MLB Network hosted the third annual SVG Sports Asset Management Forum on July 22, giving more than 130 leading industry executives a behind-the-scenes tour of the MLB Network broadcast facility as part of a day-long event held in Secaucus, NJ. The event was sponsored by Sony Broadcast, Grass Valley, RF Extreme, SOS Global, and the Systems Group.

Metadata was a hot topic at SVG’s third-annual Sports Asset Management conference, held this week in Secaucus, NJ and hosted by the MLB Network. During an asset management technology update, representatives from Sony Broadcast, Grass Valley, Front Porch Digital, and XOS discussed the challenges inherent in a consistent metadata strategy, as well as the ROI opportunities having that metadata provides.

Rainy, windy conditions often spell disaster for the cyclists during the Tour de France, but inclement weather can be just as frustrating for the broadcaster. Outside broadcast production company SFP, which handles all of the RF engineering and production for host broadcaster France Télévisions’ host coverage of the Tour de France, has had some storms derail the fluidity of this year’s tour — but overall, the coverage has been better than ever.

ANC Sports, which installs and operates high-definition and rotational displays for sports facilities such as Nationals Park, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Quicken Loans Arena, Wachovia Center, Yankee Stadium, Verizon Center, among others, has undergone an influx of capital as Celeritas Management acquired a majority stake in the company. Jerry Cifarelli will remain the president and chief executive officer of ANC Sports while retaining a minority share of the business and says the move was done to help ANC Sports, which is coming off its best year ever, to continue its growth.

This March, on the heels of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, the Winter X Games will make its international debut at Tignes Ski & Snowboard Resort, located in the Northern French Alps. The first Winter X Games to be held outside of the United States, the event will include eight competitions over three days, including ski and snowboard SuperPipe and Slopestyle for men and women, as well as a Snowmobile demonstration.

At SVG’s Sports Asset Management event, held June 22 and hosted by the MLB Network, MLB.com’s Joe Inzerillo took the stage with the NBA’s Eric Weinstein to discuss monetizing digital assets. Earlier in the week, MLB.com announced that its At Bat iPhone application will add more live video and stream every remaining regular-season game directly to mobile devices. On the podium, and in this week’s SVG Audible, Inzerillo discussed how that At Bat application is shifting the business model for distributing content over wireless.

Tuesday night’s Phillies–Cubs game on Comcast SportsNet delivered a record-breaking 10.6 rating (315,000 households). The Phils’ extra-innings win marks the highest rated Phillies game in Comcast SportsNet’s 12-year history, breaking the previous mark of a 10.5 rating set on September 27, 2007, when the Phillies played the Atlanta Braves. the game peaked at a 15.9 rating (472,000 households) at 10 p.m. and was the most-watched program in the Philadelphia market throughout the day. This season the Phillies are averaging a 6.3 rating, a 21% increase over the same time period last year…

The National Basketball Association will play a preseason game in China this fall, as the Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets will square off on October 11 in Beijing. This will be the eighth NBA game played in China and the third in Beijing. The contest will be staged at the refurbished Wukesong Arena, formerly known as the Beijing Olympic Basketball Arena. “The Wukesong Arena is an outstanding facility that we are proud to call the home of the NBA in Beijing,” said Tim Chen, CEO of NBA China…

The Sports Video Group is pleased to welcome our newest corporate sponsor, Signiant. Founded in 2000, Signiant software is a solution to control the movement of content and automated processes, within and between organizations.

German public broadcaster ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) began broadcasting from two Vizrt Viz Virtual Studios powered by broadcast-graphics solutions from Vizrt at its broadcast complex in Mainz, Germany.

The Sports Video Group is pleased to announce our newest corporate sponsor, EveryZing. EveryZing, Inc. powers next-generation universal search and publishing technology for online content.

Omneon will use IBC2009 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam Sept. 11-15 to present the European debut of its new MediaDeck GX complete channel-playout solution and to highlight four new MediaPort modules for its Spectrum and MediaDeck server systems.

Law Sound & Lighting said YES on behalf of Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network to Sennheiser SKM 2000 wireless microphones for its roving reporters during its coverage of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and the National Basketball Association’s New Jersey Nets.

Stadium, a sports-retail chain in Sweden, is using InfoCaster Player content-playout systems from Harris as part of a complete upgrade of its internal digital-signage system, and the company says the Harris gear enables it to provide sports-related clips, commercials, and news feeds at any of its 110 stores, potentially evolving into dynamic in-store advertising or HD transmissions.

Crosscreek Television Productions will outfit its new Voyager 9 HD remote-broadcast truck with a 64-fader Calrec Sigma with Bluefin audio console, and the 53-foot trailer with a 51-foot-by-5-foot expansion will go on the road in August to cover professional wrestling, college football, and motor sports.

Origin Digital is pleased to announce that experienced television and new media professional John Leland has joined the company as vice president of global media operations.

Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS-TV will use Chyron’s AXIS online-content-creation system for its news graphics.

Versus used SportsMEDIA Technology’s zoom-telestration technology in native HD PAL for the third consecutive year in its coverage of the Tour de France, enabling the cable network to visually identify and highlight individual cyclists and illustrate team strategies during race action.

Harris installed a Harris ONE HD broadcast-communications system for the American Forces Network Broadcast Center at the Defense Media Center in Riverside, CA, made up of broadcast-routing, automation, video-server, core-processing and asset-management products.

Riedel Communications will showcase its new Artist 5000 series intercom control panels and its MediorNet fiber-optic signal-transport solutions at BIRTV in Beijing Aug. 26-29.

The National Football League will expand the NFL Draft from two days to three days and hold the first round in primetime on a Thursday night, John Clayton reported for ESPN.com, with information from Associated Press.

ABC will air the 2009 WNBA All-Star Game in HD from Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT, Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET, and the network’s coverage will also include the exclusive live announcement of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2010.

Apple added more than 100 new features to Final Cut Studio and released new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color, and Compressor.

Fresh off announcing that its Black Nights football team would take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in the first-ever football game at the new Yankee Stadium, the Army Athletic Association announced an exclusive five-year agreement with CBS College Sports Network under which the network will air every home game in HD, along with select neutral site games in which Army is the home team.

Broadcast Services International (BSI) has selected two Lawo mc²56 digital consoles to handle audio mixing for the forthcoming 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Berlin, Germany. Scheduled to run from August 15–23, 2009. The Lawo mc²56 consoles will serve as the main audio system in both the master control and sub-master control for BSI’s Japanese client, Tokyo Broadcasting Systems.

Mark Davidson joined Salzbrenner Stagetec Mediagroup’s DELEC digital-intercom and communication-systems unit as head of international sales, with a focus on launching its new oratis intercom solution.

Madison Square Garden Network will hitch a ride on a new HD truck from Game Creek Video, Michael Grotticelli of BroadcastEngineering reports.

ESPN banned New York Post staff from appearing on any of its programming after the newspaper published three pictures from the peephole video taken of ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews, AP reported.

The Maryland Stadium Authority issued a request for proposals for 24-foot-by-96-foot HD LED screens at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the National Football League’s Baltimore Ravens, to be placed between the upper and lower decks of each end zone, TV Technology reported.

The brake pedal is being pressed down on NASCAR ratings so far this season, with Fox coverage slipping 12% compared with last year and TNT seeing a 6% drop. Now, it’s ESPN/ABC’s turn, points out Michael Hiestand of USA Today.

With the advent of digital-audio workstations and computer audio-editing programs, are audio consoles a thing of the past? No, says Mary C. Gruszka of TV Technology, pointing out innovation in audio-console design at NAB, digital-audio upgrades at major facilities, and the secondary market for older, often-analog boards.

Gol TV will cover the 2009 Peace Cup Andalucia from Spain July 24-Aug. 2, featuring elite soccer clubs Real Madrid (Spain), Juventus FC (Italy), Atlante FC (Mexico), Sevilla (Spain), Málaga (Spain), Aston Vila (England), Seognam (Korea), FC Porto (Portugal), Besiktas JK (Turkey) and current titleholder Olympique Lyonnais (France), Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reported.

Professional and college athletes have always been in the public eye, but has the new technology of the past few years taken things too far? David J. Neal of the Miami Herald looks at the effect of innovations like camera phones, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and how they have impacted the private lives of athletes.

Nike says it is returning videotapes it confiscated of NBA star LeBron James getting dunked on at a recent basketball camp.

An unemployed blogger provides an on-the-scene report from Mark Buehrle's perfect game. Well, as on-the-scene as you can get from the top of the bleachers.

Wade Strange is a 29-year-old Red Sox fan transplanted from western Massachusetts to New Jersey -- "in the heart of Yankee country" -- and he said his life is about to change for the better. He just learned the news about MLB.TV and MLB.com At Bat 2009 hooking up.

The Golf Channel and Comcast collaborated on documentary Uneven Fairways, which chronicles the challenges of African-American golfers trying to break the sport’s color barrier, reported John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable.

Did ESPN hold off on reporting that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault because the network wanted to make sure it had all of the facts before running with the story, or because ESPN is one of the National Football League’s TV partners?

The state of Pennsylvania placed a historic marker outside 230 North 13th Street in Philadelphia, the original home of NFL Films and its headquarters from 1965-81, reports Frank Fitzpatrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The good news: If a cable operator is going to experience a glitch, how bad can it be if the glitch only lasts 54 seconds? The bad news: It can be very bad if the cable operator is Time Warner Cable in Los Angeles and Manny Ramirez hits a game-winning pinch-hit grand-slam home run during those 54 seconds.

NASCAR isn’t filling the seats at its tracks this season, and the press boxes are looking pretty empty, as well, so it is turning to a group of 28 Websites and blogs, which received media credentials to start covering races, Rich Thomaselli of AdAge.com reported.

Back-seat drivers may not be popular on our nation’s highways, but ESPN hopes “Backseat Drivers” enhance its live coverage of the Aug. 15 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Michigan International Speedway, which will be aired without a traditional play-by-play announcer, instead featuring five former NASCAR champions sharing the duties.