Channel-Switchers Have a Field Day on Basketball Sunday

With the football season finally over, basketball comes to the forefront this weekend.

Sunday, there is No. 1 Nevada Las Vegas against No. 2 Arkansas on CBS at 9 a.m., the NBA All-Star game on NBC at 10:30 a.m. and Arizona-UCLA on ABC at 1 p.m.

The All-Star game would have been Marv Albert’s biggest NBA assignment, but his mother, Alida, died Tuesday, and Albert will miss the game.

He will be replaced by Bob Costas, who will do double duty, also serving in his regular role as co-host of the pregame show, which begins at 10 a.m. Mike Fratello will be the game commentator.

Originally, Dick Enberg was scheduled to do the play-by-play for the All-Star game, but he deferred to Albert because of Albert’s NBA experience. Albert has been a New York Knick announcer since 1963.

Albert’s brother, Steve, also was scheduled to announce a sporting event this weekend--Saturday night’s Sugar Ray Leonard-Terry Norris fight on Showtime.

Bruce Beck of the Madison Square Garden Network will replace Steve, with Ferdie Pacheco handling the commentary.

Non-Showtime subscribers are able to purchase the fight, plus all Showtime programming for February, for $9.95.

Also different about this program is a Leonard interview conducted by Leonard. Viewers will see Leonard asking the question and then answering it.

A probing interview, no doubt.

Leonard does say one thing of note in the taped exchange: that he is using this fight as a barometer to see if he will continue to fight.

Saturday’s telecast begins at 7 p.m., and with no preliminary bouts, the fight should go on shortly after 7:15. The telecast will be repeated at 10 p.m.

The Kings, who haven’t appeared on an over-the-air TV station since 1985, may have 10 to 20 games on Channel 5 next season.

Peter Walker, Channel 5’s general manager, who came to Los Angeles about 18 months ago from Chicago, is a hockey fan and hopeful a deal can be worked out.

Channel 5 recently announced that it will carry the Kings’ March 24 game against the Oilers at Edmonton.

Channel 13, whose general manager, Bill Frank, is a hockey fanatic from New York, also is interested in the Kings.

Prime Ticket wouldn’t object to farming out more games next season because it has scheduling problems in carrying the Lakers, Clippers and Kings.

Also, John Severino, Prime Ticket president, says anything that promotes the Kings is good for Prime Ticket.

Prime Ticket is among the many advertising-supported businesses being hit by an economy in recession.

Also, Prime Ticket was recently hit with a $500,000-a-year increase in the rights fee it pays to the NBA for Laker and Clipper telecasts going to areas outside the Los Angeles market.

Severino, realizing that some cuts needed to be made, met with Prime Ticket producers last Friday and told them to cut back on cameras and other equipment used on some events.

“I sure didn’t relish doing it, but something had to give,” Severino said. “I didn’t want to have to fire anyone, and I didn’t want to cut back on the number of events we cover. To save jobs, we’re simply cutting the fat on some of our production of the lesser sports.

“Everything remains the same for our marquee events, such as the Lakers, Clippers and Kings.”

The cuts may not have set well with some of the producers, but Severino is confident that viewers won’t notice the difference.

“The cuts went into effect this week, and we haven’t had any complaints from viewers,” Severino said.

When should news take precedence over a live sporting event? It’s a question that has arisen frequently in the past few weeks--a delicate question with no pat answers.

But two recent developments may provide some guidelines:

--During the Super Bowl, ABC handled the situation properly, inserting Persian Gulf updates at opportune times and avoiding preempting game action. If viewers wanted more news, they had the option of switching channels.

--During last Friday’s Laker-Clipper game at the Sports Arena, Channel 9 botched things in trying to cover both the game and the LAX plane crash.

Channel 9 cut into game action at least twice, and about four minutes early in the fourth quarter was missed.

Channel 9 needed to be more judicious in its crash coverage and keep the news breaks more concise. Viewers who wanted more news could have switched elsewhere, and those wanting to watch the game would have been able to do so.

Ken Brett, after four years with Al Conin in the Angel radio booth, will be Channel 5’s Angel commentator next season, paired with new play-by-play man Ken Wilson. Brett also expects to return as SportsChannel’s Angel commentator.

“I’m going to miss radio,” Brett said. “I know I wasn’t very good at play-by-play in the beginning. I know you and others like you took some shots at me. I deserved them.

“But I was finally beginning to feel comfortable doing play-by-play. Ron Fairly had told me it would take three to five years to feel comfortable, and that was the case.”

Brett said he didn’t pursue the change. “Something was worked out internally,” he said. “I got a call from (KMPC General Manager) Bill Ward telling me to expect (the change).”

Brett said he had simply asked KMPC to allow him to do the 35 SportsChannel telecasts, and that must have gotten the ball rolling.

Johnny Bench was the top candidate for the Channel 5 job, but commitments in Cincinnati kept him from accepting it.

A radio replacement for Brett has not been named.

TV-Radio Notes

TNT will televise a one-hour NBA All-Star special tonight at 7, and TNT’s coverage of the slam-dunk contest, three-point shootout and old-timers’ game will be shown Saturday at 4 p.m. . . . Saturday at 9 a.m., NBC, along with TNT and Nickelodeon, will televise the “NBA All-Star Stay in School Jam,” with basketball and entertainment stars teaming up to get the message across. . . . NBC will devote about 30 minutes of its Saturday “SportsWorld” program to reports from Charlotte, N.C., the site of the All-Star festivities. . . . Pat Riley and Mike Fratello, who will be a part of NBC’s All-Star game coverage Sunday, coached against each other in the 1988 game. Fratello’s East team beat Riley’s West team, 138-133.

NBC’s first golf coverage of the year will be this weekend from the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at Indian Wells. Charlie Jones has replaced Bryant Gumbel, and also new will be an area in the 18th-hole tower for commentator Johnny Miller to show viewers different golf swings. Other commentators and reporters include Joel Meyers, Bob Trumpy, Mark Rolfing, and Roger Maltbie. . . . SportsChannel offers live coverage of the $500,000 Charles H. Strub Stakes at Santa Anita Sunday at 4:30 p.m.

It will be announced soon that fight trainer Joe Goossen of Sherman Oaks has been hired as the boxing commentator for TVKO, the new pay-per-view boxing network that begins operation with the George Foreman-Evander Holyfield fight. Goossen will be teamed with Len Berman. . . . Channel 13 made a deal this week for the exclusive rights to the Los Angeles Marathon through 1997. This year’s race is on March 3. . . . NFL Films’ highlight videos of the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills, plus an updated version of “A History of the Super Bowl,” with footage from this year’s game, will be available at video outlets beginning next Thursday.

Bill Walton, who has been outstanding as Prime Ticket’s UCLA commentator this season, showed his skills as a radio talk-show host while filling in for vacationing Gabe Kaplan on KLAC’s “Sports Nuts” Monday night. He was smooth, had good comments, and his interviews with LSU Coach Dale Brown and Walt Hazzard, former UCLA coach, were professionally done.