Phil McNichol joins Universal Sports alpine announcing team

Former U.S. Ski Team men’s alpine head coach Phil McNichol will make his color commentary debut this weekend for the Universal Sports television network and universalsports.com, teaming with Steve Porino to call the men and women’s World Cup alpine opening races from Sölden, Austria.
     McNichol capped a successful 12-year coaching stint with the U.S. men’s team after last season. He has since started a sports consulting business. He joins former U.S. Ski Team athlete Porino, who worked both play-by-play and color commentary roles for a number of World Cup races last year on the former World Championships Sports Network, now Universal Sports.
  

Former U.S. Ski Team men’s alpine head coach Phil McNichol will make his color commentary debut this weekend for the Universal Sports television network and universalsports.com, teaming with Steve Porino to call the men and women’s World Cup alpine opening races from Sölden, Austria.
    McNichol capped a successful 12-year coaching stint with the U.S. men’s team after last season. He has since started a sports consulting business. He joins former U.S. Ski Team athlete Porino, who worked both play-by-play and color commentary roles for a number of World Cup races last year on the former World Championships Sports Network, now Universal Sports.
    The races—women race Saturday and the men on Sunday—will be shown both on the Universal Sports television network and on the Internet at universalsports.com but will not be shown live. Universal Sports' T.K. Gore said each race will be available on universalsports.com later on the same day it’s run, but he would not give a specific time.
    Those wanting to watch the Sölden races on television will have to wait until the night of Oct. 31 from 7-9 p.m. Eastern Time, when Universal Sports will air a two-hour recap of the races—the women’s race will be shown during the first hour followed by the men. Gore added that the network plans to cover the remainder of this season’s World Cup alpine events through a mix of live coverage and same-day tape delay both on the network and online. Gore says the races the network plans to air live from Europe still have not been determined.
    The Universal Sports television network currently is available to cable subscribers in the following markets: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, Washington D.C., San Diego, Dallas-Fort Worth, Hartford-New Haven, Conn., Omaha, Neb., and Las Vegas.