As host of USA Network’s coverage of the Masters, Bill Macatee is kind of like the setup man on a baseball team. His job, no matter how well he does it, is to set the table for the big guy-in this case, CBS’ Jim Nantz.
And it’s not just the Masters. Macatee, formerly an NBC studio host, does the same for the cable network’s coverage of other golf tournaments as well as the U.S. Open tennis tournament. In such a role, Macatee has to work with various producers from week to week.
For instance, this week it’s CBS’ Frank Chirkinian, the guru of TV golf coverage. Just two weeks ago, it was Tom Roy, the latest in a relatively long line of NBC golf producers, at the TPC. Different strokes for different folks?
“The biggest difference is that Chirkinian wrote the book on televised golf,” says Macatee. “Everything that everybody does is pretty much Frank’s creation. You’ve got a crew that’s worked together for years; you’ve got a guy (Chirkinian) who basically has weeded out anybody who isn’t up to his standards. Everybody from the announcers on down is pretty solid, because Frank is a perfectionist.”
Macatee points to an incident two years ago, when USA had done a particular tease to the Masters that Chirkinian didn’t like. So he stopped what he was doing to create a new one, even though it was “just” for cable, not CBS.
On the NBC side, “Tommy Roy is a really good producer and also a great golfer,” says Macatee. Roy went so far as to quit NBC for a while in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a PGA Tour card. “He knows the game. We worked together at the (TPC). There definitely was an improvement (over previous NBC coverage). I was much more aware of picking up new story lines with Tommy. We showed a lot of golf, because golf is passive enough without sticking the announcers on camera all the time. Things are definitely on the uptick at NBC.”
– Since WGN-Ch. 9 aired the White Sox season opener Tuesday night at Minnesota, SportsChannel will carry the team’s home opener-for the first ever time-Friday. To mark the occasion, the cable station has planned eight hours of continuous coverage, starting at 9 a.m. with live shots of preparations at Comiskey Park. In addition, SportsChannel will use live weather updates from WMAQ-Ch. 5 forecaster Roberta Gonzalez at the ballpark (a necessity, it seems, for Friday) and three additional cameras (including one in the SportsChannel chopper). SportsChannel will replay the entire day’s activities at 6:30 p.m. Kind of like “Groundhog Day,” without Bill Murray.
– WKRS-AM will be the local outlet this season for the CBS Radio “Game of the Week” package that includes the All-Star Game, the two League Championship Series and the World Series. . . . “Sox Sunday,” hosted by Steve Olken, returns to WMAQ Radio for a fourth season Sunday one hour before the pregame show with the addition of a “Kids Corner” during which Sox coaches answer questions submitted by children.
– ABC will telecast the U.S. Cup ’93 soccer match scheduled for June 13 at Soldier Field between the U.S. national team and the defending World Cup champion Germans. The exhibition tournament includes teams from England and Brazil. “Soldier Field happens to be a World Cup site, which is appealing to us,” said ABC Sports Vice President David Downs. “And these two teams also have already clinched a berth in the World Cup. Chicago is attractive because it’s a large media market, so it’ll get some attention for that feature alone.”
Another feature will be the lack of commercials during the actual playing time, although advertisers’ logos will be shown. “There will be one commercial `pod’ before the game, three during halftime, and one on the postgame,” Downs said. “The biggest hangup for us was making sure our sponsors were interested in participating. We did it by putting together a consortium of advertisers (from the network and sponsors of the U.S. team) who were willing to take a reduced load, and yet still pay the going price.”
– CBS reported increased ratings Thursday for both NCAA basketball championship games last weekend. The women’s title contest Sunday between Texas Tech and Ohio State had a 5.5 national Nielsen rating, up 34 percent from last year’s 4.1 for the Stanford-Western Kentucky game, and the highest rating since a 6.1 for the 1987 Tennessee-Louisiana Tech title match. The men’s semifinals Saturday averaged a 14.4 rating, making it the second-highest rating since 1985. Monday night’s championship between Michigan and North Carolina had a 22.2 rating with a 34 share, also second-highest since ’85 (Villanova-Georgetown) and the fifth highest in the last 20 years. According to the network, an estimated 50 million viewers saw all or part of Monday night’s game, second only to last year’s estimated 52 million. Overall, the tournament averaged a 9.4 rating, up 4 percent from last year and 13 percent from 1991, CBS’ first year of complete coverage.
– Money matters: A CBS official said the network won’t make a sealed bid for the 1994 Super Bowl. The NFL reportedly had planned to ask for sealed bids for the game from the networks by the end of April. . . . Because ISL, the international marketing agency in charge of selling advertising, couldn’t come up with enough sponsors, NBC won’t telecast this year’s World Outdoor Track and Field Championships after doing so the previous three years. “We are out of the picture this time,” an NBC official said.
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