Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 16, 1994 TAG: 9407160035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Brazil-Italy final Sunday at the Rose Bowl on ABC (3:30 p.m., WSET Channel 10) should only add to the success story that the first Cup in the United States has become.
"From a finals point of view, we couldn't have done better," said Seamus Malin, the erudite Harvard University administrator whose knowledge of the game and its history has made watching more enjoyable on ABC and ESPN. "It's truly a marquee matchup. It's a great finish to what we've seen."
Malin's pick is Brazil, although "Italy is the gutsiest team I've seen in some time. . . . On paper, Brazil has much more talent, although the goaltending appears to be a problem on occasion. No one has exposed any other weaknesses in the Brazilians."
ABC's Nielsen ratings for 10 World Cup games have averaged 4.7, or almost 4.4 million homes. ESPN, which will televise today's Bulgaria-Sweden third-place game at 3:30 p.m., has averaged 1.39 million homes for its 22 live games. The two Wednesday semifinals on the cable network averaged 2.15 million homes.
By comparison, the 1990 World Cup from Italy on cable's TNT averaged 583,000 homes. TNT's highest game rating was a 2.2 for the West Germany-Argentina final. That is ESPN's average number this year. The average audiences for the 1986 Cup on NBC was 2.1 million homes and only 181,000 on ESPN.
The U.S. swan song, a July 4 afternoon loss to Brazil, had a U.S. soccer-record 9.3 rating (8.66 million homes) and a 26 share, meaning one of every four homes watching TV was tuned to the World Cup. So, ABC and ESPN are very positive about televising the new Major League Soccer on a weekly basis next season.
"The conditions [for soccer interest in the U.S.] is better than it's ever been," said ABC Sports executive producer Jack O'Hara. "No one could ever have anticipated this kind of interest."
\ ABCs: A network doesn't often have as varied and as worldly a schedule as ABC sports this weekend. The programming begins this morning with four hours of live golf coverage from the British Open in Scotland (10 a.m., WSET). Then, tonight at 8, the debut of The Baseball Network starts with 14 regional games, including Baltimore-California to local viewers.
In between, ABC's 11 hours of sports includes a taped golf match between Nick Faldo and Greg Norman, Harlem Globetrotters basketball and a World Cup preview. On Sunday, ABC starts at 9:30 a.m. with four hours of the final round of the British Open then airs the World Cup championship at 3:30 p.m. And on Monday night, more baseball returns (Atlanta-Pittsburgh on WSET).
\ ACC HOOPS: Virginia's Nov. 16 opener at University Hall - in the NIT against Old Dominion - is scheduled as ESPN's college basketball opener in 1994-95. Of the Cavaliers' 16 ACC dates, 13 are scheduled for the tube, with three each on ABC and ESPN and seven on the league's Raycom/Jefferson-Pilot Sports package.
Virginia Tech has two games against ACC foes on the tentative Raycom/JP schedule. The Tech-North Carolina game on Jan. 21 at the Greensboro Coliseum is scheduled for 4 p.m. The Richmond Coliseum matchup between UVa and Tech is slated for 9 p.m. and TV on Tuesday, Feb. 28.
\ SONNY DAYS: At Lynchburg's WYYD (107.9 FM), it's "This is Sonny Randle saying . . . Hello, everybody." The former Virginia, Marshall and East Carolina football coach who has his weekday one-minute sports commentary syndicated to 21 stations, has been named sports director at WYYD.
Randle is delivering live sports commentaries at 8:10 a.m. weekday mornings and will cover selected regional sports events for the Lynchburg station. The live reports will be in call-in form from his Rockingham County home.
Sonny will not say so-long to his own "Sports Minute," which he will continue to do daily. His most stunning statistic, however, involves his 11-year NFL career. The one-time tight end's touchdowns per receptions ratio (1 in 5.6) is slightly better than that of San Francisco's Jerry Rice.
\ WOMEN'S WORLD: When Capital Cities recently announced that former CBS Sports reporter Lesley Visser had moved to ABC and ESPN to work college sports and horse racing, an ESPN/Chilton Sports poll of 1,042 adults revealed that the recent increase in the number of women in sportscasting was viewed as a positive trend by 81 percent of the men polled and 78 percent of the women asked. Two-thirds of the respondents said they'd like to see more women sportscasters, and 65 percent said viewers are tougher on women sportscasters.
\ GROWTH: In the nine months ESPN2 has been on the air, it has added 4.6 million subscribers to reach 14.6 million homes. In this region, "The Deuce" is now aired on cable systems in Forest, Austinville, Danville and Campbell County. ESPN2 reaches 112,000 Virginia homes.
\ ON THE AIR: WJPR/WFXR (Channels 21/27) has lined up its first NFL Sunday regional schedule from the Fox Network. Of the team appearances in the 29 games, 67 percent are by NFC East teams. Besides 14 Washington dates, Dallas has eight, Arizona and Philadelphia each have six and the New York Giants have five. . . . The Fox Network has completed its NFL telecast roster by hiring Chicago Cubs voice Thom Brennaman for play-by-play. . . . CBS' expanded regular-season college hoops schedule for 1994-95 includes 26 men's games and three women's games and opens with its only two ACC team appearances - Texas-North Carolina and Duke-Illinois. . . . CBS has hired retired driver and NASCAR legend Richard Petty to work as an analyst on its live coverage of the DieHard 500 next Sunday at Talladega.
by CNB