Pay-per-View Coming, but Free-for-View Stays : Television: The NFL may be able to charge for games as soon as 1993, but viewers will have network and cable options.

Pay-per-view television is coming to the NFL, maybe as soon as 1993. But there is no reason to panic. This does not mean everyone soon will be paying for games they now get for free.

Pay-per-view actually could be a good thing, mainly because viewers, not the networks, would decide what games they would watch.

The bad part is, viewers also would have to pay for that privilege, something like $19.95 a game.

But anyone choosing to buy a football telecast still would get what they now get--two or three Sunday games on network television, plus a Sunday night game on cable TV.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said at first that the league might begin experimenting with pay-per-view in 1992 but later changed that to 1993, which is the final year of the current television contract.

Tagliabue is talking about offering a few games in one or two markets as a test.

Technology dictates that full-scale pay-per-view for regular-season games is at least five years away, and it is even further off for the playoffs and the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl may never be on pay-per-view, unless every home in America has pay-per-view capabilities.

And even then, it is doubtful. If the NFL wants to excite Congress, all it has to do is mention putting the Super Bowl on pay-per-view.

But more important, televising the Super Bowl on free television is working well. More than 100 million people watch the game, and sponsors pay more than $1 million for 30-second spots.

The NFL is the only major sports league that has not experimented with pay-per-view. And there have been many more failures than successes.

Remember Dodgervision and Angelvision? Dodgervision was around for a few years, Angelvision lasted one year. Both were financial bombs.

The San Diego Padres have had moderate success with pay-per-view since 1984. The Minnesota Twins have a pay-per-view package, and the North Stars tried it during last season’s NHL playoffs.

Four NBA teams--the Portland Trail Blazers, the Dallas Mavericks, the San Antonio Spurs and the Houston Rockets--offer pay-per-view packages.

Pay-per-view has worked best in boxing, but only for major fights.

Reasons pay-per-view doesn’t work: (1) its cost, (2) the viewer has to make the effort to order an event and (3) once ordered, the viewer feels compelled to block out three hours or so to watch it.

Most sports fans are casual viewers. They don’t take time to watch an entire event, unless it’s a major one.

Pay-per-view will work in the NFL, and this is why:

--By showing home games that are now blacked out.

--By offering season packages, enabling, say, a transplanted New Yorker living in Los Angeles to watch all the games involving the Giants or the Jets.

In a transient market such as Los Angeles, various season packages would probably sell well.

“That’s the intriguing part to us,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said recently. “But we have no definite plans at this time. We’re not meeting with anybody. There are no discussions. We’re concentrating on a current TV package.”

There are two factors keeping the NFL from moving more quickly.

One is Congress, where Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications, is leading a movement against putting sports on pay-per-view.

The other is technology. Current cable systems do not have enough channels to offer complicated pay-per-view packages.

The pay-per-view industry is eagerly awaiting either direct broadcast satellite systems or upgraded cable systems that will offer 150 channels, with possibly 20 devoted to pay-per-view.

Direct broadcast satellites are now huge, clumsy dishes, but in five years or so, they will be small enough to mount on a roof and will cost $500 to $800. The 20 or so pay-per-view channels would enable the viewer to choose from among all the NFL games played on any given Sunday.

With that option, NFL pay-per-view would be a plus for fans.