any race or gender to provide expert analysis on both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

TNT's Ernie Johnson announced in a statement that he has been battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma since August 2003 and will take time off after the NBA season to start a treatment regimen.

Gene Elston, whose baseball announcing career spanned 47 years, primarily as a radio announcer for the Houston Astros, has been named this year's recipient of the baseball Hall of Fame's Ford C. Frick Award.

USC announcer Pete Arbogast is an active youth sports coach, dating to when he was a seventh grader in 1967. He currently coaches an eighth-grade girls AAU basketball team, the Golden Valley Magic, which has been together for four years and is disbanding this summer as the players head into high school.

Arbogast, who loves statistics, said he will be trying for victory No. 1,000 in various youth sports when the Golden Valley Magic plays at North Hollywood High at 5 p.m. Sunday.

An ESPN-produced DVD of Texas' victory over USC in the Rose Bowl became available this week. A DVD that may sell better around these parts is an FSN West-produced on the USC season, titled "Fight On!" This $19.98 DVD, distributed by Shout Factory, becomes available March 14.

College football commentator Gary Danielson, who is going to CBS to work with Verne Lundquist, said he agonized over the decision to leave ABC and Brent Musburger. "I think what intrigued me the most was doing only one conference," he said. CBS has just the Southeastern Conference. Danielson is replacing Todd Blackledge, who signed with ESPN to work with Mike Patrick.

The Clippers have made a deal for Spanish-language radio station KMXE 830 to begin broadcasting its home games. The deal calls for home and away games for next season.

UCLA's final home game of the season — against Oregon Sunday at 1 p.m. — will be televised by CBS. Attending the game will be members of the UCLA team that lost to Houston at the Astrodome in 1968. Eddie Einhorn, who at the time owned the TVS network, which broadcast that game, organized the reunion as part of a promotion for his new book, "How March Became Madness."

NFL Network is covering the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis. It began Thursday and continues through Wednesday. Sirius is also broadcasting from the combine on its NFL channel (124).

NBA TV will try something Sunday with a Houston-Orlando game that NBC did with a New York Jet-Miami Dolphin football game in 1980 — no announcers. There will be enhanced audio to pick up crowd noise and sounds of the game.

In honor of Black History Month, ESPN Classic's "Vintage Live: Negro League Baseball" will televise a live game Sunday at 1 p.m. featuring two former Negro League teams, the Birmingham Black Barons and the Bristol Barnstormers.

The players, from collegians to minor leaguers, will wear uniforms resembling those worn by the players in the late 1940s. Willie Mays will serve as the host of the game, which will be played at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala.

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