Nbc Sports

NEW YORK -- Former New York Giants coach Bill Parcells is heading for television, having signed on yesterday as a studio analyst for "The NFL Live," NBC's Sunday pre-game program.His three-year contract is worth $250,000 this season and will escalate to at least $400,000 if he stays through its duration, said people in television familiar with the deal.In addition to appearing on "NFL Live," Parcells may handle game analysis for a few late-season NFL games. He also will preview NFL games along with Will McDonough after NBC's six broadcasts of Notre Dame football games, and contribute to the weekend "Prudential Updates" if necessary.

UPDATES WITH RESPONSE FROM NETWORK SPOKESMAN: NBC said Monday that the problems experienced over the weekend with its Olympics live stream had been worked out. Not exactly. But after a morning of signing in and getting bounced offline repeatedly, and then spending long stretches looking at freeze frames instead of action while the little wheel on the screen went round and round in the afternoon, I have to admit I saw both of Phelps' races in real time Tuesday -- sort of. I didn't actually see him touch the wall at the end of 4X200 freestyle relay where the American men took the gold and made Phelps the most decorated Olympian in history.

Baltimore's Jim McKay anchored the first American telecast of the Summer Olympics in 1960 from a primitive CBS studio in Grand Central Terminal in New York City. Coverage of the Rome Games totaled 20 hours and cost the network $394,000 in rights fees. On Friday night, starting with the Opening Ceremonies, NBC Universal will launch what will ultimately total 5,535 hours of Olympics coverage across six network and cable outlets and one live streaming website over 17 days and nights.

Less sport and more style. That's the winning ticket at the racetrack these days, as the horse racing industry is trying to reinvent itself in an effort to attract new, younger and female fans. It's happening on TV screens with shows emphasizing the people as much as the horses, while the major races themselves are being recast as lifestyle events rather than just competitions. And it's happening on computer and mobile screens, with fans and riders connecting on Facebook and jockeys using Twitter.

NBC Sports has gained an unlikely but familiar presence for its broadcast of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City: Jim McKay, the Baltimore-based commentator known best for leading a dozen Olympic broadcasts on ABC dating back four decades. McKay, 79, said he's excited at the thought of joining NBC's Bob Costas next year to narrate profiles of Olympic athletes and offer commentary on the day's events. But it will be quite a change to see himself on the Peacock Network, he acknowledged.

O. J. Simpson has agreed to a live interview with Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric that will air tomorrow night at 8 on NBC, a network spokeswoman said last night."

Marv Albert, who was banished from broadcast sports television nearly two years ago after his conviction on assault charges, will return to NBC Sports and the NBA. The network announced yesterday that Albert, a 20-year NBC veteran, will return to call NBA games next season, as well as boxing in the Summer Olympics next year and men's hockey during the 2002 Winter Olympics. For Albert, who had been wooed by Fox to do NFL games, the chance to return to the sport he has been most closely associated with, basketball, and the network he has been identified with, NBC, were too strong to pass up. "I love the NFL, but, to me, the NBA is everything," Albert said in a national conference call.

NBC Sports wasted no time re-establishing "Sunday Night Football" as the top-rated show in prime time with a season opener that set a viewing record. Sunday's game between the Denver Broncos and Pittsburgh Steelers, which saw the return of Peyton Manning after neck surgery, was the highest rated Sunday game ever on the most-watched football show in the nation. An audience of 27.57 million watched Sunday as Manning's Broncos beat the Steelers. Baltimore was the 10th highest-rated city for the game, and every one of the viewers enjoyed every second of seeing the Steelers lose (OK, I made up the last part of that sentence following the comma.

There has been no shortage of complaints about NBC tape-delaying big events until prime time. And that is sure to be the case again tonight with the second-place finish by Michael Phelps and his fellow relay swimmers getting the delay treatment. Nevertheless, the network rolled to a second straight night of record ratings Saturday wiith 28.7 million viewers. Again, Baltimore also failed to make the Top 20 markets in terms of viewership. That is surprising given all the Olympic connections here -- particularly with Phelps.

File Joe Montana's new gig with NBC Sports away under the heading, "Nice work if you can get it."The recently retired, awaiting-Hall-of-Fame-induction quarterback yesterday signed a sweetheart of a multiyear deal with the Peacock network, in which he'll only have to work about 10 weeks a year, get paid a reported $750,000 a season and get shuttled into New York from San Francisco when he has to work.Best of all, Montana, who will fill in on the "NFL Live" set when Joe Gibbs' racing duties call him away, won't have to do any of that nasty analysis from the booth, but will work from the safety and security of the pre-game studio, where there's more time to form an opinion and fewer opinions are needed.