College Basketball: Junkies Overdose, Money Disappears

If you were watching the Arizona State-Oregon State basketball game on Channel 5 last Saturday, you missed the end. With 20 seconds left in the second overtime and Arizona State leading, 82-80, the picture went dead. Arizona State won, 83-82.

According to Hec Highton, Channel 5’s sports director, an AT&T; technician near the game site in Corvallis, Ore., pulled the wrong plug and all West Coast stations carrying the game lost their picture.

Those things happen. It’s a minor problem compared to some of the other things going on in college basketball these days.

The big problems are over-saturation, poor ratings and financial losses.

This has all happened in the last few seasons, since about half a dozen syndicators, or middlemen, took control of college basketball telecasts. They aligned themselves with conferences and/or schools and, in most cases, agreed to pay exorbitant amounts for the TV rights. It was a seller’s market.

To recoup their investments, the syndicators flooded the market, and college basketballratings have been dropping ever since.

CBS is down 24% from a year ago. NBC, which dropped 24% during the 1983-84 season, is now down another 16%. ESPN has dropped slightly, from an average Nielsen rating of 1.5 a year ago to 1.3. And Channel 5’s Highton says his station’s college basketball ratings are down considerably.

The oversaturation is good for basketball junkies, who can overdose almost nightly, but it has been a financial disaster for both syndicators and schools. In some cases, the syndicators, not getting the kind of money from sponsors they expected because of the poor ratings, have been unable to meet payment schedules.

On Thursday, the Big Ten announced it is severing ties with its syndicator, TCS-Metrosports, for just that reason. The conference will take over production responsibilities immediately. TCS-Metrosports is also the Pacific 10’s syndicator.

Chris LaPlaca, a spokesman for ESPN, said his cable network is talking about cutting back. “What we would really like to do is work more directly with the conferences and schools,” La Placa said. “We think we could come up with a more desirable schedule that way.

“We’ve had some outstanding games this season, such as the Syracuse-Georgetown game this week. But they get sort of lost. The problem in dealing with syndicators is you have to take the whole package. In other words, to get game X, you have to take games Y and Z, too.

Kevin Monaghan, a spokesman for NBC, said his network’s deals with the Big Ten and independents DePaul and Notre Dame will expire at the end of this season, but they are locked into deals with the Pacific 10 Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, Southwest Conference and the Big East Conference for at least one more season. So NBC is limited as to how much cutting back it can do. “We’re looking at the situation, and we’re involved in some initial discussions,” Monaghan said.

CBS is in a slightly different situation. Since it has the NCAA tournament, it doesn’t figure to be cutting back much on regular-season coverage. “Our schedule may fluctuate a game or two but, no, we’re not planning any major cutbacks,” said spokesman Mark Carlson.

Channel 5, which will show tonight’s USC-UCLA game live at 8 o’clock, has ben wrestling with college basketball all season.

There have been several schedule changes, for instance. A telecast of the USC-Arizona State game Feb. 14 was recently scratched. An earlier scratch was Thursday night’s Washington-Arizona game. In other cases, the station has had to carry games it really didn’t want. UCLA home games starting at 7:30 p.m. have been put on the air at 8.

The problem, again, is dealing with a syndicator, in this case TCS-Metrosports. If Channel 5 were dealing directly with UCLA, things probably would be much smoother.

TCS-Metrosports has undergone total change since last fall. The company, initially known as just Metrosports and based in Rockville, Md., was started by Lenny Klompus and his wife, Marsha Cherner. Then last fall, because of financial difficulties they sold it to Nelson Goldberg, who owns a company called Total Communications Systems, a respected supplier of mobile units and other sophisticated broadcasting equipment.

Klompus and Cherner continued to run what was renamed TCS-Metrosports, but they were recently fired and the company moved to Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, viewers have been left in the dark, and not just by an AT&T; technician pulling the wrong plug somewhere. For example, UCLA’s game with Washington last week was televised only on ESPN, and the Bruins’ game with California later in the week wasn’t televised at all.

The Washington game was originally supposed to be televised by ON-TV, but ON-TV and TCS-Metrosports got into a dispute over rights fees. Because of the dispute, ON-TV isn’t televising any college basketball. Then Channel 5 was supposed to televise the game, but scratched it because of Humphrey Bogart Week.

Channel 5 had also earlier notified TCS-Metrosports it didn’t want the Cal game, either. But a station in San Jose still wanted it., TCS-Metrosports, however, told the station in San Jose it wouldn’t be worthwhile to televise the game for just one station.

The middlemen syndicators aren’t scoring many points with anybody these days.

Notes

L.A. college basketball ratings from last Saturday included a solid 5.5 for St. John’s Georgetown, a sp-so 3.5 for USC-California, and a dismal 1.8 for UCLA-Stanford at night. Meanwhile, the Ironman Triathlon on ABC Saturday got a 9.3, the L.A. Open on CBS an 8.0 and the bowling on ABC a 5.8 . . . .The Lakers’ game Saturday night against Utah on Channel 9 got a 7.4 while the Clippers’ game against Philadelphia on Channel 11 got a 4.1 . . . . On Sunday, the Pro Bowl got the top sports rating of the weekend in L.A. with a 13.7. The L.A. Open on Sunday got a 5.9 . . . . Pro football returns in less than a month. ESPN’s first United States Football League telecast will be Saturday, Feb. 23, with the Orlando Renegades facing the Tampa Bay Bandits. The Renegades last season were the Washington Federals . . . . ESPN will televise 50 USFL games this season, an average of three a week. There will be telecasts Saturday and Monday nights, and also on Thursday or Friday nights. The Express will make eight appearances on ESPN, beginning with a March 2 game at Portland . . . . Doug Flutie and the New Jersey Generals will make six appearances on ESPN and will open ABC’s schedule Feb. 24 against Birmingham. ABC will select its Sunday telecasts from week to week.

For those eager for baseball, ESPN will televise college baseball on Sunday evenings at 5 before the start of the major-league season. The first telecast, Feb. 10, will feature defending national champion Cal State Fullerton at Arizona State . . . . The commentator on some of the telecasts will be Jose Torre, new Angel announcer and former manager of the Atlanta Braves and New York Mets . . . . NBC dispatched high jumper-announcer Dwight Stones to Sao Paulo, Brazil, with Don Criqui last weekend to cover a U.S.-Brazil volleyball match. It was Stones’ first non-track assignment. But nobody will see it. The match, an exciting one won by Brazil, 4 games to 1, was taped for a “Sports World” show by a Brazilian production company didn’t do a very good job, to say the least. After viewing the tape, producer John Gonzalez scrapped the whole thing.

Sports reporter Pat O’Brien has signed a new multiyear contract with CBS. The new contract also calls for radio work. He’ll be working for Radio Radio, a new division of CBS Radio which goes on the air Feb. 18 . . . . Brad Crandall, a professional narrator based in Los Angeles, and Jeff Kaye, a Buffalo radio personality, have been named as the two primary replacements for the late John Facenda as voices of NFL Films . . . .”World Class Women,” a weekly half-hour series featuring women in sports, will have its premiere next Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN . . . .Men’s and women’s teams consisting of Olympic stars will compete on an “Olympic Family Feud Special” next week on Channel 4 Monday through Friday at 7:30 p.m . . . . Radio station KFOX-fm (93.5) is moving “Sports Forum, “ a talk show hosted by Fred Wallin, to the morning. It will air from 7:30 to 8 a.m. weekdays, but will still air Sunday nights at 5. It does not air on Saturdays . . . . Radio station KNAC-fm (105.5) in Long Beach will offer frequent reports on Sunday’s Long Beach Marathon which will begin at 7:30 a.m.