Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 9, 1991                   TAG: 9103090021
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CBS TAKES A SHOT AT FILLING ESPN'S NCAA SHOES

ESPN used to give viewers dawn-to-dawn coverage of the NCAA Tournament's first round. Ten live games over two days, then another nine or 10 on tape overnight before turning the event over to CBS Sports for the second-round weekend.

Those days are history. CBS is spending $1 billion over seven years for exclusive NCAA coverage. ESPN now is like the rest of us, the frustrated spectators who can't get enough.

On Thursday, CBS begins its 19-day journey through the 64-team field. To suggest that the network will not be able to handle the myriad of cut-ins to numerous live games in the first round would be foolish. CBS will be televising its 10th NCAA, and its coverage over the years has been superb, if not as blanketing as the ESPN work.

Viewers should be warned, however, that if they have had cable access to the first round in the past, they will be disappointed. You will see less of the first round than from the former ESPN-CBS combination format. Don't expect to learn game starting times right after Sunday evening's pairings show (6:30 p.m., WDBJ), either.

With ESPN and CBS airing the first round in past years, viewers could watch six full games each on the first two days. Basically, ESPN had games at noon, 2:30, 4:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m., then CBS showed a late-nighter. With CBS owning all of the rights, viewers will get nine hours of live telecasts Thursday and Friday - noon-5 p.m., and 8 p.m.-midnight.

No more late-night live games, no more taped game telecasts. OK, making it through Pitt-Ball State at 4 a.m. was tough. With CBS' first-round schedule, all viewers will see four live games each day - two fewer than recent years with the ESPN-CBS daily double.

Last year, there were 68 hours of live NCAA telecasts. The estimate this year on CBS is about 60 hours. Likely, you will see more pieces of games than in the past because the NCAA is allowing CBS major input on game starting times, which will be staggered from region to region.

For example, because state viewers likely would want to watch both Virginia and Richmond in the tournament, it is very unlikely they will play at the same time. All of CBS' first-round coverage will be regionalized, unless there's a very intriguing matchup that deserves national attention, as Georgetown-Princeton was a couple of years ago.

Once the NCAA Basketball Committee finishes its bracket, CBS will go to work in Kansas City, Mo., to put together its schedule, which, CBS Sports executive producer Ted Shaker said, might not be ready until Tuesday morning.

Shaker promises CBS will concentrate on game coverage, floating among regional sites for the best offering, and will not fill vacant minutes in any market with feature material. However, with its top announcing team working the first weekend in the studio, the temptation to go to Jim Nantz and Billy Packer in lieu of game coverage will be ever-present in the world of talking heads.

CBS is paying the NCAA $115 million for the rights to the '91 tournament, a figure that climbs between $7 million and $8 million annually through 1997, when the NCAA will be getting in the $160 million range. By comparison, the NCAA was paid less than $60 million for tournament rights last year in the old CBS and NCAA contracts.

ESPN's first-round coverage was superb, and the volume of it will be missed. CBS will give viewers quality, but not as much quantity. CBS knows how to televise basketball. The network also knows it can't win. There will be those who complain that ESPN gave them more. On the other hand, soap opera fans will light up switchboards Thursday and Friday when they are pre-empted by the tournament.

We'll also get a lot more sleep than we have in recent years.

\ WSLS (Channel 10) will televise tonight's Metro Conference championship game live from the Roanoke Civic Center at 7 p.m. Fred White and Terry Gannon will call the game for Raycom Sports, which is sending the telecast to Metro markets and adjoining areas.

Eight stations aired the Friday night semifinals, which were blacked out locally by the '91 Metro tournament committee because of sluggish ticket sales. The semifinals were shown in Norfolk; Louisville; Memphis; Cincinnati; Tallahassee, Fla., Orlando, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; and Hattiesburg, Miss.

Tonight's game will be shown on 14 stations. Besides the home markets of the eight Metro schools, others getting the Raycom feed are viewers in Norfolk; Nashville, Tenn.; Biloxi-Gulfport, Miss.; Charleston, S.C.; and Pensacola and Orlando.

\ The Metro final will be broadcast locally by WSLC (610 AM), from either the Metronews Network, Virginia Tech's broadcast producer, or Mutual Sports, which is broadcasting the final for the first time nationally. Airtime will be 6:30 or 6:40, depending on which feed WSLC carries.