The Bears` unexpected five-game losing streak has thrown a monkey wrench into CBS` scheduling for the remainder of the National Football League season. Instead of concentrating on NFC Central Division matchups-and what effect those contests would have on the Bears` playoff chances-the network, which has final say on which games go where, can either stay with those preseason assignments or give WBBM-Ch. 2 viewers the best available game.
Last Sunday, for instance, the CBS networking committee (executive producer Rick Gentile, coordinating producer Ed Goren, programming exec Len DeLuca and assorted affiliate and sales people) decided to stick with plans to show the Vikings-Rams contest in Chicago rather than switch to the Eagles-49ers game.
”You can`t make the argument Minnesota is without interest in Chicago,” said DeLuca, ”because of the traditional and very strong loyalty the NFC Central home markets have demonstrated through the ratings over the years.
So, instead of a Vikings-Eagles contest filled with playoff implications Sunday, WBBM will show the Lions-Packers game.
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”This is why we work closely with the stations,” said DeLuca, who added that WBBM lists its preferences as Bears, Packers, NFC Central, then best-available game. ”We had that discussion Monday. Green Bay suddenly being on the edge of the wild-card hunt was the swaying factor.”
– DeLuca caught a break when Indiana`s basketball team roared through the Preseason NIT and will take a No. 2 ranking into its game Saturday (on CBS)
against No. 3 Kansas in the Hoosier Dome.
”It`s a four-year deal between Indiana and Kansas that we worked on with them right through the summer,” said DeLuca. ”This is where television can be proud of its role (as a matchmaker). This is the kind of game we wouldn`t mind having April 3-5 (NCAA finals) in New Orleans.”
While Raycom holds the TV rights to the IU-KU rematch next season because it`s a Big Eight home game, CBS has begun negotiations to purchase the contest. Raycom turned down an earlier CBS bid for the rights to the Michigan- Duke game, preferring to air it through syndication (locally, WGBO-Ch. 66 will televise the contest at 8 p.m. Saturday), which enables Raycom to keep the advertising revenue. CBS offered at least $200,000 to Raycom, which pays $14 million a year to the Atlantic Coast Conference for rights to all home games.
”There are only certain games you can syndicate,” said DeLuca, ”and I`m not sure this is one of them. Or if it deserves to be in prime time during the regular season. We made a serious run at getting the game and putting it on as part of an afternoon double-header with Indiana-Kansas.”
DeLuca pointed to the glut of televised regular-season college basketball games-about 1,900 according to one media survey-for diluting the impact of any particular one contest. ”And they all provide promotion for us in March and April,” DeLuca said.
”There will be a lot of eyes on this-not just from the viewers, but also from the broadcast networks,” countered Raycom Executive Vice President Ken Haines. ”They want to see how we do because this could pave the way for a lot of other major events in national syndication.”
The biggest syndicated basketball game of all time was the UCLA-Houston contest in 1968, which put a little-known company, TVS, into business and skyrocketed the career of its founder-Eddie Einhorn.
– The Rose Bowl-Big 10-Pac-10 contract extension with ABC includes language covering the possibility of both conferences expanding to include a lucrative championship game, as the Southeastern Conference is holding Saturday. ”It`s not something we failed to consider,” said ABC executive David Downs.
Keith Jackson, the ABC broadcaster doing Saturday`s showdown in Birmingham, Ala., sees the SEC title game as the first step toward ”producing the kind of a playoff system that makes some sense. If you had something happen to form four major conferences, you could produce four playoff teams from the field rather than from some blue-ribbon committee or some poll. And then they could proceed in a rather orderly two-game playoff to a national champion.”
But before any schools make a move they want to see if a title game produces a true champion, says Jackson. ”If 8-3 (Florida) beats 11-0
(Alabama), it sets it back 10 years. But if it goes according to plan, it`ll accelerate the thinking of other people-and the guys at ABC in New York can finally take a deep breath. They`re probably getting purple holding their breath hoping for Miami and Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.”
– ESPN will have live coverage of the Bowl Coalition pairings announcement between 9 and 10 a.m. Sunday as part of ”SportsWeekly. . . . George Foreman plays host to ”In This Corner . . . Boxing`s Legendary Heavyweights,” a one- hour documentary focusing on Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson and John L. Sullivan at 9 p.m. Tuesday on HBO.