Pay-Per-Viewing Hasn’t Reached ‘No Mas’ Stage Yet

How fast is pay-per-view growing?

Consider this: Last June’s Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight was available in nine million homes. Next Thursday night’s Leonard-Roberto Duran bout at the new Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas will be available in 13 million homes.

In Southern California, Torrance-based Choice Entertainment is distributing the fight to 1.25 million homes in a seven-county area, and the Cable Sports Network is distributing it to another 275,000 homes in the San Diego area.

Every cable company with pay-per-view capability is offering the bout.

The price in the seven-county Southern California area for those who order early is $39.95. Most cable systems will be raising the price to $44.95 or higher the day of the fight.

The prices in San Diego are $30 for early orders through the weekend, $35 for Monday through Wednesday and $40 the day of the fight.

For those unable to get the fight on home television, there are 80 closed-circuit locations in Southern California that will show the card.

The announcers will be Tim Ryan, Gil Glancy and Marvin Hagler, with Jim Hill and Al Bernstein serving as the hosts of the telecast.

The four-bout undercard--highlighted by flyweight Michael Carbajal and heavyweight Ray Mercer--will begin at 6 p.m., after a one-hour prefight special.

The NBA, which announced a four-year, $600-million deal with NBC on Nov. 9, has made a four-year, $275-million agreement with Turner Broadcasting that will enable TNT to televise 50 regular-season games and 25 playoff games beginning next season.

Los Angeles pro football fans will once again be shortchanged Sunday.

NBC is offering an attractive doubleheader to most of the nation--Cincinnati at Cleveland followed by Denver at the Raiders. But the only NBC game Los Angeles gets is a bad one--the New York Jets at San Diego.

Los Angeles doesn’t get Cincinnati-Cleveland because it would be opposite the Rams’ game at Dallas on CBS at 10 a.m., and of course it won’t get the Raider game because it hasn’t sold out.

All parties have emphatically denied a report in Daily Variety that SportsChannel may merge with Prime Ticket.

Actually, such a merger would make a lot of sense, enabling one entity to offer the best of the two services.

No matter how hard it tries, SportsChannel has a tough time selling viewers on paying extra for Clipper basketball and non-King hockey games when they can get Laker and King games on Prime Ticket as part of their basic service.

One thing that is true is that Chuck Velano, a respected veteran of 30 years in the broadcasting business, has resigned as SportsChannel’s general manager.

In another matter, an arbitrator recently ruled in favor of SportsChannel, saying the service has the right to continue televising Clipper games. The Clippers had filed suit in an attempt to get out of their contract with SportsChannel.

Michael Weisman, the former executive producer of NBC Sports, has been hired by the CBS entertainment division to serve as executive producer of “The Pat Sajak Show.”

Weisman will move from New York to Los Angeles and begin his new job Monday.

Weisman reportedly has signed a multi-year contract with CBS that would allow him to move on to other ventures if the Sajak show is canceled.

Might some of those ventures include sports?

Said Weisman: “I’m not interested in returning to sports. CBS Sports is in very good hands.”

Now that Bob Starr has taken a job as a Boston Red Sox radio announcer, the question is this: Will he continue to announce Ram games for KMPC after this season?

Said Bill Ward, KMPC general manager: “We sure want him to stay. I personally think Bob Starr is the best football announcer on radio. And the Rams are high on him, too.”

However, it’s doubtful the Red Sox will allow Starr to travel coast-to-coast to do Ram games.

Two of the three major networks are interested in hiring ESPN’s Chris Berman, whose contract expires in six months. NBC reportedly has shown the most interest.

Before he takes the money and runs to NBC, Berman should take note of what happened to Gayle Gardner after she went from ESPN to NBC. She dropped from nightly exposure to almost no exposure.

What ESPN needs to do is make Berman, its top personality, an offer he can’t refuse. Berman is woefully underpaid at less than $200,000 a year.

Meanwhile, Brent Musburger earns $2 million a year.

Soccer still has a long way to go in this country. The biggest game in 40 years, the U.S. victory over Trinidad and Tobago on Nov. 19, got an 0.8 rating on ESPN and was seen in only 432,000 homes.

By comparison, last Saturday’s Miami-Notre Dame football game got a 14.9 rating and was seen in 13.7 million homes.

TV-Radio Notes

ESPN’s Sharlene Hawkes, who speaks fluent Spanish, spent two hours interviewing Roberto Duran and reportedly got him to open up. The highlights of that interview, which will be translated into English by Ruben Castillo, will be on Sports-Center Sunday night after the Chicago-Minnesota football game. . . . . ESPN will have a full crew in Las Vegas all next week for Duran’s fight with Sugar Ray Leonard Thursday night. It includes Charley Steiner, Al Bernstein, Barry Tompkins and Hawkes. . . . . SportsChannel offers a half-hour prefight special this weekend. The show, with new Long Beach Press-Telegram columnist Doug Krikorian serving as host, will include interviews with both fighters, their managers and Steve Wynn, the owner of the new Mirage. It will be shown Saturday at 5 p.m., Sunday at 3:30 p.m. and Monday at 10:30 p.m. . . . Channel 4 offers a one-hour fight preview Sunday at 10:30 a.m.

CBS and ESPN have announced their baseball schedules for next season. You would think the Dodgers won the World Series. The Dodgers will appear on CBS four times, the maximum. The Angels will appear only twice. Also, ESPN opens its regular-season schedule April 2 with a Dodger-San Diego game as the second half of a doubleheader, and CBS begins April 14 with a Dodger-Houston game as the second half of a doubleheader.

Unbeaten Alabama plays Auburn on CBS Saturday at 11 a.m., PST, with Jim Nantz and Pat Haden reporting. . . . . After the game, CBS will show the Heisman Trophy presentation at 2:30 p.m. . . . Dick Stockton and Dan Fouts will be the announcers for the Rams’ game at Dallas Sunday on CBS. . . . Joel Meyers and Paul Maguire, NBC’s best new team, will work the Jet-Charger game. The announcing team is the only redeeming aspect of the game. . . . U.S. soccer star Paul Caligiuri of Diamond Bar will be a guest on “The Pat Sajak Show” tonight. . . . The Kings make an appearance on SportsChannel when they play Khimik Voskresensk, a Soviet team, Monday night at the Forum.