... And a Plushie to be Named Later

Even by the Bizarro World standards of professional sports, this is a little weird. ABC's longtime lead sports announcer, Al Michaels, has been traded to NBC. Yes, traded. Like the sports figures whose feats of athletic glory he describes, Michaels has been traded from one broadcasting team to another, as he still under contract to ABC/ESPN.

In and of itself, this would be relatively minor news. What is truly remarkable, especially here in Burbank, is the fact that Michaels was traded for, among other considerations, a cartoon character. Not just any cartoon character, mind you, but the predecessor to perhaps the most iconic cartoon character of all, Mickey Mouse. As it turns out, Walt Disney produced several films in 1927 featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, but the films were distributed by Universal, which owned the rights to the character. Having lost the rights to Oswald, Walt came up with that mouse that led to a certain amount of success for the company. You may have heard something about it.

As it turns out, because NBC recently acquired Universal, NBC now holds the rights to this long-forgotten figure. Similarly, Disney owns ABC/ESPN. Somehow, someone in the Disney family prevailed upon the ABC negotiators to demand that NBC return the rights to Oswald to its historic roots as part of the Al Michaels deal. The Michaels trade also included a number of other interesting pieces, primarily highlight and broadcast rights to sporting events over which NBC holds all rights: Ryder Cup, Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Notre Dame football and, most notably, the Olympics (no more goofy still-frame shots or results with highlights on SportsCenter). Clearly, though, the most intriguing part of the deal was this guy: