USC-UCLA Will Get Plenty of Exposure: 74% of the Country

The UCLA-USC game Saturday at 12:30 p.m. will be televised to 74% of the country by ABC, with the remaining 26%, mostly in the Midwest, getting the Indiana-Illinois game.

That means the No. 1 ABC announcing team of Keith Jackson, Bob Griese and Mike Adamle will be at the Coliseum.

It also means USC and UCLA will each get about $225,000 in rights fees.

That’s the amount paid to schools for a national telecast by ABC, and any game shown in more than 50% of the country is regarded as a national telecast.

The Trojans will be making their sixth appearance on ABC this season, which is the maximum.

For the Bruins, it will be appearance No. 5, which isn’t bad, considering they are 3-7.

The one possible ABC appearance UCLA lost was two weeks ago against Stanford. Had the Bruins been above .500, that game probably would have been shown on a regional basis, meaning a payday of about $130,000.

Apparently that’s all UCLA lost in TV revenue this season. But if the Bruins string together a couple of losing seasons, their TV appeal would drop off considerably. And so would the take.

ABC should scrap its split-national format and televise a Big Ten-Pacific 10 doubleheader every weekend.

The reason it doesn’t is that too many ABC affiliates have their own syndicated football packages, or other local programming, and don’t want to turn over six to seven hours every Saturday to the network.

ESPN has been picking up some of the slack in recent weeks. The cable network will televise its sixth Big Ten game Saturday, Michigan at Minnesota at 9:30 a.m., PST.

The problem, besides ESPN being available only to cable subscribers, is that the all-sports network has to take what’s left after ABC gets first choice.

At least, Saturday’s ESPN game has some bearing on the Big Ten race. No. 3 Michigan is 8-1 overall and 6-0 in the Big Ten. Minnesota is 5-4 and 3-3.

Ohio State and Illinois, each 7-2 and 5-1, are still in the run for the Rose Bowl. If the Illini and Ohio State both win their remaining games and Michigan defeats Minnesota, there will be a three-way tie, with Illinois getting the nod. That’s provided there are no ties.

Some good news: ABC will televise next weekend’s Ohio State-Michigan showdown at Ann Arbor, Mich., to the entire nation.

Ohio State, which plays host to lowly Wisconsin Saturday, needs to win its two remaining games and hope for an Illinois loss or tie along the way. Ohio State lost to Illinois, 34-14, in the fourth week of the season.

It appears that the relationship between SportsChannel and the Clippers has become shaky.

The basketball team recently filed a lawsuit against the regional sports pay network.

Bob Platt, attorney for the Clippers, was quoted by Multichannel News as saying: “Right now we just want (SportsChannel) to stop televising Clipper games. That’s the priority.”

The Clippers made their original deal with Z Channel, which was sold in February.

Representatives of both SportsChannel and the Clippers declined to speak on the record, but both sides downplayed the suit.

Meanwhile, SportsChannel continues to show Clipper games.

SportsChannel made a couple of recent schedule changes but they had nothing to do with the suit.

Last Tuesday night’s game against Denver and next Wednesday night’s game against New Jersey were taken off TV, and two games later in the season were added.

Ahmad Rashad, who left the studio to become a commentator, will work Sunday’s Raider game against the Oilers in Houston with Don Criqui.

The game, on Channel 4 at 1 p.m., will mark Rashad’s first L.A. telecast of the season.

About his new role, Rashad said: “When I left football (after the 1982 season) I didn’t want to join the group of former players doing commentating. But now it’s fine because I’ve proven I can do other things.”

After Terry O’Neil was hired as the executive producer of NBC Sports earlier this year, he and Rashad talked.

“I told him I wanted a co-host role (with Bob Costas) on ‘NFL Live.’ ” Rashad said. “I didn’t want to do any more 30-second features. But that wasn’t what Terry had in mind, and he asked if I’d consider being a game commentator.”

Rashad, who accepted O’Neil’s proposal, is still doing studio work as well. He is the co-host and producer of a syndicated show, “InSports,” with Cleveland news anchor Robin Swoboda.

The slick show is carried by Channel 4. Because of other programming, the show was relegated to 6:30 a.m. Sundays the past two weekends.

But this weekend, “InSports” will be shown at 4 p.m. Saturday; the next weekend, it will be on at 1 p.m. Sunday, and the next weekend, it will move to 11 a.m. Sunday, before going back to its original Saturday time slot.

Among the guests on this weekend’s show will be Mark Spitz, who talks about his comeback.

Classy move: Dick Stockton didn’t get the word secondhand that, beginning next season, NBC and not CBS would be televising the NBA. Stockton got a call from NBA Commissioner David Stern, who thanked Stockton for his work the past 10 years.

Stern also called Executive Producer Ted Shaker and some other key CBS people.

Oops Dept.: This from Bob Starr: “And who will ever forget No. 88?” He was talking about Fred Dryer, who of course wore No. 89.

Jack Youngblood corrected the mistake immediately and the two Ram broadcasters later had some fun with it.

TV-Radio Notes

Bud Greenspan’s film, “Seoul ‘88: 16 Days of Glory,” which was previewed Thursday night at the Lorimar Theater in Culver City, will make its debut on the Disney Channel Nov. 29 at 9 p.m. This may be his best film ever, which is saying something. Disney will be available to all cable subscribers that week. . . . Channel 9 has hired another new sportscaster, Tom Murray, a Boston College graduate who most recently was working in Dallas. . . . When Joe Fowler was introduced at Channel 9, the name put up on the screen read, Jim Fowler. Jim Fowler used to be Marlon Perkins’ sidekick on “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Might Channel 9 make the same mistake twice and call Tom Murray, Jim Murray?

Former Channel 7 sportscaster Gene Washington is the host of a weeknight talk show on San Francisco radio station KNBR. Washington still has ties in Los Angeles as the host of the Raider pregame show on KFI. . . . Dick Bass made a brief return to the Ram radio booth last Sunday. He was there to report that a former teammate, offensive tackle Charlie Cowan, a 15-year Ram, was going through some tough times after a liver transplant at an Irvine hospital.

This 900 phone business is getting to be too much. It was bad enough when Jose Canseco got into it. Now this: Boxing fans watching the pay-by-view telecast of the Dec. 7 Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight can call a hotline after each round and cast a vote on who’s ahead. For a fee, of course. And the hotline even has a sponsor. They’re calling it the Diet Pepsi “Call the Right One” Championship Hotline. Incredible!

Tonight’s “Eye on L.A.,” on Channel 7 at 7:30, will take a look at the USC-UCLA rivalry. . . . The early NFL game Sunday will be Minnesota at Philadelphia at 10 a.m., PST, on CBS, with Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw reporting. . . . The soccer World Cup qualifying match pitting the United States against Trinidad and Tobago at Port of Spain, Trinidad, will be televised by ESPN, but on a two-hour delay at 1:30 p.m.,. PST. ESPN can’t show the soccer match live because it is committed to a live telecast of the Atlanta 500 stock car race. . . . The next Senior League Baseball telecast on Prime Ticket will be Nov. 26.

Following coverage of the Julio Cesar Chavez-Sammy Fuentes fight, which begins Saturday night at 6, HBO will have a Mike Tyson update plus a live interview. Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant report. . . . Eric Tracy of radio station KABC has lined up an impressive list of sports stars who will take part in his benefit golf tournament at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana Monday. Tracy has already raised more than $50,000 for the City of Hope.