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Where to find Olympics competition on NBC and affiliated networks

By David Bauder, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press

NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Summer Olympics opening ceremony takes place Friday, but the first of 5,535 hours that NBC is showing of the games begins Wednesday with qualifying rounds in women's soccer. With so many different options, viewers need a road map to make sense of it all.

NBC is promising that every competition in London will be available to U.S. consumers live, with the bulk of them seen online.
The centerpiece of coverage will be NBC's prime-time, 8 p.m. to midnight on most evenings, with Bob Costas as host. Given the time difference with England, all of the events will be shown on a tape-delayed basis, although particularly rabid fans will have the opportunity to see each of these events online during the day.
Costas will give people an overview of the day's big stories. But the prime-time package is not designed to offer a complete picture of the games. As in the past, NBC will be heavy on personal stories to make non-sports fans interested in strangers they will see competing in sports they rarely follow — with the obvious exception of known personalities like Michael Phelps. And if you want badminton or boxing, you'll have to turn elsewhere: the prime-time hours are generally concentrated on the swimming, diving, gymnastics and track and field competitions.
New to NBC this year is the amount of coverage presented during the business day, starting at 10 a.m. following the "Today" show.
The cable and satellite networks all avoid prime-time hours to funnel those viewers into NBC. Except for those hours and the overnight in London, a viewer could expect to see competition on NBC and cable the rest of the day.
The NBC Sports Network, for example, is on the air from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, the second full day of the competition. The cable and satellite outfit did not exist during the last Olympics and will show 292 hours of competition this year. It is being positioned as the home of U.S. team sports. The centerpiece of Sunday's coverage, for example, is the U.S. men's basketball team's game against France.
While producers want the NBC Sports Network to form an identity as a home of U.S. team sports, the truth is that NBC, NBC Sports and MSNBC are airing so much competition that they will lack clearly focused identities. The best way to keep track of their daytime schedules is to keep checking NBCOlympics.com.
As it has in the past, the CNBC business network is positioned as the home of Olympic boxing, including women's boxing for the first time. The competition will be focused weekdays on the hours between the close of financial markets and the beginning of TV prime-time.
Between July 28 and Aug. 3, Bravo will air the Olympics tennis competition.
The amount of hours available to Spanish-speaking viewers through Telemundo are also being sharply increased, and then network promises a broader look at the range of competitions than it has in the past. Still, swimming, basketball and soccer will be the sports the network concentrates upon.
Through cable and satellite providers, NBC is also running speciality channels devoted to the basketball and soccer competitions. For the first time, the Olympics will also be presented in 3-D with a special channel available to viewers with this technical capability.
With all that coverage on television, NBC will be offering even more online. That represents a change in philosophy; the network once worried that making competitions available online could cut into the number of people who want to watch on television. Now NBC's leaders believe all of the online competition will compel viewers to want to watch more online.
The NBC Olympics Live Extra App gives fans a variety of options, including live streams of what is being shown on the TV networks. Online channels will also be set up to offer coverage of every single Olympic competition taking place, and the Gold Zone will have rapidly-moving coverage of the day's most compelling live events.
To satisfy cable and satellite operators, NBC is requiring viewers to prove that they have a cable or satellite subscription in order to access the online options. This requires a username and password from the companies, so interested viewers would be advised to set those up before the games start to avoid missing out.

Alex Rodriguez breaks hand

The Associated Press

SEATTLE (AP) -- Alex Rodriguez has broken his left hand after being hit by a pitch from Felix Hernandez in the eighth inning of the New York Yankees' 4-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

Rodriguez was the third player to be hit by a pitch from Hernandez. He immediately fell to the ground, wincing in pain and was removed from the game.
The Yankees said afterward that A-Rod had a non-displaced fracture of the left hand, and there was no timetable for his return. He will be placed on the disabled list and will see the team's doctor when the club returns to New York after Wednesday's series finale.
Hernandez also hit Derek Jeter and former teammate Ichiro Suzuki.

Viewing guide for Olympics coverage

By DAVID BAUDER (AP Television Writer) | The Associated Press
 

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Summer Olympics opening ceremony takes place Friday, but the first of 5,535 hours that NBC is showing of the games begins Wednesday with qualifying rounds in women's soccer. With so many different options, viewers need a road map to make sense of it all.

NBC is promising that every competition in London will be available to U.S. consumers live, with the bulk of them seen online.
The centerpiece of coverage will be NBC's prime-time, 8 p.m. to midnight on most evenings, with Bob Costas as host. Given the time difference with England, all of the events will be shown on a tape-delayed basis, although particularly rabid fans will have the opportunity to see each of these events online during the day.
Costas will give people an overview of the day's big stories. But the prime-time package is not designed to offer a complete picture of the games. As in the past, NBC will be heavy on personal stories to make non-sports fans interested in strangers they will see competing in sports they rarely follow - with the obvious exception of known personalities like Michael Phelps. And if you want badminton or boxing, you'll have to turn elsewhere: the prime-time hours are generally concentrated on the swimming, diving, gymnastics and track and field competitions.
New to NBC this year is the amount of coverage presented during the business day, starting at 10 a.m. following the "Today" show.
The cable and satellite networks all avoid prime-time hours to funnel those viewers into NBC. Except for those hours and the overnight in London, a viewer could expect to see competition on NBC and cable the rest of the day.
The NBC Sports Network, for example, is on the air from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET on Sunday, the second full day of the competition. The cable and satellite outfit did not exist during the last Olympics and will show 292 hours of competition this year. It is being positioned as the home of U.S. team sports. The centerpiece of Sunday's coverage, for example, is the U.S. men's basketball team's game against France.
While producers want the NBC Sports Network to form an identity as a home of U.S. team sports, the truth is that NBC, NBC Sports and MSNBC are airing so much competition that they will lack clearly focused identities. The best way to keep track of their daytime schedules is to keep checking NBCOlympics.com.
As it has in the past, the CNBC business network is positioned as the home of Olympic boxing, including women's boxing for the first time. The competition will be focused weekdays on the hours between the close of financial markets and the beginning of TV prime-time.
Between July 28 and Aug. 3, Bravo will air the Olympics tennis competition.
The amount of hours available to Spanish-speaking viewers through Telemundo are also being sharply increased, and then network promises a broader look at the range of competitions than it has in the past. Still, swimming, basketball and soccer will be the sports the network concentrates upon.
Through cable and satellite providers, NBC is also running speciality channels devoted to the basketball and soccer competitions. For the first time, the Olympics will also be presented in 3-D with a special channel available to viewers with this technical capability.
With all that coverage on television, NBC will be offering even more online. That represents a change in philosophy; the network once worried that making competitions available online could cut into the number of people who want to watch on television. Now NBC's leaders believe all of the online competition will compel viewers to want to watch more online.
The NBC Olympics Live Extra App gives fans a variety of options, including live streams of what is being shown on the TV networks. Online channels will also be set up to offer coverage of every single Olympic competition taking place, and the Gold Zone will have rapidly-moving coverage of the day's most compelling live events.
To satisfy cable and satellite operators, NBC is requiring viewers to prove that they have a cable or satellite subscription in order to access the online options. This requires a username and password from the companies, so interested viewers would be advised to set those up before the games start to avoid missing out.

Sports above all else leads to huge Penn State penalties

By Christine Brennan, USA TODAY

Unprecedented atrocities demand unprecedented action, and that's exactly what the NCAA did Monday.

NCAA President Mark Emmert didn't give Penn State's football program the so-called death penalty, but he might as well have. Clearly wanting to make an example of Penn State in this run-amok era in big-time college sports, the NCAA essentially decimated the Nittany Lions' football program for the next decade in the wake of the reprehensible Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

Emmert's actions were stunning and appropriately devastating for Penn State football. And his words resonated far beyond the Happy Valley campus to a much broader audience. It was as if he were speaking to every university president, conference commissioner, bowl official, football coach, booster and football fan in America when, time and again, he spoke of the Penn State scandal as a "gut check," asking, "Do we have the right balance in our culture?"

We all know the answer for years has been a resounding no. But, perhaps, what Emmert's NCAA did Monday will begin to force everyone in college football to reassess just how out of control big-time football has become on the nation's campuses. It was just last year that Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee, when asked if he would fire coach Jim Tressel in the midst of a growing scandal involving his football players, uttered the immortal words: "I'm just hopeful the coach doesn't dismiss me."

Set against this backdrop, the magnitude and depth of the NCAA's action against Penn State must have turned the heads of even those in the most insulated and untouchable of college football programs.

That's clearly what Emmert was hoping. "Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people," he said Monday. "These events should serve as a call to every single school and athletics department to take an honest look at its campus environment and eradicate the 'sports are king' mindset that can so dramatically cloud the judgment of educators."

Now the NCAA is saying that if the school won't do that, it will - to which we all should say: It's about time.

"We cannot look to NCAA history to determine how to handle circumstances so disturbing, shocking and disappointing," Emmert said. "As the individuals charged with governing college sports, we have a responsibility to act."

Clearly, Penn State's anemic leaders could not be trusted to make any of the correct or tough decisions against their football program, so Emmert did it for them, basically ensuring that Penn State football will be a shell of its former self for the next 10 years.

He fined Penn State $60 million, which amounts to one year of gross revenue for the football team - all of it going to programs that will serve the victims of child sex abuse. He banned Penn State from bowl games for four years. He took away dozens of scholarships. He told any football player who wants to transfer that he can do so right now and immediately play wherever, which certainly will further gut the Nittany Lions roster. He is sending an academic-integrity monitor approved by the NCAA to watch everything Penn State does for the next five years.

And he vacated 112 wins from the football team from 1998-2011, in the process taking away Joe Paterno's title as the winningest coach in big-time football. For his major role in enabling the actions of a child rapist in Penn State's football facility for 13 years, Paterno deserved to have those victories stricken from the record.

Paterno lied, deceived and covered up Sandusky's awful behavior for so long simply because he was the venerable head coach at one of the most powerful football institutions in America. There are many others coaching major-college football today with the same kind of power. No one is saying they are wielding it in the devastating manner Paterno did, but we also don't know that they aren't.

If the NCAA is truly interested in finding out, the remarkable Penn State punishment won't be the end of the story. It will be only the beginning.

Bob Costas plans to honor Israelis

Updated Jul 23, 2012 7:42 PM ET

     

 

NEW YORK (AP)

NBC Sports anchor Bob Costas says he plans his own on-air commemoration this week of the Israelis killed in Munich 40 years ago despite the refusal of Olympic authorities to do so during Friday's opening ceremony for the London Games.

Remembering Munich

View a gallery of images from the 1972 Munich Massacre.

A bid to honor the athletes and coaches killed by Palestinian gunmen during the 1972 games with a moment of silence has gained momentum recently, even drawing President Barack Obama's support.
Costas, who called the International Olympic Committee's decision baffling, told the Hollywood Reporter that he intends to note that denial on Friday when Israeli athletes enter the Olympic Stadium. Costas has been the lead host of NBC's Olympics coverage for 20 years.
''Many people find that denial more than puzzling but insensitive,'' Costas said. ''Here's a minute of silence right now.''
Through a spokesman, Costas denied a request by The Associated Press to speak further about his plans. His comments to the Hollywood Reporter were made more than a month ago and published late last week, and NBC noted that things can change in the interim.
''Our production plans for Opening Ceremony are still being finalized and Bob is part of that planning,'' said NBC Sports Group spokesman Adam Freifeld.

RELIVING THE TERROR

Four decades after our worst fears were realized, the Munich massacre remains seared in our psyche.

IOC President Jacques Rogge offered a moment of silence Monday to the 11 Israelis during an Olympic Village ceremony promoting a United Nations initiative calling on nations to halt armed conflict during the games. It drew about 100 people.
Two days earlier, Rogge said that the opening ceremony ''is an atmosphere that is not fit to remember such a tragic incident.'' The opening ceremony is televised worldwide; in the U.S. alone NBC's telecast of the 2008 Games in Beijing averaged 34.2 million viewers.
Abraham Foxman, national direction of the Anti-Defamation League, said support from Costas would be welcome. Foxman's organization, which promotes Jewish causes, has backed an effort to bring notice to the Munich victims at opening ceremonies for years.
''I think he's right, and I think it will make a difference because of who he is,'' Foxman said. ''It's sad that one has to characterize it as courageous. It's such a common-sense thing to do.''
Criticizing the IOC could be a delicate issue for NBC. In addition to choosing where future Olympic competitions will be held, Rogge's organization also awards exclusive rights to televise the events to networks in different countries. The IOC has awarded NBC those rights in the U.S. through the 2020 Games.

Toronto flip-flops on decision to bar teen sports shooters from Ontario Games event

Jake Edmiston  Jul 23, 2012 – 6:58 PM ET | Last Updated: Jul 23, 2012 7:07 PM ETChris Baldwin, 18, who's scheduled to compete as a sport shooter at the Ontario Summer Games in Toronto next month.

Bowing to criticism from the sports community on Monday, City of Toronto staff reversed a decision that barred two teen sport shooting champions from speaking at an Ontario Summer Games ceremony.
In the wake of the Scarborough shooting last week, organizers thought it best that national sporting rifle champions Chris Baldwin, 18, and Sabrina Sergeant, 17 be prevented from speaking at a youth promotion event in Toronto on Wednesday ahead of the Ontario Summer Games, which take place in August.

“This is unfortunately something that has been handed down to us out of our control and we deeply apologize,” read an email sent to the two athletes last Tuesday — a day after the Danzig Avenue block party shooting that killed two and injured two dozens others.

Upon further reflection, and discussion with the Games Organizing Committee, the City of Toronto regrets the decision

“We realize that gun violence has nothing to do with the sport of Sporting Rifle or any of your Athletes and that your sport promotes the safe and responsible use of rifles.”
City spokesperson Deborah Blackstone said the decision was made “due to the very young audience expected to participate” at Wednesday’s event, that will see over 200 summer camps try out the various sports associated with the Summer Games.
This week, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association released a statement condemning the decision.
“These teens are very disciplined and have refined their craft over many years, and now some faceless anti-gun bureaucrats are associating them with drug dealing, gang member criminals,” said John Evers, who runs the London-area sportsmen’s association that produced both Mr. Baldwin and Ms. Sergeant.
Mr. Baldwin, who’s won a total of six gold medals at previous Summer Games, said he received a call from organizers on Monday afternoon informing him that he’d receive his three minutes of speaking time on Wednesday after all. The city’s change of heart came after the National Post publicized the ban on the two athletes in a column by Matt Gurney on its web site on Monday.
Mr. Baldwin took the city’s flip-flop in stride.
“The message I will be giving the people in the room isn’t going to change,” said the teen, who began shooting at age eight. “As an athlete ambassador, I can’t go and rant for three minutes about the stupidity of the decision that was made earlier. I’m going to talk about the importance of the Summer Games for my sport.”
City staff were unavailable for comment Monday and the statement from the City of Toronto was unclear on who exactly gave the directive to stop the athletes from speaking, and then changed their mind.
“Upon further reflection, and discussion with the Games Organizing Committee, the City of Toronto regrets the decision,” wrote Ms. Blackstone in an email to the National Post.
National Post
With files from Matt Gurney

Find below the text of the email sent by an employee of the City of Toronto last week:
RE: Athlete Ambassador Appearances
Sent: Jul 17, 2012 3:31 PM
Unfortunately due to the untimely shootings that have taken place in Scarborough and the City recently, we have received a directive that we can no longer have the Sporting Rifle Athlete Ambassadors present on stage at the World Record Camp Games event.
This is unfortunately something that has been handed down to us out of our control and we deeply apologize. We realize that gun violence has nothing to do with the sport of Sporting Rifle or any of your Athletes and that your sport promotes the safe and responsible use of rifles.
We appreciate your understanding of this matter and apologize to both the CSSA and your Athlete Ambassadors sincerely.
Shortly before 4 p.m. Toronto time on Monday, the city of Toronto sent this statement to the editors of the National Post:
In follow up to Matt Gurney’s article, we wanted to provide you with the following information:
Upon further reflection, and discussion with the Games Organizing Committee, the City of Toronto regrets the decision that was communicated to the Canadian Shooting Sports Association and supports the participation of all athlete ambassadors in the on stage welcoming ceremony of the World Record Camp Games. The athlete ambassadors representing the sport shooting have been invited to participate in the welcoming ceremony at the World Record Camp Games.
The City of Toronto very much values the participation of all Ontario Summer Games athlete ambassadors in the World Record Camp Games event and looks forward to hosting all athletes representing all 28 sporting events at the 2012 Ontario Summer Games.

Oakland A's playing 'Moneyball' again

By ANTONIO GONZALEZ (AP Sports Writer) | The Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Moneyball, take two?

Exactly a decade after the Oakland Athletics inspired the book that became a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt last summer, baseball's most frugal franchise is becoming a must-see attraction again. The A's are a majors-best 14-2 in July and coming off a stunning four-game sweep of the high-priced New York Yankees to move into a tie for the final American League wild card spot.
With a little more than two months to play, general manager Billy Beane's new bunch of no-names and up-and-comers are starting to turn the Oakland Coliseum into the real-life ''Moneyball'' sequel.
''I think Billy's really good at finding eager players to be able to produce,'' third baseman Brandon Inge said. ''Kind of the opposite of high-maintenance players. They're not all caught up in selfish stats. They want to come in and they want to be a part of a winning organization, and that makes the difference in everything. We really don't have any high-dollar guys who are prima donnas. That's probably the key. We're more of a blue-collar team.''
And a low-budget team, too.
Still saddled with the same ballpark issues, Oakland traded away its three best pitchers - All-Stars Trevor Cahill and Gio Gonzalez, and 2009 Rookie of the Year closer Andrew Bailey - last winter in the latest payroll purge. Oakland began the season with a league-low $53 million payroll.
To put that in perspective: the $200 million Yankees have two stars - slugger Alex Rodriguez ($30 million) and ace CC Sabathia ($24.3) million - making more money combined this year than the entire A's roster.
Sweeping the big, bad Bronx Bombers for the first time in a four-game series at the aging Oakland Coliseum sent a clear message across the American League: Wins aren't coming cheap against the A's anymore.
''It definitely feels good to battle and be victorious against the best teams, on paper, in the game,'' said center fielder Coco Crisp, whose two-out RBI single in the 12th inning Sunday capped Oakland's major-league leading 11th walk-off win. ''You can look up and down a lot of lineups like Detroit, or the Angels, the teams with high payrolls. Obviously, they have high payrolls for a reason, because the players on the team deserve it. When we battle against those guys and come out with wins, it's definitely a great feeling.''
When the season began, nobody figured Oakland could contend. Most thought the A's would lose around 90 games. Some guessed 100.
Instead, a new class of youngsters emerged: outfielder Josh Reddick, catcher Derek Norris and pitchers Tommy Milone, Jarrod Parker and Travis Blackley. The arms have carried the club more than anything, even while Oakland's three best remaining starters in the rotation - Brandon McCarthy, Brett Anderson and Dallas Braden - are rehabbing from injuries.
The A's lead the American League with a 3.37 ERA, almost a third of a run better than Tampa Bay and New York, who are bunched in the pack trailing Oakland. Oakland also is on pace to shatter last year's mark of 114 home runs, already having smacked 101 long balls in what is becoming a sudden surge of power at the plate, offsetting a majors-worst .228 batting average.
''It's the same formula when I was here and we were winning,'' said Yankees third baseman Eric Chavez, who played for the A's from 1998-2010.
The comparison to those A's of old might still be premature.
Beane bucked the trend of relying on the common trio of statistics - batting average, home runs and RBIs for hitters; wins, losses and ERA for pitchers - and instead turned to hard numbers over subjective scouting to fuel his team's successful runs in the early 2000s. Every team now uses some level of ''sabermetrics,'' and all with more money than Oakland.
The A's also have only won five straight and 14 of the last 16 games heading into Tuesday's series at Toronto. Those 2002 Athletics chronicled in Michael Lewis' best-selling book won an AL-record 20 consecutive games, with the last coming in September, not late July.
There have still been some thrilling moments, with 10 different players accounting for Oakland's major-league leading 11 wins on a game-ending RBI. And after every one, players toss whipped-cream pies and a sports-drink bath at the hitter in a celebration that has become so routine concession workers behind the dugout already have them prepared in the late innings.
''Those games are hard to win,'' A's manager Bob Melvin said. ''It means you're scrappy and you won't take defeat and you'll battle till the last out.''
The surprising run hasn't washed away Oakland's biggest problem: an aging ballpark the team says drains money and forces the franchise to shed stars for salary relief each offseason.
The latest rebuilding project came as a result of Beane and owner Lew Wolff's insistence that they expected to hear from Commissioner Bud Selig about whether the franchise would be allowed to build a new ballpark some 40 miles south in San Jose, even though the San Francisco Giants own the territorial rights to technology-rich Santa Clara County. More than three years since Selig formed a committee to study the issue, no resolution seems to be coming soon.
No big contracts or proven players, either.
Oakland's only All-Star representative was rookie closer Ryan Cook, who has a 1.70 ERA and 10 saves. Reddick leads the team with 21 home runs and 46 RBIs. The highest-paid player is outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, who signed a $36 million, four-year contract after coming over from Cuba.
Cespedes is batting .299 with 13 home runs and 45 RBIs this season, even after he was sidelined for about a month with a strained muscle in his left hand. While his back-loaded contract makes many wonder how long Oakland will be able to afford him, it's clear how much Cespedes has helped the A's latest ''Moneyball'' movement.
Oakland is 39-24 with Cespedes in the lineup and 12-20 without him.
''If the playoffs started tomorrow,'' Cespedes said in Spanish over the weekend, ''you better be careful against the Oakland A's.''

NCAA slams Penn State, fines it $60 million

By MARC LEVY, MICHAEL RUBINKAM and RALPH D. RUSSO (Associated Press) | The Associated Press

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) -- A potential exodus of star athletes. No hope of playing in the postseason. More than a decade of accomplishments erased from the record books. And Joe Paterno's legacy in shreds.

Penn State football, a longtime powerhouse that was once one of the cleanest, most admired programs in college sports, escaped the so-called death penalty from the NCAA on Monday but was dealt a heavy blow that will cripple it for years to come.
The university agreed to an unprecedented $60 million fine, a four-year ban from postseason play and a cut in the number of football scholarships it can award - the price it will pay for having looked the other way while Jerry Sandusky brought boys onto campus and molested them.
The NCAA also erased 14 years of victories, wiping out 111 of Paterno's wins and stripping him of his standing as the most successful coach in the history of big-time college football.
''Football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people,'' NCAA President Mark Emmert declared.
Penn State meekly accepted its punishment, pledging to hold itself to high standards of honesty and integrity.
Penn State spokesman David La Torre said university President Rodney Erickson had no choice but to acquiesce, given the threat of a total shutdown of the football program.
''It was clear Penn State faced an alternative - a long-term death penalty and additional sanctions for the program, university and whole community. Given the situation, he believed the sanctions offered and accepted was the appropriate and course of action,'' La Torre said.
At a student union on campus, several dozen alumni and students gasped, groaned and whistled as they watched Emmert's news conference. The news was a crushing blow to many students.
Nicole Lord, a senior, questioned why Penn State's student body, and especially its athletes, should be punished ''for the wrongs of three men and a monster.''
''They keep breaking our hearts and breaking our hearts and breaking our hearts,'' she said.
Sandusky, a former member of Paterno's coaching staff, was found guilty in June of sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years, sometimes on campus. An investigation commissioned by the school and released July 12 found that Paterno, who died of lung cancer in January at age 85, and three other top officials at Penn State concealed accusations against Sandusky for fear of bad publicity.
The NCAA's punishment was announced a day after the school took down a statue of Paterno that stood outside Beaver Stadium.
The sanctions will make it difficult for the Nittany Lions to compete at the sport's highest level. Raising the specter of an exodus of athletes, the NCAA said current or incoming football players are free to immediately transfer and compete at another school.
For a university that always claimed to hold itself to a higher standard - for decades, Paterno preached ''success with honor'' - Monday's announcement completed a stunning fall from grace.
Paterno's family said in a statement that the sanctions ''defame the legacy and contributions of a great coach and educator.''
''This is not a fair or thoughtful action; it is a panicked response to the public's understandable revulsion at what Sandusky did,'' the family said.
Emmert said the penalties reflect ''the magnitude of these terrible acts'' and also ''ensure that Penn State will rebuild an athletic culture that went horribly awry.''
He said the NCAA considered imposing the death penalty, or a complete shutdown of football for a season or more, but worried about the collateral damage.
''Suspension of the football program would bring with it significant unintended harm to many who had nothing to do with this case,'' Emmert said. ''The sanctions we have crafted are more focused and impactful than that blanket penalty.''
Gov. Tom Corbett expressed gratitude that Penn State escaped the death penalty, saying it would have had a ''severe detrimental impact on the citizens of State College, Centre County and the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania.''
A drop-off in attendance and revenue could damage both the university, where the football team is a moneymaker that subsidizes other sports, and much of central Pennsylvania, where Saturday afternoon football at Penn State is an important part of the economy.
But given Penn State's famously ardent fans and generous benefactors, the precise economic impact on Penn State and Happy Valley, as the surrounding area is known, remains unclear.
First-year coach Bill O'Brien, who was hired to replace Paterno, will have the daunting task of trying to keep players from fleeing the program while luring new recruits.
''I knew when I accepted the position that there would be tough times ahead,'' O'Brien said.
Already, at least one recruit, Ross Douglas, a defensive back from Avon, Ohio, backed out of his commitment. Douglas told Rivals.com on Monday: ''We prepared ourselves for it, and today was just the icing on the cake. I love Penn State to death, but I have to do what's best for me, and I'm going to look elsewhere.''
Separately, the Big Ten announced that Penn State will not be allowed to share in the conference's bowl revenue during the NCAA's postseason ban, an estimated loss of about $13 million.
Emmert fast-tracked the penalties rather than go through the usual circuitous series of investigations and hearings.
The NCAA said the $60 million fine is equivalent to the annual gross revenue of the football program. The money will go toward outside programs devoted to preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims.
Penn State said it will pay the fine in five annual installments of $12 million. The governor demanded assurances from Penn State that taxpayer money will not be used to pay the fine; Penn State said it will cover it with its athletics reserve fund and capital maintenance budget and, if necessary, borrow money.
By throwing out all Penn State victories from 1998 to 2011, the NCAA stripped Paterno of the top spot in the record book. The governing body went all the way back to 1998 because, according to the investigative report, that is the year Paterno and other Penn State officials first learned of an allegation against Sandusky.
Former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden will replace Paterno with 377 major-college victories, while Paterno will be credited with 298.
''I didn't want it to happen like this,'' Bowden said. ''Wish I could have earned it, but that's the way it is.''
Penn State will also lose 20 scholarships a year for four years. Major college football programs are normally allowed 85 scholarship players per year.
The postseason ban is the longest handed out by the NCAA since it gave a four-year punishment to Indiana football in 1960.
Penn State players left a team meeting on campus in State College without talking to reporters. Penn State's season starts Sept. 1 at home against Ohio University.
''Our heritage, our legacy has been tainted and damaged,'' said Troy Cromwell, a wide receiver on the 1986 team that won the second of Paterno's two national championships. Cromwell said he felt bad for current and incoming players, ''but at the end of the day, there were still those kids, those poor kids, and those victims, and we have to think about them first in everything that we do.''
The harshest penalty handed out to a football program came in the 1980s, when the NCAA shut down Southern Methodist University's team for a year. SMU football has never gotten back to the level of success it had before getting the death penalty.
Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten conference, said he believes Penn State is capable of bouncing back. ''I do have a strong sense that many of the ingredients of success are still at Penn State and will be there in future years,'' he said.
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Russo reported from New York. Associated Press writers Mark Scolforo in State College, Kevin Begos in Pittsburgh, Tom Coyne in Indianapolis and Brent Kallestad in Tallahassee, Fla., contributed to this story, along with AP videographer Dan Huff in State College.

USADA files motion to dismiss Armstrong suit

The motion, filed Thursday in Austin, Texas, cites the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act, which gives USADA jurisdiction over athletes who compete in Olympic sports. (Photo: AP/Bas Czerwinski)

July 19, 2012, 10:02 pm

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss Lance Armstrong's federal lawsuit that seeks to prevent the drug-fighting organization from pursuing doping charges against him.
The motion, filed Thursday in Austin, Texas, cites the Ted Stevens Amateur Sports Act, which gives USADA jurisdiction over athletes who compete in Olympic sports.
It also includes a 2005 affidavit from USADA CEO Travis Tygart stating that Armstrong took part in USADA's testing program and was under its jurisdiction -- the opposite claim Armstrong is making in the current case.
The affidavit helped bolster Armstrong's claims in a lawsuit against SCA Promotions, which refused to pay bonus money to the Tour de France winner because of allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs.
That affidavit also states that Armstrong passed 12 doping tests. Armstrong claims he has never tested positive. USADA's current case against him, which could cost him his seven Tour de France titles, is a "non-analytical" case -- based on evidence other than positive doping tests.
Tygart released a statement Thursday night discussing the motion to dismiss and restating some of what he has said in response to Armstrong's claims that USADA is unfairly targeting him.
"Were we not to bring this case, we would be complicit in covering up evidence of doping, and failing to do our job on behalf of those we are charged with protecting," Tygart said.
Armstrong's representative, Mark Fabiani, did not immediately return emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.
On July 9, Armstrong filed -- and a judge quickly threw out -- a lawsuit seeking to stop USADA from pursuing its case.
Armstrong's attorneys called the USADA hearing procedure a "kangaroo court" and said the USADA filing was a "testament to USADA's brazenness and callous disregard for its own mission that it seeks to strip Mr. Armstrong of his life's work."
In dismissing the case, the judge criticized Armstrong for grandstanding and using it as a publicity stunt; Armstrong's attorneys responded by refiling a shorter version of the same lawsuit.
Meantime, USADA has granted Armstrong an extension -- through Aug. 13 -- to decide whether he wants to take the charges to arbitration, the next step in the anti-doping adjudication process that Armstrong is trying to avoid with the lawsuit.
The USADA motion to dismiss includes 30 entries detailing what it says are "unsupported factual statements" in the Armstrong lawsuit.

Daily News Sports Photos of the Day: Tigers following Tiger Woods at the British Open

Plus: Dark skies over Olympic Stadium, and imposing messages in the sky over State College.

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 7:09 PM

Updated: Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 7:17 PM

They must be Phil Mickelson fans. Spectators dressed as tigers walk around the Royal Lytham & St Annes golf club ahead of the British Open Golf Championship, where Tiger Woods looks to win a 15th major tournament.

Paolo Giovannini/AP

Double-amputee sprinter, South African Oscar Pistorius, gets in some stretching before a training session in Lignano Stadium, Udine, Northern Italy. Pistorius, known globally as the Blade Runner, will be running the 400 meters race at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Nabil K. Mark/AP

The famous bespectacled statue of the late Nittany Lions’ football coach Joe Paterno continues to be the target of threats, the latest of which came Tuesday, when a plane flying over State College was dragging a banner with seven ominous words: “TAKE THE STATUE DOWN OR WE WILL.”

Ian Willms/AP

Hey, you on the left, don't we know you from somewhere? Former Knicks guard Landry Fields shots off his new colors, Raptor Red, at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday afternoon.

Michael Regan/Getty Images

Hopefully this isn't a bad omen. We already heard the story about a 32-mile traffic backup in London and athletes getting lost for hours on their way to the Olympic Village. Now we have threatening skies over the Olympic Stadium. What's next? Frogs?

MONTSERRAT T DIEZ/EPA

Hold on tight. IRC 0 class sailboat Mini Maxi Bella lead by Hap Fauth (l.), during the second stage of the 31st edition of the King's Cup Boat Race, held in Palma Majorca Bay, Spain.

OLIVIER HOSLET/EPA

Climbers make their way at the Aiguille du Midi at an altitude of 3,842 meters, a part of the Mont Blanc mountain near France's Chamonix ski resort. The Mont Blanc mountain, the highest mountian in Europe with 4810 meters, is a dangerous place. In June nine climbers were been killed and eight injured in an avalanche near the Chamonix ski resort.

ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP/Getty Images

Who knew water polo was such a rough sport. Hungary's Tamas Kasas (r.) is fouled by Australian defenders during their Vodafone Cup match in Budapest

PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Hey buddy, got any body oil I can use? A competitor looks on as he stands on stage during the 2012 International Bodybuilding and Fitness Invitation Championship in Hong Kong. Participants, use tanning products and oils to darken their skin and increase shine as they display their best shaped muscles to a panel of judges who assign points based on their appearance.