Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995 TAG: 9506260021
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The television consortium of NBC, ABC and baseball will end following the 1995 World Series - if it is played in these times of labor strife - after the networks pulled the plug when the sport's club owners refused to agree to a renewal for 1996.
Baseball's inability to make a decision is no surprise. What was stunning is that The Baseball Network might have worked, had there not been a strike in TBN's inaugural season last summer, canceling the postseason, and had the owners been willing to give NBC and ABC a chance to kick-start the plan.
Now, ABC and NBC - baseball's longtime partners through 1989 - say they won't bid on the sport until at least 2000. CBS lost about $500 million on a four-year, $1.057 billion baseball deal from 1990-93. How quickly will CBS return to the table? That leaves the Fox Network, which has started to fill its sports cupboard with NFL and NHL contracts.
``Major-league baseball seems incapable at this point in time of living with any long-term relationships, whether its with their fans, their players, with the political community in Washington, with the advertising community here in Manhattan, or with its TV partners,'' ABC Sports president Dennis Swanson said Friday.
The decision by NBC and ABC on The Baseball Network doesn't affect ESPN's national cable deal for $255 million over six years (through 1999). However, ESPN has no postseason games, and the exit of NBC and ABC leaves baseball with fewer bidders to drive up the potential rights fee.
There still is no decision on how this postseason will be played on TV. ABC wants to share the World Series with NBC, after the latter lost its Baseball Network opportunity when last year's Series was canceled. It is likely the two networks will agree to split all three levels of the postseason this October.
The applause you hear is from baseball fans, accustomed to seeing every postseason game on a national basis, who didn't like the ratings-driven TBN decision to regionalize telecasts in the new first round of playoffs and the two League Championship Series.
ABC and NBC each had contributed $10 million to TBN start-up costs. Under the contract that is up for renewal Aug.15, the two networks could have walked if TBN's revenues didn't reach $330 million in the first two years. Network executives agree that the figure would have been achieved had there been no strike in 1994.
The 1995 TBN schedule begins July 11 on ABC with the All-Star Game, and each network will air regional telecasts on six regular-season dates before the postseason. The joint decision by ABC and NBC further damages baseball's revenue stream. For the first $160 million in revenue each year, club owners were to retain 87.5 percent.
In 1993, the final year of CBS' contract with rights guarantees, clubs earned $15.4 million in national TV dollars from CBS and ESPN. This year, the projection was $7 million per club. With the announcement by ABC and NBC, it's likely each club will earn no more than $5-6 million.
SHORT STAY: Martin Television Productions, after three efforts at ``MTP Sports Weekend'' on Roanoke's WEFC (Channel 38), has dropped its plans. Vinton-based MTP was buying the noon-7 p.m. slot on Saturdays from the station and airing taped coverage of area sports events.
The games that reached the air included the NCAA Division III World Series final and Blacksburg High's Group AA state soccer championship victory. Martin also had aired a Roanoke Express live hockey telecast from Charlotte in February.
MTP executive producer Dan Falinski said the project didn't work because several local teams asked for rights fees. However, one Roanoke pro sports executive said that was only fair, since MTP was selling advertising and retaining the profit above what it paid for air time.
Falinski used the concept with success in upstate New York, and there would seem to be plenty of teams and events to fill a schedule in Southwest Virginia, although starting the program during the summer months cut into the programming availability.
FUZZY BALLS: An increase in telecast hours highlights the two weeks of Wimbledon tennis coverage on Home Box Office and NBC Sports, which begins its 27th straight year from the All England Club with a half-hour preview show Sunday (2:30 p.m., WSLS).
HBO's 10 days and 45 hours of cable coverage begins Monday, with six live hours daily next week. NBC also has a record number of Wimbledon hours (40), and starts its daily live coverage Monday, July 3. NBC will have both singles finals live as ``Breakfast at Wimbledon'' returns July 8 and 9 in 9 a.m. shows.
EXTREMES: The latest made-for-TV event, the week-long Extreme Games, is an ESPN production that starts today in Rhode Island. If you haven't seen the endless promotional spots for the Games, then you haven't been watching ESPN.
ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to air 451/2 Extreme hours of in-line skating, bungy jumping, skateboarding, sky surfing and other participation sports gaining popularity. It's a $10 million project at ESPN, which will use about 30 commentators to work the Games.
The network also claims there are 10,000 hotel rooms reserved in Rhode Island for the Games, which will be served by 121 port-a-johns.
FASTER: Sunday's Lysol 200 race at Watkins Glen, N.Y., was supposed to be part of the Busch Grand National schedule on The Nashville Network. Then CBS called NASCAR asking about the race, and the stock car organization, realizing what over-the-air exposure would mean as compared to cable, asked TNN to give up the Glen stop this year.
``We want to increase our presence in auto racing,'' said CBS Sports president David Kenin. The Glen GN race (1:30 p.m., WDBJ) marks the first time a Busch division race will air on CBS, ABC or NBC. CBS, which airs three Winston Cup races annually, has scheduled two NASCAR SuperTruck events next month, too.
TUBE TALK: Isn't the nightly reference to the ``Roy Stanley Cup Finals'' on WDBJ's sportscasts getting a bit wearisome? ... Cable's TNT will televise both rounds of the NBA Draft on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. from Toronto's SkyDome. Ernie Johnson, Hubie Brown and Kentucky coach Rick Pitino will anchor the coverage. A one-hour draft preview show airs on TNT Tuesday at 8 p.m. ... The first soccer telecast on ABC since the 1994 World Cup was viewed in only 1.3 percent of the nation's TV homes. That was the Nielsen rating for Sunday's U.S.-Mexico game in the U.S. Cup at RFK Stadium. By comparison Sunday, U.S. Open golf on NBC had a 5.6 rating, and the NASCAR Michigan 400 and boxing earned 4.7 and 2.8 on CBS, respectively. ABC's 11 World Cup telecasts last summer averaged a 5.3 rating. The three games involving the U.S. team averaged a 7.0.
by CNB