Tour de France Is Giving Cable Network Some Legs

Coming up: A baseball All-Star game decidedly short of All-Stars.

Just finished: A Wimbledon decidedly short of Pete Sampras.

What in the name of the Firecracker 400 has happened to our July sporting traditions?

Answer: They have been replaced by a new one -- Lance Armstrong churning to the Tour de France championship.

And dragging the still small but no longer obscure Outdoor Life Network along for the ride.

This has been something of a culture shock for old-schoolers who wonder what U.S. Postal Service blue and Dodger blue are doing sharing space on the front sports page. But, really, what is more American than pedaling a bicycle during summertime? Especially when the American always wins? And does it right under millions of arched French noses?

Armstrong is bidding for his fifth consecutive Tour de France title, which would tie Miguel Indurain’s record. He enters today’s Stage 7 in second place, one second off the lead -- with the mountains beckoning. If you know Armstrong, you don’t need an interpreter to understand what that means.

Move over, Miguel.

The Armstrong dynasty was still in its infancy, just a back-to-back thing in 2001, when the Outdoor Life Network began covering the race and U.S. cycling fans began calling their cable operators to ask, “What is the Outdoor Life Network, and do I get it?” By now, the word is out: For one month every year, OLN is to cycling hardcores what Fox Sports World is to soccer junkies -- part Mecca, part miracle, still an amazement that it actually exists.

It’s also a vivid reminder that smaller can be better. OLN now reaches 51 million American homes, small change compared to CBS. But compare CBS’s three weekly cut-and-paste highlight packages -- the first airs Sunday at noon -- to OLN’s meticulous daily coverage. OLN uses British commentators with French live footage, showing Americans how the Europeans cover major sporting events.

Believe it or not, it can be done without piano keys tinkling gently in the background, cameras panning the crowd in search of pseudo-celebrities and frequent cutaways for soft-focus, feel-good features on the domestique who overcame a tragic case of hay fever to live his Tour de France dream.

The OLN approach is pure sport -- or as close to it as commercial television will permit. The cameras stay on the riders. The studio analysis is succinct. Most of the show belongs to play-by-play announcer Phil Liggett and analyst Paul Sherwen, two of the most famous names in European sportscasting.

This year, for the first time, the BBC veterans are covering the Tour primarily for OLN. It’s quite a coup for OLN, which is quite excited about it. How do we know? Because of the sky blue OLN polo shirts Liggett and Sherwen now wear. And the big OLN emblem that now hangs on the wall behind them.

Little OLN has come a long way in a short time, but as Liggett once philosophized on air, “Don’t look back. You know what’s going on back there because you just left.” Or something like that.

Also available for viewing this weekend:

TODAY

* WNBA All-Star Game

(Channel 7, 1 p.m.)

Interesting: A collection of professional basketball All-Stars with no rap sheets, no front-and-side-view photos, no court appearances pending. So why are the regular-season TV ratings so low? That’s obvious. The WNBA lacks street cred.

*

* Minnesota Twins at Angels

(Channel 11, 1 p.m.)

Anaheim versus Minnesota -- the rivalry Anaheim can’t get enough of. Consider the last two meetings on the big stage:

Anaheim over Minnesota for the American League pennant.

Anaheim over Minnesota in the Stanley Cup semifinals.

Memorable victories, both of them, but look at the cost.

Shortly after eliminating the Wild, the Ducks lost Paul Kariya.

Shortly after eliminating the Twins, the Angels lost all perspective and decided to stand pat with a roster everybody else knew was more charmed than fully suited to a repeat performance.

Duck fan to Angel fan: “Wow! You mean you guys actually stood pat?”

*

SUNDAY

* NASCAR Winston Cup Tropicana 400

(Channel 4, noon)

NBC took the NASCAR baton from Fox last week and debuted with a 6.0 rating and 13 share for the July 5 Pepsi 400. NBC was ecstatic, e-mailing press releases that crowed that the telecast ranked fourth among the 18-49 demographic for prime-time programming during the week of June 30 to July 6 -- behind Fox’s airing of the movie “Independence Day” and the NBC shows “For Love or Money” and “Law and Order.”

That shows where NBC Sports has been lately. That’s right. Covering arena football.

In a related story, former NFL quarterback Jim McMahon will ride in a stock car during the pregame show, presumably to compare the many similarities between NASCAR and the Chicago Bears. For starters: Highlight shows for both often feature car wrecks.

* Xtreme Bulls Tour

(ESPN, 11:30 a.m.)

By the way, whatever happened to Dennis Rodman?

* Women’s Soccer: Brazil at United States

(ESPN, 1 p.m.)

In the battle for the hearts of mainstream American sports fans, the bottom line is this:

The U.S. women’s soccer team, a disappointing second at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and now struggling with some injuries, plays an exhibition match in New Orleans against Brazil. ESPN will carry it live.

A day earlier, the U.S. men’s soccer team, a surprise quarterfinalist at the 2002 World Cup, opens the Gold Cup -- a tournament that determines the champion of North and Central America -- against El Salvador. The only way to watch the game live on television today is pay per view.

If you want to see it for free, you have to wait until Sunday’s tape-delayed Galavision broadcast at 7 p.m.

Freddy Adu, where are you?

*

* Atlanta Braves at Chicago Cubs

(ESPN, 5 p.m.)

The Cubs, on prime-time national television. Probably best not to mike Dusty Baker for this one.