COMMENTARY : It’s Time to Get Ready for a New Ballgame

You’re sitting in a Hilton, Sheraton or Westin in Los Angeles, Chicago or Washington. You’re exhausted, and there’s nothing on the TV. So you decide to take the pay-TV plunge: For $5.95, your choices are “No Way Out” or a soft-porn flick or ... the Denver Nuggets.

Welcome to the brave new world of ordering the NBA as room service.

Last weekend two black Chicago businessmen joined with Washington-based Communications Satellite Corp. (Comsat) to purchase the NBA Nuggets for $54 million. Not only did the deal mark a major advance for minorities in the business of professional sports, but it also signaled the next major step in sports television: pay-per-view.

Comsat came into the picture at the request of NBA Commissioner David Stern. Partners Peter C.B. Bynoe and Bertram M. Lee were faltering in their attempt to buy the Nuggets, so Stern contacted Robert Wussler, Ted Turner’s longtime top gun at TBS and the newly appointed chief executive officer of Comsat Video Enterprises.

“I think David was looking to provide some help to these people at the 11th hour, took a flyer, picked up the phone and called me,” Wussler said.

Wussler then huddled with Comsat officials -- “It shocked them,” he said of the idea of owning an NBA team -- and finalized the deal that put the international communications satellite company onto the hardwood. The key selling point: that the Nuggets represented a key programming acquisition in Comsat’s attempt to reverse losses in its financially troubled entertainment subsidiary that primarily puts pay movies into hotel rooms.

Ted Turner once marketed the Atlanta Braves as America’s Team.

Bob Wussler will market the Denver Nuggets as, well, Ramada’s Team.

“We’re in the pay-per-view business,” Wussler said of his new employers. “I’m a strong believer in pay-per-view. The opportunity to put Denver Nuggets games and other NBA games into these hotel rooms is tremendous.”

A handful of teams have been involved in broadcasting ownership. Some teams own stations -- the NBA Celtics just bought a radio and TV station, for instance, and the NHL Sabres just sold the TV station they owned. Some teams own cable facilities -- MSG with the NBA Knicks and NHL Rangers, Home Sports Entertainment with the baseball Astros. Some stations own teams -- WGN and the baseball Cubs, TBS and the NBA Hawks. But Comsat’s Nuggets interest would take the franchise-broadcast link to a new level.

Pay-per-view is not new to the NBA. At least four teams -- Portland, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio -- have experimented with it, according to the NBA’s Ed Desser. In San Antonio and Portland, for instance, viewers can subscribe to a package of games for a flat rate or buy single games. But pay-per-view never has been targeted on a national scale like Wussler’s Nuggets intend.

Still, Wussler plays down any comparision between the Comsat-Nuggets deal and Turner’s earlier franchise purchases. When Turner bought the baseball Braves and NBA Hawks, they essentially were programming acquisitions for what became one of America’s most-watched superstations. “But I’m not putting this in a mainstream distribution center. I’m not putting this on a network,” Wussler said. “I’m just trying to put this on a pay-per-view basis at three or six or nine dollars. I don’t know what the answer is (in regards to pricing). I do know that movies in hotel rooms work. Now I’d like to see if we can sell other programming.”

“I’m not sure how viable a tool (the Nuggets) will be as a pay-per-view vehicle in hotel rooms,” said John Mansell, an analyst at the media consulting firm Paul Kagan Associates. “I guess it might be a good late-night option.”

According to Mansell, 12 or 13 percent of hotel guests use in-room pay movies when they’re available. Of those, 75 percent plug into the soft-porn features, which generally are viewed by an overwhelmingly male audience. So Doug Moe and the Nuggets would offer these men a sporting alternative to skin flicks. What Wussler needs to do is convince hotels that Comsat’s film and sports offerings are a better option than its main competitor, Spectradyne. Comsat currently is in about 300,000 hotel rooms to Spectradyne’s 600,000.

Beyond the Nuggets, it might seem logical for Comsat to engage the rest of the league in putting selected games on hotel pay-per-view. Comsat has the technical capacity to do this. So in turning to Wussler, Stern might be giving the NBA a toehold in the future of pay-per-view. (Stern was in Rome much of the week after the McDonald’s Open and unavailable for comment.)

“I think the league has been encouraging, and to the extent the league wants to experiment, I want to help,” Wussler said. “ ... The league has a good shot of taking games around the world electronically, and we want to be in a position to do it.”

Wussler said Comsat’s pay-per-view approach with the Nuggets won’t threaten or harm the NBA’s network and cable packages. “This is an additive, a way for some clubs to broaden their in-stadium marketing. ... The league would get a piece, the other team would get a piece and Denver would get a piece.”

The Nuggets could be in hotels some time this season. Further Wussler is talking about Comsat expanding into other sports acquisitions. Suddenly America’s innkeepers might become America’s most sophisticated sporting arenas.