COMMENTARY : ESPN Refines Game Plan for Coverage of the NFL Draft

A year ago, ESPN’s coverage of the National Football League draft drew an average of almost 2 million viewers during the seven-hour telecast.

Two flaws marred ESPN’s usually fine work: the slow updating of the earlier draft picks and the reporting of a rumor concerning Florida defensive back Louis Oliver.

ESPN solved the former problem easily. Throughout this year’s telecast, starting at noon Sunday, the cable network will run small type across the bottom of the screen giving continual updates, just as FNN does with stock market quotations. That’s a logical, not-very-complex way to serve the audience better.

But how to deal with the Oliver situation, in which ESPN had to decide whether to go on the air with a rumor?

A little background: Oliver was expected to be drafted in the first 10 picks, probably No. 9 by the Miami Dolphins. As he fell further and further in the draft, ESPN reported the reason as rumors about possible drug use. Oliver rebutted the rumor on the air live before the Dolphins picked him 25th overall in the first round.

John Wildhack, producer of last year’s telecast and coordinating producer this year, said ESPN went on the air with the rumor for two reasons. It had independently confirmed the rumor--not that Oliver used drugs, but the existence of the rumor itself--by two sources, and because it gave Oliver an opportunity to respond on the air. It was convenient because Oliver was at his agent’s house in suburban Chicago. So was ESPN. The agent, Steve Zucker, also represents quarterback Jim McMahon, who was the subject of hot trade rumors on draft day.

Wildhack said he would not have let the rumor go on the air unless ESPN had given Oliver the chance to rebut it. “I’ve never failed a drug test,” Oliver said when he went on ESPN. “I don’t smoke anything. I don’t drink. I don’t know who started this rumor that I’m on drugs. But that seems to be the reason I haven’t been picked yet.”

A point can be made that the reporting of the rumor and Oliver’s denial of it helped explain to viewers why he was picked so much lower than expected in the first round. But in the long run the rumor probably will cost Oliver more than the $150,000 in signing bonus he lost for getting drafted 16 places lower.

Wildhack and other ESPN officials said they believe that the network acted responsibly. “What we try to do if a rumor comes to us is to try to check and verify the sources and report it in a tasteful manner, and that’s what we’ll continue to do,” Wildhack said.

ESPN has made some changes for draft day 1990. ESPN has also eliminated one of its two anchor desks, so Chris Berman, Joe Theismann, Tom Jackson and Mel Kiper will be on stage together. That should give ESPN more time for remotes, and the network’s current planning has crews in Atlanta, Dallas, Green Bay, Seattle and San Diego (for Bobby Beathard’s first draft there), as well as Lee Corso at quarterback Andre Ware’s home in Dickinson, Tex.

ESPN plans a number of features. Theismann, the former Redskins quarterback who recently signed a four-year extension with ESPN, will host an eight-minute segment on “The Player of the ‘90s.”

The other feature is what Wildhack calls “a human-interest story” about the trials and tribulations of former University of Maryland running back Charlie Wysocki, who was not drafted when he came out of College Park and has been under treatment for manic depression.

Theismann’s segment labels West Virginia linebacker Renaldo Turnbull as the prototype of the player of the ‘90s. The piece is informative, but what makes it interesting for those who have watched Theismann is his role.

He starts out by interviewing a skeleton at George Washington University Medical School, he dons a lab coat at the University of Massachusetts and throws some dry ice into a beaker to produce “a formula” for the players of the ‘90s and does voice on a segment about the prototype player of the ‘80s, New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor. Theismann said he didn’t know his voice would be used over tape of Taylor sacking him.

It was difficult to tell whether the first clip of a sack was the one in which Taylor broke Theismann’s leg and ended his career. “The thing is, he’s hit me so many times, they could have lifted any footage they wanted,” Theismann said.

NBC starts its three-part “Greatest Fights Ever” Saturday (1-3 p.m. PDT). The first telecast is “The Rumble in the Jungle,” the George Foreman-Muhammad Ali heavyweight championship bout 16 years ago in Kinshasa, Zaire.

The old footage of Ali is classic, especially when Ali is shown taunting the media for not giving him a chance against the 24-year-old undefeated champ.