Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 16, 1994 TAG: 9404160054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
After most of ESPN's NHL regular-season schedule was aired on ESPN2, the 16-team, best-of-seven playoffs will be shown mostly on ESPN, which is available in 62.9 million cable homes, compared to 13.7 million for "The Deuce."
While ESPN2 has eight games, ESPN's 41-game coverage - a network record - begins tonight with Montreal-Boston at 7:30. A game is scheduled most nights through the end of May, when the Stanley Cup Finals begin.
ABC Sports also will televise playoff games the next three Sunday afternoons. The regional Sunday is Game 1 of the Washington-Pittsburgh series (1 p.m., WSET).
Also, home games of any NHL series involving the Capitals will air live on cable's Home Team Sports.
\ NO DELAY: For the first time since Martinsville Speedway signed a contract with ESPN, the track's spring Winston Cup race will be shown live. That's because the start of the annual NFL Draft has been pushed back 3 1/2 hours on April 24.
NASCAR's Hanes 500 will air live on the cable network at noon. The NFL draft begins at 3:30 p.m. and ESPN's live coverage runs until 9 p.m. The NFL will select only two rounds of college players Sunday, then finish the draft ON THE AIR JACK BOGACZYK with five rounds on April 25.
\ HTS UPDATE: Bill Sledd, Cox Cable Roanoke's marketing manager, reports that the start of the baseball season has added about 300 Home Team Sports subscribers - obviously interested in watching the Baltimore Orioles - to the local system.
Cox Cable continues its fiber-optic upgrade, and Sledd said the five new channels - including HTS - on a new tier are now available to 42,000 of Cox's 52,000 homes. Sledd said the upgrade should be completed by July 1 and then the system will begin a marketing campaign devoted to the new offerings.
To date, about 2,000 subscribers have added Home Team Sports, which is the only available Orioles outlet in this region.
\ BIRDS' DEAL: In addition to the 78 Baltimore baseball telecasts on Home Team Sports, viewers in Richmond and Norfolk receive over-the-air Orioles' telecasts. HTS and club spokesmen said a Roanoke-Lynchburg outlet was sought, but no station wanted the games.
The Orioles' new three-year telecast contract with Group W Broadcasting - HTS' parent company - gives Group W the rights to all Baltimore games. Besides the HTS games and the 14 dates scheduled by The Baseball Network on NBC and ABC, Group W is syndicating 72 games to over-the-air stations in surrounding states.
Group W is paying $30 million for the three-year deal, including $10 million this year. That's a gain from the $8.9 million the Orioles received for rights in 1993. Norfolk viewers get 51 additional games, 14 more than those watching Richmond's WZXK.
\ EYEFUL: CBS Sports begins its new "Eye on Sports" anthology series Sunday (2 p.m., WDBJ). The 90-minute show includes coverage of the Paris-Roubaix cycling race and a Winter Olympics update, plus an interview with former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson. Greg Gumbel is the host.
What "Eye" really does is fill the programming void left by CBS' loss of baseball and the NFL. To date, CBS has scheduled 37 hours of "Eye" programming in 19 weekend shows. The May 8 and May 15 shows will include the network's condensed Tour DuPont cycling coverage.
This week, CBS announced it has added 9 1/2 hours of the U.S. Olympic Festival to the package. Another NFL substitute will be golf's new Presidents Cup Matches, scheduled at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Northern Virginia in mid-September. The event, with a format similar to the Ryder Cup, puts 12 U.S. golfers against a top dozen foreign pros, although Europeans are ineligible.
\ NOMINATIONS: The annual Sports Emmy Awards show is scheduled Tuesday night in New York. The favorites in the sportscasting categories are Bob Costas of NBC, Al Michaels of ABC and John Madden, who has left CBS to sign a bus-sized contract to do NFL games for the Fox Network.
Costas' competition in the studio host category are Greg Gumbel, Chris Berman, John Saunders and Jim Lampley. In play-by-play, Michaels is nominated with Dick Enberg, Marv Albert, Jim McKay and Keith Jackson. Madden, who has won every sports analyst Emmy awarded (nine), has competition from Billy Packer, Tim McCarver, Hubie Brown and Mike Ditka.
\ REAL KICK: With the World Cup coming to the United States in June, cable's CNN has started "World Soccer Weekly" on at 11 a.m. Sundays. The half-hour show will run for 14 more weeks and preview the 24-nation, nine-city World Cup.
\ ROME AFFAIR: The latest fallout from the Jim Everett-Jim Rome shovefest on ESPN2 is that media critic Norman Chad has quit the network, after ESPN producers wouldn't allow Chad to comment on the air about the incident, which followed Rome's goading of the NFL quarterback by calling him "Chris Evert." Chad has had a regular segment on Rome's "Talk2" show.
ESPN2 got more attention out of the Rome-Everett tiff than anything else it has done in its short life. Rome's childish stuff was little more than a publicity stunt, regardless of how many denials ESPN issues.
ESPN had been known for its solid journalism and first-class operation until the Rome incident.
\ TEST PATTERNS: If you're wondering what happened to the telecast of the Boston Marathon, SportsChannel will carry it live at 11:30 a.m. Monday. SportsChannel is not available on cable systems is Southwest Virginia. . . . Brent Musburger will be back in the NFL studio this season. Musburger, host of "The NFL Today" on CBS for 15 years, will be the halftime host on ABC's "Monday Night Football" as the network hopes to add substance to those 12 minutes in the series' 25th season.
by CNB