Basketball: The Rare Sport for TV Profit : Television: Network exclusivity pleases ad buyers but NBC Sports also hopes for a till-tinkling 7-game series.

Professional basketball has become that rarest of television sports properties, one that can turn a profit for the network carrying it.

“We’re not going to make a fortune, but we’re not going to be at risk,” said NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol, whose network concludes the first of a four-year, $600-million contract by covering the Lakers-Chicago Bulls NBA Finals (which open at 12:30 p.m. Sunday on Channels 4, 36 and 39). “The NBA right now is clearly the most attractive franchise of all professional sports for advertisers.”

About a decade ago, the NBA was anathema to television sports programmers. The league’s poor image prompted CBS to air just four regular season games a year and delay weekday NBA Finals telecasts to 11:30 p.m. in most of the nation, fearing a prime-time ratings debacle during the crucial May sweeps.

NBC’s success with the NBA stands in stark contrast to the $55-million after-tax loss that CBS took for its baseball playoff and World Series coverage and a $115-million charge against fourth-quarter earnings for losses during the remaining three years of its $1.06-billion contract with major league baseball.

Even professional football, by far television’s most-watched sport, will see the three broadcast and two cable networks carrying its games lose a “significant amount” of money over the life of the four-year contract with the National Football League, Ebersol said.

He cites several factors for the NBA’s broadcast profitability: the league showing more understanding than Major League Baseball for the network’s need to turn a profit; the major network exclusivity that NBC enjoys with the NBA, and an enthusiastic response from advertisers to commit for the duration of the four-year contract.

NBC obtained the NBA television rights in November, 1989. CBS, which had carried NBA games since the 1973-74 season, had a one-month exclusive negotiating period, which it let lapse, before it rejected the league’s proposal.

Still, NBC has not been able to match CBS’ ratings of last season. NBC’s 21 regular season games averaged a 4.5 rating, or about 4.2 million households. CBS got a 4.9 rating, or 4.5 million households.

NBC has averaged a 6.6 rating for 18 playoff games through Thursday, compared to CBS’ 6.8 for a like amount of games last year.

An NBC spokesman cited earlier starting times for the regular season games, when fewer television sets are in use, as the reason for the regular season rating decline.

NBC is hoping the finals will be different.

“Early indications are that having (teams representing) two of the top three television markets in the United States will be one heck of a matchup for not only the fans, but the advertisers and the fine folks at A. C. Nielsen,” Ebersol said.

However, the key to the financial success of any playoff series is not the ratings or the teams involved, but its length. When the Cincinnati Reds swept the Oakland Athletics in last year’s World Series, it cost CBS an estimated $12 million to $15 million for each game not played.

“In either basketball or major league baseball, as an executive, your first joy is a seven-game series,” Ebersol said. “The majority of us, in all of our bidding procedures over the last quarter-century, budget on a potential seven-game series going five games. A four-game series is a loss position, a five-game series is usually about break even and six and seven is where you get into profits.”