Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050044
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In one month, Musburger has gone from the big-league World Series on CBS to the Little League World Series on ABC. In one month, he has gone from being the tube's most prominent sportscaster to handling Gary Bender's old assignments - for $1.85 million per year.
You don't need cable or even a rabbit-ears antenna to get a clear picture here. Musburger has replaced Al Michaels as ABC Sports' highest-paid sportscaster. Probably sometime in June, after the Belmont Stakes, he will replace Michaels, period. Michaels, who has an ABC contract that runs through 1993, has filed a grievance against ABC.
If Michaels wins his arbitration case, he walks, probably to CBS. If Michaels loses, he will be shown the door and turn up soon after at CBS. ABC Sports is known for its financial dieting, and now it has sportscasters making $1.75 and $1.85 million annually, plus Frank Gifford, who is trying to get an extension on a $1.2 million deal.
ABC went into the 1980s as "the network of the Olympics." But it has refused to get into high-priced bidding for recent Olympic Games and has lost its share of baseball. It has kept and rekindled TV sports' prime-time success story, "Monday Night Football," and locked up all of college football except Notre Dame starting in 1991, but the division has been derisively labeled "ABC Sport" by some critics.
ABC doesn't need Musburger and Michaels. Musburger isn't going to be happy doing the World League of American Football - that's the "W-Laugh" - and the Peach Bowl. ABC isn't paying Musburger nearly $2 million per year to be seen on backup games in 20 percent of the nation. Musburger said he and ABC Sports President Dennis Swanson did not discuss "Monday Night Football." Maybe that's true, but you can bet Swanson and Musburger's brother-agent, Todd, did.
Musburger will be doing "Monday Night Football," the next Super Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, horse racing's Triple Crown, three-fourths of golf's Grand Slam and Big Ten Conference basketball on ABC Sports. Also, don't be surprised if he shows up occasionally on "Nightline" or as co-host of "Good Morning America" for ABC News.
One can only imagine what those hoops games will be like, when Musburger turns to analyst Dick Vitale - as he did to Billy Packer on CBS - and asks Vitale to set the scene or give an overview. Now that would be a telecast that needs not only closed-captioning, but also a warning from the surgeon general.
If Michaels exits ABC, the next move in musical networks likely would belong to CBS, which has the opportunity to make one of the biggest no-class moves in recent TV history. When Musburger was dropped, CBS moved backup baseball voice Jack Buck into the No. 1 play-by-play role, teaming him with Tim McCarver. Ted Shaker, executive producer at CBS Sports, said Buck and McCarver would be a team for this season.
If Michaels becomes available, CBS logically would want Michaels for his premier work as a baseball voice. Yes, Michaels and McCarver formed two-thirds of a wonderful baseball team on ABC with Jim Palmer. But if CBS dumps Buck - a Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster for his nearly four decades with the St. Louis Cardinals - for Michaels before the end of the 1990 World Series, then Shaker and CBS Sports President Neal Pilson will deserve - and get - more of the grenades Musburger lobbed their way a month ago after he was fired.
Buck and McCarver have worked only two games together, and they won't team again until mid-June on CBS' paltry 16-game baseball schedule. But they have displayed a knowledge of the game, a charming wit and a measure of debate, and have been a comfortable watch.
If CBS wants Michaels, great. He's a superb broadcaster. He would be superb on NFL games and college basketball, and you can almost hear him calling Olympic hockey from Albertville, France, and Lillehammer, Norway, in '92 and '94. If CBS wants Michaels and McCarver together on baseball next year, fine. But Buck has done nothing to suggest he doesn't belong in the big booth.
Overwhelmed by all of the talk about talking heads is one question: How many viewers tune in to watch a major sports event because a particular sportscaster is working it? Get serious.
A viewer may turn down the audio because of his dislike for a certain broadcaster, but the game is still the thing.
When ABC airs Super Bowl XXV in January, will the Nielsen ratings be affected by whether Musburger or Michaels calls the game? If CBS has the events it does - World Series, NCAA Final Four, a share of the NFL and Super Bowls, the Masters, U.S. Open tennis and the Daytona 500 - does it need a Musburger or Michaels to boost ratings?
Don't say you weren't warned.
ESPN's three-man Wednesday night baseball crew worked together for the first time this week on the Oakland Athletics-New York Yankees game. In a sport that, as it unfolds, warms best in crock-pot fashion, Gary Thorne, Norm Hitzges and Mike Lupica gave viewers microwave baseball.
Lupica, a columnist for The National, was making his debut. As expected, it wasn't inauspicious. But Lupica's expected outrageousness was understated compared to the comments of Hitzges, who comes across as a Vitale of the diamond. Hitzges, who came to ESPN from Texas Rangers telecasts, seems to make every statement with an exclamation point.
Thorne, a former prosecutor in Bangor, Maine, should be a rose between those two. He has a great voice and has been a fine play-by-play man for the Mets and ABC. Instead, maybe because Lupica was getting louder in an attempt to match Hitzges' stats-filled hype, Thorne started shrieking on solo homers and extra-base hits.
In TV, they always say a team needs to work together for a while to find the right chemistry. The formula for this ESPN trio seems to be nitroglycerin and a match.
by CNB