Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
UVa's four-year, $3 million contract with Virginia Sports Marketing combines the Cavaliers' radio rights, coaches' TV shows and broadcasting and print advertising sales into one package.
Wood Selig, UVa's assistant athletic director for marketing and promotions, estimates the Cavaliers' program will reap about a $200,000 revenue swing from recent years, when the school was in the sales business.
The deal, running through the 1997-98 school year with a one-year option for renewal by UVa, is similar to the combined marketing efforts in other prominent Division I programs. VSM owns all of Virginia's radio rights and will be selling advertising ranging from scoreboard signs to stadium cups. VSM and UVa will share expenses.
"It gives us a guaranteed revenue stream, which in this day and age in our business, can be hard to come by," Selig said.
Virginia Sports Marketing, based in a University Hall office, is a corporate partnership of Capitol Broadcasting of Raleigh, N.C., Host Communications of Lexington, Ky., and Clear Channel Communications of San Antonio. Doug Easter, a former Capitol executive, is VSM general manager.
Capitol has held UVa's radio rights in the past. Clear Channel owns Richmond's WRVA (1140 AM), the 50,000-watt station that carries Virginia football and men's basketball broadcasts and originates the "Cavalier Call-In" shows.
Selig said the annual guarantee in the new contract escalates from $675,000 in 1994-95 to about $850,000 in the final year. By comparison, Capitol paid Virginia $425,000 for broadcast rights in 1993-94. UVa averaged less than $200,000 annually in rights from Capitol in the three-year contract that expired in 1992-93.
Selig said revenue-sharing potential depends on how heavily UVa gets into expanding marketing areas like home video. Tennessee's program reaped $1 million above its guaranteed rights fee from Host in 1993-94.
Charlottesville's WINA remains the Cavaliers' flagship station, and Warren Swain will return as the play-by-play voice. VSM may seek new hosts for the coaches' television shows, Selig said.
For UVa alumni and fans, the new deal will bring some noticeable changes, too. ON THE AIR JACK BOGACZYK Pregame and postgame radio shows may be extended from 60 to 90 minutes. The Cavalier Call-In show is likely to move from Sunday to a weeknight. Women's basketball coach Debbie Ryan will have her own TV show, starting with four this coming season, which VSM will try to sell to all markets in the state.
There will be no charge for programs at UVa home football and basketball games. The new programs will be a 5-by-7-inch, 32-page booklet, plus an insert and poster. Advertising will pay the printing costs for 20,000 programs at each football game and 5,000 at each basketball game.
Another change will aid the women's basketball program. VSM hopes to broadcast all games in future seasons and wants to sell the package to several state stations. WINA has hired Matt Waddell to replace Robert Fish as the play-by-play voice.
Waddell, 25, moves from the Tar Heel Network, where he created a 13-station network for UNC women's basketball and a weekly coach's show for Sylvia Hatchell.
\ FORE MONEY: NBC's stunning acquisition of the U.S. Open golf championship starting next year was money talking. Not only will the U.S. Golf Association benefit financially, but viewers will see more golf, too.
ABC will televise its 29th consecutive Open at Oakmont in Pittsburgh's suburbs two weekends from now, ending a $7 million annual contract. NBC will pay the USGA $12.8 million annually for three years, with options for 1998-99 in a deal that also includes the Women's and Senior Men's Opens. ABC's reported bid was $11.5 million annually.
Like ABC since 1966, NBC will air 18-hole coverage for the Open's third and fourth rounds, but it will expand to six hours of coverage each day. The Women's and Senior Opens weekend shows will increase from 2 1/2 to 3 hours each day.
NBC's contract marks a return to golf's majors. It televised the U.S. Open in 1965, before the USGA switched to ABC.
\ AROUND THE DIAL: Who says sports isn't a big deal? The week of May 23-29, the seven highest-rated shows on cable television were five NBA playoff games on TNT, the NASCAR Coca-Cola 600 on TBS and USA Network's Tuesday night boxing. Each was viewed in at least 2 million homes. . . . The NBA Finals open Wednesday (9 p.m., WSLS, Channel 10) at Houston, with all games in prime time on NBC, which is down about 10 percent in Nielsen ratings during the playoffs. . . . CBS, adding to its future college football inventory of Big East and Southeastern Conference games, regains rights for the annual Army-Navy game starting in 1996.
\ AIRHEADS: Olympic gold-medal speedskater Dan Jansen is joining CBS Sports as a reporter and will help in the network's sales and marketing efforts. Jansen's early assignments will be on "Eye on Sports." He has signed with the network through the Nagano Winter Games in 1998. . . . ESPN's Bob Ley will be the network's primary game-caller for the World Cup. His soccer lineage includes spending the 1979 season as the public address announcer for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. He then went to work at ESPN that September, the same month the network signed on the air. . . . Bob Costas, Bob Uecker and Joe Morgan will call the July 12 All-Star Game from Three Rivers Stadium for NBC when network baseball finally begins its 1994 season. . . . Greg Gumbel, headed for NBC, finishes his CBS work today (1 p.m., WDBJ, Channel 7) and next Saturday doing play-by-play at the College World Series. Injured Baltimore Orioles outfielder Paul Carey is one of the analysts. Carey is a past CWS hero, his 10th-inning grand slam in 1987 lifting Stanford to a victory over LSU.
by CNB