VIEWERS LOSE BATTLE OF NETWORK NINNIES

It was the fiercest sports spectacle since the kayak race in “The Battle of the Network Stars.”

Ooooooh! What excitement! What chutzpah! Jim Brown and Franco Harris, two of the greatest pro running backs ever, chest to chest, nose to nose, hyperbole to hyperbole.

Grrrrrr!

As the world (that small part of it that cared) now knows, Friday’s premiere of the syndicated series “I Challenge You” on KTTV ended with Harris defeating Brown for the title of Over-the-Hill Jock Looking Foolish for a Fast Buck in a Non-Event Riding the Coattails of Super Bowl Weekend. The biggest challenge was staying awake.

Some background:

Harris is 34, Brown 48. When it appeared that Harris this season would be the first to break the retired Brown’s career rushing record in the NFL, Brown repeatedly downplayed Harris’ abilities. Even after Walter Payton, not Harris, broke Brown’s record, Brown continued to bad-mouth Harris, who had fallen on hard times after leaving the Pittsburgh Steelers, flunking a brief trial with the Seattle Seahawks. And Harris blasted back at Brown.

Isn’t it remarkable, though, how enemies seem to get together when the cause is money?

So last month, opportunistic co-producers Bob Parkinson and Andy Friendly hosted a Hollywood press conference to promote Brown and Harris as first combatants--for cash and prizes totaling more than $100,000--in a new series they dreamed up called “I Challenge You.”

That sports smoothie Jayne Kennedy, who spent two years on CBS’ “NFL Today” learning the difference between a pass play and a stage play, was to be the host.

The sports media cattle arrived at the press conference on cue. They wolfed down free Danish, guzzled free coffee, took their seats below seven TV cameras and heard the two former football greats carry on and Brown lament “hype in football today.” He lectured the media on their hyping and rued the materialism in sports. “How can you be an athlete and choose money?” he wondered.

No sirree. No crass exploiters in this crowd.

So the “duel of the decade,” as it was modestly billed, finally arrived Friday, with Brown and Harris competing in four events “live from Atlantic City” (except that it was on tape):

The stirring one-on-one basketball, the spine-tingling one-on-one football (with New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms slinging passes to Brown and Harris), the brutal racquetball clash and the all-significant 40-yard dash in the Tropicana Hotel.

Was your heart pounding?

The producers brought in cheering spectators and pompon girls to legitimize an event for which dumb was too charitable a label.

Quickly now, Brown won the “unbelievable exciting (Kenne dy’s words)” basketball duel which was refereed by a football referee. “Jim’s back to his mental game,” Kennedy shrewdly observed.

Harris won football.

Kennedy: Oh, you can feel the drama building here!

Racquetball went to Brown.

Kennedy: This is where the momentum changes.

But the hour’s unannounced event was commercial-ball. It was hard telling the commercials from the commercials. After one commercial break, for example, Simms mentioned that “TWA arranged the travel that brought the ‘I Challenge’ event together.” It was also rewarding to learn from him that “spacious rooms and suites made it easy to unwind” at the Tropicana.

And so on and so on until the event that Kennedy was certain had “captured the nation’s imagination,” the brutal test that would decide the winner of the entire challenge, 40 grueling yards contested by two idealists who were in it for pride, not money, doing their part to rescue sports from the slime of materialism.

Handicapper Danny Sheridan was brought in to set the odds (11 to 10 for Harris). “We’re just moments away from the moment of truth,” Kennedy said. Then came some more commercials, after which we were still moments away from the moment of truth. “Just moments away,” Kennedy repeated. But first it was time to expound the virtues of the Dodge Lancer to be awarded the winner.

Then it was time to formally introduce Brown and Harris, who had already been competing on TV for 50 minutes. Finally, the momentous moment of truth arrived as Harris creamed Brown in the dash, proving once and for all that there was nothing to prove except that the public and media were ninnies for buying this crumola in the first place.

“We’re still awaiting a time,” Kennedy said, not knowing that Franco’s winning time was being flashed on the screen. A real trooper, she may still be in Atlantic City . . . waiting.

A better title for the hour would have been: “I Challenge You to Find a Valid Reason for This Program.” What comes next, dueling spot welders? At last month’s press conference, co-producer Friendly said that Friday’s winner would immediately challenge Walter Payton. To gin rummy, maybe.

Friendly also vowed that this was no “junk sport” and that he and Parkinson weren’t “trying to put on any phony events just to make a television show.”

Oh. My mistake.