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FSN goes all in

Detroit Lions football or Chris Moneymaker and Phil Ivey?

That's a no-brainer.

On Thanksgiving Day, Fox Sports Net will air the Showdown at the Sands poker tournament from Atlantic City.

But unlike previous poker telecasts seen on ESPN and the Travel Network, FSN is attempting to go almost live with this $1-million event. The tournament ends Monday, but in an unprecedented quick turnaround, FSN will show the event only three days later in six one-hour shows to run consecutively beginning at 12:30 p.m. Repeats of the final two episodes begin at 8 p.m.

Fox Sports Net executive vice president of programming and production George Greenberg, in a news release, said, "We're going to handle it like a live production, with all the bells and whistles. What Fox Sports did for football, Fox Sports Net will do for poker."

FSN will use 21 cameras, 21 tape machines, 12 instant replay machines, three continuously running editing computers and a special-event NFL broadcast truck.

FSN also will use what it calls the first "Rabbit Hunting" camera. In the event of a fold, viewers get to see the cards the dealer never flipped over.

Jesse May calls the event. May is the lead play-by-play announcer for poker tournaments televised by Sky Sports in Great Britain.

Of the six state championships decided in volleyball last week, half were won by Tampa high schools.

If you couldn't make the trip to Lakeland, Sunshine is airing taped coverage Thanksgiving Day. It begins at 8 a.m. with the Class A (Bayshore Christian) and Class 5A (Plant) finals, and the Class 2A final (Berkeley Prep) airs after the 3A and 6A finals that begin at 11 a.m.

WDAE-AM 620's Sandy Penner will join the media panel on Sunshine Network's SportsTalk Live show starting Dec. 1.

Sunday night's NFL game between Dallas and New England was seen by the fifth-largest audience in cable television history as an average of 8,447,000 homes and more than 11.7-million people were tuned in, ESPN said.

The game had ESPN's third-largest audience ever, behind Detroit-Miami on Christmas Day 1994 and Buffalo-San Francisco on Dec. 3, 1995. ESPN's Sunday Night Football telecasts now occupy eight of cable's top 10 biggest audiences of all time.