For Madden, Name of the Game Now Is Football, Not Cash

In these days of inflated salaries for network sportscasters, John Madden is a veritable pauper. He reportedly makes only about $320,000 a year.

Not bad, you say? Consider:

--Brent Musburger recently signed a five-year contract with CBS that originally was reported to be worth $2 million a year. Actually, it’s more like $1.68 million a year, with $480,000 of that coming from CBS radio. That’s still pretty good, although Musburger works a pretty heavy load compared to others.

--Marv Albert’s combined salary from NBC, WNBC in New York, Madison Square Garden, for which he announces Knick and Ranger games, and commercials is said to be $1.62 million a year.

--Vin Scully makes close to $1 million a year from NBC and even more than that from the Dodgers, making him the highest paid sportscaster in the country at more than $2 million a year.

--Howard Cosell’s salary was about $1.2 million a year until it recently was cut to about one-third since he doesn’t plan to do any football or baseball this year. But it may be adjusted upward if he later decides to continue doing baseball.

--Madden’s broadcast partner, Pat Summerall, makes about $750,000, and his contract reportedly is being renegotiated. He may soon be making about $1.2 million. That only seems fair since that’s what CBS-TV pays Musburger.

Add Madden: There have been reports that Madden may eventually jump from CBS to ABC.

“I don’t know what John’s going to do,” Summerall said recently while in Los Angeles. “I know whatever he does it won’t be because of money. He’s more concerned with comfort than money.”

Madden, reached at his office near his home in Pleasanton, Calif., this week, was told of Summerall’s comment.

“He’s right,” Madden said. “I’m the kind of guy who only worries about what’s going on right now. This week we got a big game coming up. That’s what I’m concerned about.”

Madden said he has one year left on his contract with CBS and he hasn’t talked to anyone, either at CBS or ABC, about a new one.

“I’ll worry about that when the time comes,” he said.

Back in the saddle: Jim Healy will return to the airwaves on KMPC Monday with the same format that he used at KLAC for the last 15 years.

“Bill Ward is giving me total freedom,” Healy said of KMPC’s general manager.

Healy’s 20-minute show will be on weekdays at 5:30 p.m. He also will do live five-minute spots at 3:30 and 4:30 p.m.

Healy says he will continue writing the column that has been appearing in the Herald Examiner the last few weeks, but it will appear only on Fridays.

The Angels announced Thursday that the announcing team for their telecasts on Channel 5 will be Bob Starr and Joe Torre, former Atlanta and New York Met manager. They replace Joe Buttitta and Geoff Witcher, whose contracts were not renewed.

Starr reportedly is still undecided on whether he will return as the Rams’ radio play-by-play announcer. If Starr does not rejoin the Rams, a possible replacement is Gib Shanley, the radio voice of the Cleveland Browns for 24 years. Shanley has left the Browns and, with or without a job here, plans to move to the Los Angeles area next month.

Oops dept.: During the Orange Bowl, NBC announcer Don Criqui said BYU’s football coach doesn’t get enough recognition. He must not. Criqui called him Ladell Andersen. That’s BYU’s basketball coach. The football coach is LaVell Edwards.

Bad journalism award of the week goes to CBS for not giving the score of NBC’s competing Fiesta Bowl game during its telecast of the Cotton Bowl game. NBC, meanwhile, gave the score of the Cotton Bowl several times, even when it got close at 31-28.

Notes

The highest rated bowl game in L.A. was, of course, the Rose Bowl with a 34.2 Nielson rating and a 61% share of the audience. Other L.A. bowl ratings: Orange, 23.3; Fiesta, 17.6; Cotton, 12.7, and Sugar, 5.0. . . . Attention wrestling fans: The USA cable network’s weekly boxing show returns tonight at 5. It will be shown every Friday night before USA’s weekly boxing shows. Formerly “Tuesday Night Titans,” it’s now “Wrestling TNT” and will run for one hour instead of two. . . . Add wrestling: From a USA press release: “The Dec. 18 (televised) wedding of Butcher Paul Vachon and Ophelia proved to be a touching moment for all concerned, marred only by a pie-throwing incident at the reception and an unfortunate occurrence at the ceremony. Some spoilsport grabbed the ring from the bearer. If Butcher was on cloud nine moments after kissing his bride, he was quickly brought back to earth by a vicious body slam administered the Jesse (The Body) Ventura. Among the invited guests who were no-shows: President Reagan and Mrs. Reagan, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, Idi Amin and the late Nikita Khrushchev.” . . . Even veteran wrestling watchers called the show one of the most disgusting things ever on television. . . . The unbeaten and No. 2-ranked USC women’s basketball team has finally found a radio station, sort of. KWVE-fm in San Clemente will carry seven of the team’s remaining 10 road games, beginning Sunday when the Trojans play at Georgia.