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Sports media mailbag: Intriguing ESPN ‘Monday Night Football’ options

You ask, we answer. The Post is fielding questions from readers about New York’s biggest pro sports teams and getting our beat writers to answer them in a series of regularly published mailbags. In today’s installment: sports media. Could ABC push for their own 1 p.m. NFL broadcast window along with CBS and Fox? — …

You ask, we answer. The Post is fielding questions from readers about New York’s biggest pro sports teams and getting our beat writers to answer them in a series of regularly published mailbags. In today’s installment: sports media.

Could ABC push for their own 1 p.m. NFL broadcast window along with CBS and Fox? — @DougBowman247

I do think this is possible, but more probable is another broadcast window on Sundays. With the addition of a 17th game, the NFL could create a third package, which is where a current network or ABC could be involved. So, while I do think overall you will see a similar setup as we have had for years, adding one more slate of games seems very possible — perhaps in a mid-morning window with neutral-site games.

Who would you like to see ESPN have on MNF? — @Neilschoolnik

ESPN is pretty gung-ho on adding Drew Brees. If it happens, the two play-by-players who make the most sense are Ian Eagle and Kevin Burkhardt. Both of their contracts are expiring at the end of the year and both have the ability to make a potential hiring of Brees even better. ESPN needs likeable and both Eagle and Burkhardt are that on the air.

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That said, CBS and Fox love Eagle and Burkhardt, respectively, so it likely won’t be easy to pry them loose.

As for this year, I would go with a two-man booth, and I can see ESPN’s logic with Steve Levy and either Dan Orlovsky or Louis Riddick. They may do a trio, but that would mean more moving parts and would create more of a bake-off atmosphere because the group would have the incentive of possibly being the No. 1 team if ESPN gets a second package.

If you went with two analysts, Orlovsky and Marcus Spears have very good chemistry. It is probably not the right time to try this idea because Spears hasn’t done games and I’m not positive his style would translate in the booth (it could be amazing or too much), but getting along well with each other is an underrated quality, especially in three-person booths. Spears and Orlovsky have it on “Get Up!”

If you want me to go off the board, Steve Young is someone I would consider, but he has been hesitant to go in the booth over the years. There is no evidence that has changed.

One other thing to keep in mind is that if there is no college football season in the fall, but there is NFL, then maybe ESPN goes with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit for a year.

Is this Marv Albert’s last season as lead NBA announcer on TNT? — @BroadyArmand

Marv is signed up through next season. Turner has the right to keep him as its No. 1 play-by-player or have someone else do both the All-Star Game and conference finals.

Kevin Harlan has been there for years, so he could be next in line. Eagle and Stan Van Gundy have stood out this season as TNT’s best booth.

Will CBS hang on to @SEConCBS until the contract ends in 2024? — @auditwalk24

ESPN spent $300 million to take the rights from CBS, which has led many to speculate it will try to buy out CBS’s remaining years. It would not be shocking if the sides were to talk, but nothing is yet close.

There has also been some acrimony after the SEC and Tony Romo competitions, so those personal feelings would have to be put to the side.

Do you sense going forward, post-pandemic, with the cuts going around concerning Entercom in terms of the sports stations, will WFAN start to become more reliant on network sports talk content like sports stations in many other part of the country are accustomed to? — @NYCSporty

There is a major concern among the on-air people that Entercom won’t go back to full-time WFAN local weekend programming or, maybe more likely, they will force hosts to work a sixth day, which they all are doing during the quarantine.

We’ll have to see, but when the games are played, I think it has been a major advantage for WFAN over ESPN through the years to know that they are local.

Weekend ratings don’t matter in the business, but there has been a historical advantage for WFAN, as the hometown station, over ESPN in New York. If I were WFAN, I wouldn’t want to jeopardize that.

Any chance that Big Mike figures more prominently (again) on the M-F airwaves of FAN after/due to the economic hardships of #COVID ? — @Justlucky3218

Never say never. But probably not.

What can you tell us about the Craig Carton documentary being made? Who is producing? Release date? — @MarkZinno

I’ve heard it will likely come out in the fall on HBO, but of course everything is now a bit scrambled because of the virus. It is being produced by Street Smart Video, which is led by Martin Dunn, the executive producer of a 2019 documentary on Tom Seaver.

What’s the best job in sports media? — @GrantWatley

Covering sports media.

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