Mixed martial arts coming to network TV

Mixed martial arts
coming to network TV

LOS ANGELES — Mixed martial arts will air on one of the Big Four television networks for the first time. CBS announced a deal last week with ProElite, which produces MMA events, to broadcast in prime time a sport that has been growing in popularity. The plan is to televise two-hour live specials four times a year on Saturday nights. “Mixed martial arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the country and a wildly popular entertainment vehicle for upscale, young adult audiences,” Kelly Kahl, CBS Primetime’s senior executive vice president, said in a release.

Honors for Denzel

NEW YORK — The United Negro College Fund is planning to honor Denzel Washington and his wife at its 64th anniversary dinner in New York. The actor and Pauletta Washington will receive the Frederick D. Patterson Award for helping historically black colleges and universities and helping minorities pay for education. The award is named for a co-founder of the United Negro College Fund and former president of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama. The Oscar-winning Washington recently starred in and directed “The Great Debaters.” The movie was inspired by a historically black college debate team that debated an all-white team at an Ivy League university during legal segregation in the 1930s. The UNCF dinner will be March 7 at a Manhattan hotel.

Today’s birthdays

Author Tom Wolfe is 78. Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev is 77. Singer Lou Reed is 66. Actress Laraine Newman is 56. Singer Jay Osmond is 53. Rock singer Jon Bon Jovi is 46. Rock singer Chris Martin (Coldplay) is 31. Actor Robert Iler (“The Sopranos”) is 23.