Big Bucks Dominate the Big Plays

Without a doubt, the primary impact of TV on the game of football can be measured in dollars. Billions of them.

ABC, NBC and CBS collectively paid $2.7 billion to the NFL earlier this year in a bidding frenzy designed to keep most of the games away from cable.Throw in the $450 million that ESPN and TNT each paid for a limited number of contests and the total package for four years exceeds $3.6 billion.

That breaks down to $32.8 million per team per year, nearly twice what each club received from the NFL’s last TV deal three years ago. The owners, of course, pocket their fair share, but a good chunk finds its way into the wallets of the players. San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana will make $4 million this season. And before playing a single down, rookies such as Indianapolis Colts quarterback Jeff George are set for life with multimillion-dollar deals.

Such salaries stand in contrast to 1973, when Tom Jackson, all-pro linebacker with the Denver Broncos, earned $21,500 his first year. “By the time I made it to the $300,000 range (in the mid-80s),” he said, “I thought, ‘My goodness, who would have thought this? I would have played for free.”’

Jackson, now an ESPN broadcaster, said he doesn’t begrudge the players grabbing as much as they can get, but he’s not sure the big bucks are good for the game. He contends that huge sums kill the incentive to excel and improve of younger players.

“I’m not so sure some of the athletes are willing to make the sacrifices of an older era,” he said. “I want to see kids play the game for the love of the game. My fear is that players are becoming so obsessed with the money that the play becomes secondary.”

Pat Summerall, the longtime CBS broadcaster, agreed that some older players who don’t want to be banging heads any longer are making so much that they simply can’t give it up.

Other football experts dismiss such nostalgia for a purer athletic era. Former Kansas City Chiefs Coach Hank Stram believes that “when you screw on the hat and pump up the balls, no one is worried about the money.” And Terry O’Neil, executive producer of NBC Sports, said, “Just look at the game. You can’t believe the way these guys are throwing their bodies around in pursuit of victory. The total recklessness of it, the mania, the blood.”

But it’s the three major networks that could end up bloodied and bowed. Before they signed contracts this year, the networks had thrived right alongside the NFL. But Robert C. Wright, chairman of NBC, recently said that at the current prices all three networks were likely to lose money on pro football. And he said he doubted NBC would bid on the NFL next time.

“I don’t fault the league for this,” O’Neil said. “We all signed the piece of paper. But the advertising marketplace is not what it was before. While some advertisers, the beer companies and certain car companies are willing to pay the increasing costs for football, it drains money out of other (programming). They say, ‘Maybe I will pay this outrageous price for football, but I won’t be able to support your comedy lineup on Thursday nights anymore.”’

And if NBC does carry out its threat to punt in four years, where will all those fanatics TV has created turn?

Look at what happened to boxing, say many broadcasting insiders. Subscriber-supported cable and pay-per-view--where the viewer, not the network, foots most of the bill--soon could be the primary TV home of the NFL.