Network Bosses Have High Praise for No. 1 Teams

NBC and CBS are bringing out their best for Sunday’s NFL conference championship games.

NBC’s No. 1 announcing team, Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen, will work the 9:30 a.m. AFC game between the Denver Broncos and the Cleveland Browns, and CBS’ No. 1 team, Pat Summerall and John Madden, will work the 1 p.m. NFC game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants.

So what makes these teams No. 1 at their respective networks?

That question was posed to Michael Weisman, executive producer of NBC Sports, and Ted Shaker, who holds the same position at CBS. They are the ones who make assignments.

“First of all, both teams are outstanding,” Weisman said. “Enberg and Olsen are the definitive team, totally keyed into each other.

“They are Middle America, the type of guys you’d like to have over for dinner. You wouldn’t even mind one of them taking your wife to the ballpark.

“Summerall and Madden are the types you’d like to meet at a bar to talk football.

“The teams are different in other ways, too. Summerall sets the table for Madden, who does at least 60% of the talking. With Enberg and Olsen, it’s more of a 50-50 split.

“I won’t say our guys are better. Madden is the most dominant individual in sports television, at least of those doing football. But I’ll say Enberg and Olsen, as a team, are equal to Summerall and Madden.”

Said Shaker: “Summerall and Madden both have a great affection for the game, a great understanding of it and a special ability to communicate it.

“Summerall is a highly intelligent, highly articulate person who communicates with clear, simple words.”

About Madden, who has recovered from a case of laryngitis that set in earlier this week, Shaker said: “There is probably no one else who is as skilled at making a point understandable to everybody, no matter how complex.”

Shaker avoided talking about Enberg and Olsen, saying, “I haven’t heard them enough to make a proper evaluation.”

Add Weisman: He said the halftime interview with President Reagan during the Fiesta Bowl came about after NBC had learned that Reagan wanted to call the winning team in the locker room after the game.

Weisman said the interview was a compromise.

“The locker-room phone calls never work,” he said. “They’re embarrassing to the President, the coaches and the players.

“So we said he could have two minutes during halftime. He ended up taking 6 1/2. We couldn’t say, ‘Hey, Mr. President, your time is up, we have a kickoff coming up here.’ ”

Interviewer Bob Costas had a problem with his headset and at first couldn’t hear the President, but Weisman said that problem was cleared up, and Costas missed only the President’s first response.

So Costas, like the rest of us, got to hear Reagan drone on about his old sportscasting days.

Dennis Swanson, the president of ABC Sports, was in town this week to meet with some of the nation’s television reporters at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Asked if he’d like to see a college football national championship game, he said: “Only if it’s on ABC.

“No, seriously, I’m a traditionalist. I favor the current bowl structure.

“What sometimes is forgotten is that bowl games are more than just two teams playing a football game. There are parades and functions that involve the whole community.

“Oftentimes, money is raised for charity. I don’t think the NCAA would be donating much to charity.

“And under the current setup, we usually end up with a clear-cut national champion, anyway. We certainly did this year with Penn State. And we did last year with Oklahoma.

“No, I say stay with what we’ve got now.”

This from the boss of ABC Sports, even though NBC has the big bowl games.

Add Swanson: He said Al Michaels and Frank Gifford will be back on “Monday Night Football” next season if ABC still has it. “Retaining the package is our main concern,” he said.

Swanson called the NFL Players Assn. “irresponsible” for claiming that the networks are lying when they say they are losing money on pro football. “Believe me, we lost significant millions this past season,” Swanson said.

About announcer Tim Brandt, who went from ABC to CBS this week, Swanson said ABC could not afford the salary stipulated by his contract.

Another source said that ABC had offered Brandt $130,000 to stay at ABC, but that CBS had offered him more than $200,000.

It’s Greek to him: Jimmy the Greek picked the 49ers over the Giants, 27-24. Final score, in case you forgot, was Giants 49, 49ers 3.

Picking against the spread, the Greek’s record, according to NBC, is 17-32-1 and 0-5 in the playoffs. NBC’s Paul Maguire, if anyone cares, is 28-30-2 and 1-4 in the playoffs.

Best idea of last weekend belonged to NBC radio. With about 10 minutes left in Sunday’s Giant-49er game, the producer of the radio broadcast, Rich Bond, had announcers Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy virtually forget about play-by-play and instead interview Washington linebacker Rich Milot.

“We had Milot lined up for the postgame show anyway,” Criqui said. “I think we may have paved the way for a new trend, at least in radio. Hearing what Milot had to say about the Giants was a lot more interesting than Bob and I just talking and trying to fill time.”

TV-Radio Notes The new-look “Wide World of Sports” will make its debut Saturday on Channel 7 at 4:30 p.m. Frank Gifford and Becky Dixon will serve as studio anchors, offering late-breaking stories and results. Dixon, former news anchor at the ABC affiliate in Tulsa, Okla., was hired full time by ABC Sports last October. Cheryl Miller, another new ABC employee, also will make her debut Saturday. Miller and Jim McKay, still a part of the “Wide World” team but in a lesser capacity since asking that his work load be cut, will report on the Harlem Globetrotters’ exhibition at Kansas City. They’ll be joined by Wilt Chamberlain. . . . “Wide World,” entering its 26th year, will be showcasing the Globetrotters for the 15th straight year. . . . ABC’s Dennis Swanson said “Wide World” will provide more live events than it has in recent years. That usually means live in the East and delayed in the West, which is the case with the Globetrotter show Saturday. . . . “Wide World” will even have new music, courtesy of record producer and songwriter Robert Kraft.

The Professional Bowlers Assn. tour will start its 25th season on ABC Saturday, when the Seagram’s Cooler U.S. Open at Tacoma, Wash., is televised on a delayed basis at 3 p.m. Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Jr. return as the announcers. Schenkel has been on the series since its inception. “We’ve come a long way,” he said. “The prize money for first when I started was $4,000. The winner Saturday will get $100,000.” . . . Add Schenkel: Lee Trevino recently introduced Schenkel at a dinner by saying: “If he didn’t have that Adam’s apple, there would be no shape to his body at all.” . . . Attention horse racing fans: “Sport of the Kings,” a half-hour show, made its debut on Channel 56 Thursday night. The show, to be televised every Thursday at 8 p.m., includes handicapping tips, interviews with racing personalities and previews of weekend stakes races at Santa Anita. Professional handicappers Bob and Rick Baedeker--they’re brothers--are the hosts.