FTC Action Could Affect TV Games

If the Federal Trade Commission gets its way, college football teams will be able to make their own deals with networks for appearances on television.

Alleging anti-competitive practices, the agency has filed an administrative complaint that could lead to the cancellation of a five-year, exclusive television agreement between Capitol Cities-ABC, Inc., and the College Football Assn. beginning in 1991.

The government’s move is intended to allow football fans more options for choosing Saturday afternoon games to watch.

“The CFA and ABC have overridden the marketplace and violated federal antitrust laws by privately deciding how many college football games shall be telecast, when and by whom,” Kevin J. Arquit, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said at a news conference here Thursday. “The resulting arrangement injures the millions of football fans who watch CFA games each week.”

If the government is successful, individual schools or athletic conferences will become separate bargaining agents for television sports rights, threatening the big-dollar paydays generated by exclusive network deals for college football games, said Christopher Dixon, a broadcast industry expert with Kidder Peabody in New York.

Dixon said that the only reason advertisers are attracted to college football is the guarantee of a specific and exclusive audience. Without that guarantee--say if 60 colleges or 10 major conferences each struck regional television deals--national advertisers would be forced to choose where to put their ads and would be likely to spend less money on college football, he said.

The Big Ten and Pacific 10 schools do not belong to the CFA and had broadcasting arrangements with ABC before the CFA struck its deal with the network, giving ABC a virtual lock on national television rights to major college football games, except for Notre Dame’s home games. Notre Dame negotiated a deal with NBC for the rights to its home games.