Aztec Athletics Fail to Draw Enough Interest to Draw Up a TV Contract

Televising reruns of My Favorite Martian is more profitable than televising San Diego State athletic events.

“We get as much as 10 to 20 times more in actual cash flow from the reruns than we did from televising San Diego State sporting events last year,” said George Stantis, executive vice-president and general manager of KTTY (Channel 69). “But let me make it clear that a successful sporting event could generate 10 times the revenue of reruns.”

Successis the key to gaining viewers and attracting sponsors.

“In order to attract attention, you have to win,” Stantis said.

Robert Rinehart, newly appointed SDSU interim athletic director, agrees. It was midday Tuesday, his first complete day on the job, and Rinehart said he had already discussed the television--or lack of television--situation.

“TV money is important,” Rinehart said, “but you need to have a team that the TV stations believe the people want to see. That’s the start and end of it.”

He’s right. Just ask Stantis.

“They haven’t won,” Stantis said. “The support and attitude of the general audience is at a low ebb. They have no real audience or economic viability. We made one hell of an investment in San Diego State last year, but if the hole is dry, you have to stop drilling.”

The bottom line is that less than three weeks before the first day of classes, SDSU does not have a television contract for any of its athletic events for the upcoming year.

Last season, KTTY broadcasted three football games, two home (one on a delayed basis) and the BYU game at Provo, Utah. The station also broadcasted 13 women’s basketball games, 12 baseball games, 7 men’s volleyball matches and it picked up the feed of the men’s NCAA tournament basketball game played in Salt Lake City. The men’s basketball team was on NCAA probation and could not be on live television until the regular season was completed.

This summer, KTTY was the only television station in San Diego to show interest in the television package put together by Mike Urbano’s Regions West promotion company. Urbano is a former SDSU assistant athletic director in charge of promotions.

“The people at Channel 69 were the only ones interested, “ Urbano said, “and what they offered (for rights fees) wasn’t even close to last year. They only offered about 25% of what it was last year, and I have live basketball this year.”

SDSU received $17,500 from KTTY last year, according to the SDSU athletic department.

KTTY and SDSU had been in negotiations for approximately four months before talks broke off a month ago.

“They wanted some rights fees that we thought were higher than we could afford,” Stantis said. “We suffered pretty heavy losses on San Diego State in the prior year. Many thousands of dollars.”

Urbano said he came up with alternate packages to “try and save the thing,” but nothing worked.

Originally, Urbano offered all the television stations in San Diego the following package:

--the BYU and Hawaii football games live, and the rest of the football games on a taped-delay basis,

--10 men’s basketball games live,

--6 women’s basketball games live and

--6 women’s volleyball games live.

The men’s basketball package included attractive road games from the Fresno Tournament and the Rebel Roundup in Las Vegas, and games at Oral Roberts and the University of Arkansas.

Urbano even offered to produce and package a weekly show featuring the Aztec football coaches. He told channels 10 (KGTV) and 39 (KCST) he would give it to them if they could get it on the air sometime Sunday or Monday. Urbano would be responsible for coming up with the sponsors.

No luck.

Would a network affiliate such as KGTV (ABC) even consider televising Aztec football or basketball games?

“We talked about televising football,” said Clayton Brace, KGTV president and general manager. “We ran into a lot of complications because of ABC. We’re tied up in knots because of the network.”

Brace continued, “They have a pretty good cross section of alumni that could be the nucleus of our viewers, but there isn’t a real wide audience. There is no question that if they have a very good commodity, they’ll be more marketable.”

In addition to the SDSU athletic program not being marketable, Urbano ran into other problems.

The College Football Assn. restrictions imposed on live college football telecasts require any game fed back to San Diego to start before 11:05 PST. All teams except BYU start their games at noon or 12:30 PST. The BYU game on Oct. 12 was originally scheduled for 12:30, then was switched to 11 and then switched back to 12:30. Urbano said any type of football package hinged on being able to televise the BYU game live.

If the home team is willing to switch the starting time to accommodate the visiting team, the Western Athletic Conference requires the visiting team to pay $500 to the home team. So, basically, the Aztecs had only one road game that could be televised live this season. That was the game against Hawaii in Honolulu on Nov. 30. That game would have started at 10:30 p.m. PST.

Televising the evening game against UCLA on Sept. 21 at the Rose Bowl was nixed because of the amount of money UCLA was asking.

Urbano said most home teams normally charge around $1,000 for television rights to a game. The WAC allows its teams to charge $500.

“UCLA was asking over $50,000,” Urbano said, adding that he didn’t think that game should be televised back to San Diego because, “you need to get bodies up to the Rose Bowl. By televising it in San Diego, you won’t get the bodies.”

That’s the primary reason SDSU does not want to televise home games on a live basis. They’re afraid people won’t show up if they can watch the game on television.

“Besides, the contract with the Sports Arena does not allow SDSU to televise live out of the Sports Arena,” said Urbano, who added that exceptions have been made for WAC basketball games of the week.

The policy of not providing live telecasts of home games upsets Stantis.

“They have a high degree of sensitivity about their gate,” Stantis said. “I don’t happen to agree with it. Telecasts generate interest. I have seen where gates were improved by televising games.

“BYU was the only football success we had last year,” Stantis said. Instead of televising SDSU football games, KTTY has opted to show tape delays of four Notre Dame games.

The SDSU football team is coming off a 4-7-1 season. However, the men’s basketball is coming off its most successful season ever in Division 1 play, yet it is not any more marketable.

“The one NCAA game we did was very successful,” Stantis said. “But their schedule is so bumpy, and the cost of televising road games is very high.”

Stantis said men’s volleyball games were “nice and comforting, but did not do well at all . . . Baseball did not attract overwhelming crowds, either . . . Women’s basketball did not attract anybody. Many of the audience measurements were below measurement capabilities.”

Urbano said last year’s football game against BYU, televised live on KTTY, drew a rating of between two and three. Contrast that to the San Diego rating of 27 for the nationally televised football game against BYU in 1979. SDSU was 8-2, and the teams were playing for the WAC championship.

There is hope. Urbano believes SDSU athletics can be “very marketable,” but the teams have to do well, particularly the football team. Said Urbano: “If it doesn’t do better, it will be hard to do anything.”