For $450 Million, Turner Broadcasting Gets Slice of NFL Pie

The NFL has a new cable partner, Ted Turner.

Under a four-year agreement announced Thursday, Turner Broadcasting, beginning this year, will televise Sunday night games during the first half of the NFL season, with ESPN expected to handle the second half.

ESPN, saying it is still negotiating with the NFL, had no announcement.

Turner reportedly paid $450 million for the rights to 35 regular-season games and 12 exhibition games over four years.

Turner will televise the first nine weeks of the regular season this year, the first eight the following season and then the first nine in both 1992 and ’93. All NFL games will be carried on TBS.

The league is expected to stretch its season to 17 weeks this year, then 18 after that, but each team still will play 16 games. Under this setup, each team would get one bye this season, then two a season thereafter.

ESPN probably will also have to pay about $450 million for its share of the Sunday night package. That would mean the NFL will make $900 million from cable alone, or $225 million a year.

The NFL was making about $55 million a year from its cable deal with ESPN.

When further deals with the major networks are completed sometime before the owners’ meeting in Orlando, Fla., the week of March 11, the NFL probably will show nearly an 80% increase in television revenue.

The NFL is expected to bring in $850 million a year from television, up from $476 million a year. That figures out to nearly $30 million a team per year, up from $17 million.

All indications are that ABC will retain the Monday night games.

One source said that the Fox network, ABC’s main competitor for the Monday night package, was asked by the NFL what it would pay. But Fox in turn told the NFL to set the price, leaving the negotiations stalemated.

Radio deal: The Rams and KMPC have reached an agreement on a new four-year contract, according to Bill Ward, KMPC’s general manager.

Terms were not announced, but it was learned that the Rams at one time wanted five years at $12.5 million. KMPC balked at that and a compromise was reached.

Television executives, please note: A live sports telecast apparently will beat a tape-delayed one, no matter what the circumstances.

HBO was counting on a record Nielsen rating in the 40s for last Friday’s two-hour special on the six-day-old Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson fight.

It got a 19.5, considerably lower than the 31.1 final Nielsen it got for the live telecast.

HBO might have erred by waiting so long to show the replay.

Douglas, suddenly a media star, was Johnny Carson’s guest Wednesday night.

Carson, introducing Douglas said: “Buster is a tough guy. After the fight he went after Don King with a weed whacker.”

Carson, although he apparently was unaware that Douglas had signed with the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas earlier in the day, got off another good line when he said Douglas’ next fight, if scheduled at Trump Plaza, should have Don and Ivana Trump on the undercard.

“In that case, I might be upstaged,” Douglas said, drawing laughs from the audience.

Douglas, asked about his next opponent by Carson, said: “Anyone in the top 10. I’ll take on all comers.”

He mentioned (cringe) George Foreman both on the Carson show and during an interview with Channel 4’s Fred Roggin.

Recommended viewing: ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” Saturday should be a good one. Besides commemorating the 10-year anniversary of the U.S. Olympic hockey team’s winning the gold medal at Lake Placid, there will also be taped coverage of October’s Ironman Triathlon.

Part of the triathlon coverage will be a feature on Dick Hoyt, 47, and his 25-year-old son Rick of Holland, Mass.

Both completed the race, even though Rick has cerebral palsy. Dick pulled his son in a dinghy during the 2.4-mile swimming portion, had a special bicycle with a basket for the 112-mile bike ride, and pushed a wheelchair during the marathon.

Oops Dept.: During the recent USC-Stanford game, KNX’s Pete Arbogast said of his statistician, USC student Anthony Moretti: “He’s probably in the Mafia. If he’s not, he should be, with a name like that.”

Said Arbogast: “I’m only trying to keep ‘em laughing.”

Italian listeners probably weren’t laughing.

Oops Dept. II: The CBS affiliate in Seattle, KIRO, angered auto racing fans by first not scheduling last Sunday’s Daytona 500 at all, then showing incomplete coverage on six-hour delay.

KIRO preempted the race in order to carry the Seattle SuperSonics at Charlotte, which was followed by the Lakers and Boston Celtics. A movie was scheduled after that.

But station management gave in to pressure during the week and scrapped the movie in order to put on 2 1/2 hours of delayed Daytona coverage.

The station’s program director, Nick Freeman, said the thinking was that auto racing normally doesn’t do well in the Pacific Northwest.

But when longshot Derrike Cope of Spanaway, Wash., won the race, the station was flooded with protest calls.

Among the unhappy viewers was Cope’s father Don, who drove 100 miles to Tacoma to get a live telecast.

TV-Radio Notes

Although the L. A. Open doesn’t rate early-round cable coverage, CBS offers 3 1/2 hours this weekend--from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday and from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Sunday. The announcing team includes Pat Summerall, Jim Nantz, Gary McCord, Ben Wright, Steve Melnyk and Ken Venturi. . . . It’s refreshing to see McCord, never much of a name as a player, making it big in television. During 15 years on the PGA Tour, he never won a tournament. His best finishes were seconds at the 1975 and ’77 Greater Milwaukee Open.

Chick Hearn almost ended up having to walk back to Los Angeles from Denver. He put the Lakers’ game against the Nuggets Wednesday night in the refrigerator with the Lakers leading, 107-93, with about five minutes left, vowing to walk home if the Lakers lost. Channel 9 producer-director Susan Stratton soon put up a graphic that read: “Distance From Denver to Los Angeles: 1,050 miles.” The Lakers won by only two points.

Pete Rose is the featured guest on “InSport” on Channel 4 Saturday at 4 p.m. “My goal is to never gamble again,” Rose said. “But I can’t honestly tell you that that will happen, because a lot of people relapse.” . . . Thomas Hearns, Lyle Alzado, Dick Butkus, Jay Johnstone, Bob Seagren, Bill Robinson and the Laker Girls will be a part of “Totally Hidden Video” on Channel 11 Saturday night at 8:30. In Hearns’ bit, an unsuspecting person is hired as an office assistant by Hearns. He asks the new employee to try on a pair of boxing gloves, then is called away. The new hire, unable to remove the gloves, then must attempt to answer the phone and perform other office duties. . . . “American Gladiators” opens its second cycle on Channel 9 Saturday night at 10. Todd Christensen has replaced Joe Theismann as one of the hosts. Mike Adamle remains as the other.

United Cable in the eastern San Fernando Valley is the one of two Southern California cable companies carrying the new 24-hour Sports News Network. Cablevision of Calabasas is the other. . . . ESPN’s Al Bernstein, recently named boxing commentator of the year by the National Boxing Writers Assn., will work his 500th live boxing telecast Sunday, Virgil Hill vs. David Vedder, at Bismarck, N.D. Bernstein called his first fight for ESPN on April 11, 1980.

It was reported here last week that Bud Furillo and Steve Hartman may be moving their sports talk show from KFOX to KIEV. But Fred Beaton, general manager of KIEV, said such talk is premature. “We’ve talked to them and maybe something can be worked out down the road, but not at this time,” Beaton said. “Also, our sales people tell me the time they want (8 to 9 a.m.) is not available.” Beaton also said that Peter Vent, who used to be a part of the KFOX show with Furillo, will begin doing a weeknight sports segment in early March. The five-to-six minute segments will air at 10 p.m., Beaton said. . . . Footage of a young Gil Stratton making his one attempt at riding a thoroughbred will be shown on the “Racing From Santa Anita” program on Channel 18 Monday night. Things didn’t go too well, to say the least.