Let Rome have The Last Word. (Remote Patrol.

Blahblahblahblah. Thanks to Oprah/Sally/Ricki/Montel/Maury/Geraldo/Leeza/ Rosie, we were ripe for a sports-talk flood. ESPN has replaced UpClose with Unscripted and Pardon The Interruption (5 and 5:30 p.m. ET, respectively). Fox Sports Net anted The Best Damn Sports Show Period (7:30 and 11:30 p.m.). Even Mark Cuban has a show (NBA libel lawyers, check your local listings).

Suddenly Jim Rome, aka The Last Word (FSN, 6 and 11 p.m.) with 750 half-hours in the can since 1998, is the Establishment with a classy, intelligent, authoritative act--comparatively speaking.

Unscripted, featuring MTV refugee Chris Connelly, plays like an ESPN Zone lounge act. PTI revives Tony Kornheiser-Michael Wilbon's tasty Sports Reporters debates, but this format imposes time limits per topic (Would that bell go off after five minutes if Jesus were a guest? Yes, they insist.) And TBDSSP--Mom requests I not repeat the full title--targets an audience that deems The Man Show too highbrow. Tom Arnold, skits, Anna Kournikova jokes and updates by sportsbabes hardly fills 90 minutes. As for talk: the ex-Mr. Roseanne "told" Mark McGwire (who, um, wasn't on the show), "They call you Big Mac because the cartilage in your knee is special sauce." Blahblahblahblah!

Rome's relevance wasn't built in a day. Rep and rap were cultivated on his national radio gig; "the TV show continues to evolve" Rome notes. Call-ins were axed as Fox ...