Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 1, 1994 TAG: 9409010065
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
As edgy and frustrated as the fans it wants to reach, the American advertising industry is giving up hope of seeing any more major league baseball games this year and is trying to decide how to make the best of it.
Television and radio stations have replaced canceled games with old movies, situation comedies and more talk and news, trying to keep their stranded advertisers happy with special rates.
National networks, meanwhile, have plugged in minor league games and other sports, while praying that they don't lose the bulk of baseball revenue they had expected from the playoffs.
``It has thrown a lot of stations into chaos,'' said Marguerite Ross, director of local broadcasting for Young & Rubicam, the huge advertising agency. In one of the more pessimistic, but not uncharacteristic, comments from industry executives, she said that at least for this year, ``I think it's permanent. The season is over.''
Just how badly this will hurt advertisers and the networks and stations that serve them remains as murky as the reasons that caused the strike in the first place.
The Baseball Network, a joint venture handling TV ad sales for ABC and NBC, had secured commitments for an estimated $130 million in baseball ad sales, most of that involving postseason play.
Many advertisers are placing ads in other television shows that attract sports-lovers, such as ``Late Night With David Letterman'' and other late-night programs. But they are leaving the rest of their baseball advertising dollars unspent, saving them for happier days.
Tony Ponturo, vice president for corporate media and sports marketing at Anheuser-Busch Cos., whose beer ads are a mainstay of baseball commercialdom, said, ``We have not reinvested our baseball advertising budget, and as of now we have no alternative plans for our advertising dollars.''
One advertiser, Nike Inc. of Beaverton, Ore., expressed its frustration with a series of eight national ads showing a single fan, played by comedic actor Ryan Stiles, in the yawning emptiness of San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium.
The commercials, climaxed by Nike's appeal for an end to the strike, show acres of unfilled seats punctuated by Stiles doing a wave, heckling a maintenance man or forlornly playing ``Take Me out to the Ballgame'' on the stadium organ.
The ads, Nike spokesman Tom Feuer acknowledged, don't directly relate to selling shoes, but ``we are a sports and fitness company, and it is in our best interests to see people perform and compete.''
Gillette Co. finds itself in a more awkward situation. In one of its biggest sports promotions, 10 people picked in a national drawing were to have a chance to win $50,000 and a Corvette by hitting a baseball more than 200 feet off a tee at a late-season game.
``We've been involved with sports since 1939,'' said Gillette spokesman Eric Kraus. ``We will keep our commitment, but it may have to be in an empty stadium.''
Advertisers and broadcasters who rely on sports either decline to say how much the strike is costing them or say it is too difficult to calculate at this time. But substitute programming has drawn fewer viewers than the major league games were expected to.
Diane Lamb, manager of programming information for the ESPN cable sports network, said a minor league game broadcast as a substitute Sunday night, Aug. 14, drew only 954,000 viewers, compared with 1.6 million for previous major league games.
If the playoffs are canceled, said Steve Grubbs of BBDO Inc., some advertisers may find it too late to arrange attractive substitutes, and those who planned to launch new products during the World Series ``just won't have the same impact.''
by CNB