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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 7, 1994                   TAG: 9412070121
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CBS UPS THE ANTE TO KEEP FINAL FOUR RIGHTS

With three years left on a seven-year deal primarily for the rights to the NCAA men's basketball tournament, CBS and the NCAA renegotiated and extended the contract through the 2002 Final Four.

Starting with this season's ``March Madness,'' CBS will pay the NCAA $1.725 billion over eight years to remain the exclusive telecast carrier of the men's NCAA Tournament.

That is the largest dollar figure for any single contract in sports television history, and it will extend CBS' TV ownership of the Final Four to more than two decades.

CBS took the NCAA Tournament from NBC starting in 1982 with a three-year, $48 million contract.

After March 1995, the women's Final Four won't be part of the package. That event and several other NCAA championships - including the Division I-AA football final - will move into a new telecast deal the NCAA will announce today. ESPN and ESPN2 are the expected carriers for those events in the future.

In a conference call Tuesday, CBS Sports president David Kenin and NCAA executive director Cedric Dempsey announced the new contract, which will replace the final three years of the seven-year, $1 billion contract that began with the 1991 NCAA Tournament.

While the former deal averaged slightly less than $143 million per year in rights fees, the extension increases that average to $215.63 million annually.

``In negotiating this now and extending the contract, this will not only allow us to enhance our revenues to the membership in the future, but immediately,'' Dempsey said.

For example, in the final three years of the contract that has been negotiated, CBS was scheduled to pay the NCAA $152 million, $163 million and $172 million. Dempsey said the extension will add about $100 million spread over the three years to those former totals.

NCAA member schools, primarily in Division I, will see most of that increased revenue. What CBS viewers will see of the men's tournament won't be much different, except a half-hour will be added to first-round and regional semifinal prime-time schedules, with the first tip-off at 7:30 p.m. nationally instead of 8 p.m.

Spread over the length of the deal, the average annual increase in rights fees to the NCAA is 50.5 percent.

Besides the men's Division I tournament, CBS is retaining rights to the men's Division II basketball final, the track and field championships, women's gymnastics and two College World Series baseball games.

CBS no longer has the women's Final Four, men's and women's swimming, men's and women's volleyball, wrestling and men's lacrosse championships.

Kenin insists CBS will turn a profit on the $1.725 billion deal over the length of the contract. The extension also establishes CBS as the pre-eminent college sports championships network in the future.

Starting after the 1995 football season, CBS has two of the three bowls in the new alliance - Fiesta and Orange - and has regained the Cotton Bowl rights. Beginning with the 1996 regular season, the network will air Big East and Southeastern Conference football and the Army-Navy game.

The network also will air Big East and SEC basketball regular-season games starting next season through the 1999-2000 season.