Navratilova Is Out, so NBC Also May Be a Wimbledon Loser

NBC no doubt would like to have seen Martina Navratilova, instead of Jana Novotna, facing Steffi Graf in the Wimbledon women’s final Saturday.

When Graf beat Navratilova in the 1989 final, 6-2, 6-7, 6-1, the match got a 5.2 national Nielsen rating, the highest ever for a Wimbledon women’s final.

One reason that match did so well was timing. It had been rained out on Saturday and was played on Sunday, along with the men’s final.

Graf-Navratilova has marquee value. Graf and what’s-her-name don’t quite cut it.

Navratilova, traditionally, has been the biggest women’s draw at Wimbledon.

The second-highest rating for a women’s final was 5.0, which was accomplished twice, once in 1982, when Navratilova defeated Chris Evert, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2, and again in 1985, when Navratilova defeated Evert, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

Highest rating for a men’s final was 7.9 in 1981, when John McEnroe beat Bjorn Borg, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-4. Second highest was 7.5 for Jimmy Connors’ five-set victory over McEnroe in 1982.

Tennis seemed to reach a peak in popularity in 1980 and ’81. NBC’s averages for its two weekends of coverage those years were 6.3 and 6.4, respectively. No other year has averaged as high as 6.0. Last year the average was 4.4.

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Breakfast anyone? Although NBC’s delayed coverage of the men’s semifinals today doesn’t begin until noon, women’s final coverage on Saturday begins at 8 a.m., a delay of two hours, and the men’s final on Sunday will begin at 7:30 a.m., a delay of 1 1/2 hours.

In the East, the coverage is live both days, beginning at 9 a.m.

NBC, which began televising Wimbledon in 1969, has followed this format, which it calls “Breakfast at Wimbledon,” since 1979.

That first year of early morning coverage, NBC was hoping it would be Borg defending his title against McEnroe or Connors. But it turned out to be Borg against Roscoe Tanner.

“We were all very worried that Roscoe couldn’t make a match of it and we thought, ‘Gosh, we’re going to have a dreary final,’ ” commentator Bud Collins said.

But it turned out well, with Borg winning in five sets. The rating was a so-so 5.1, but it jumped to 7.0 the next year, when Borg beat McEnroe.

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This is Evert’s fourth Wimbledon for NBC, and McEnroe’s second.

Evert is pleasant enough, although sometimes a little soft. However, she did point out that her good friend Navratilova was having problems Thursday.

As for McEnroe, he is never afraid to criticize.

Said Dick Enberg, at his 14th Wimbledon: “When a former athlete gets into broadcasting, it’s usually about three years before he feels comfortable enough to criticize his contemporaries.

“But McEnroe, still looking for that perfect match, gives his exact view. He’s not going to temper his opinion for fear that he might hurt someone’s feelings.”

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Tyson revisited: Montel Williams, who has a weekday talk show carried in Los Angeles by Channel 13 and who also serves as host of Showtime’s boxing telecasts, last week taped an interview with Mike Tyson at the Indiana Department of Corrections Youth Center.

Ten minutes of that interview will be televised by Showtime tonight at 10:50 p.m. and repeated Saturday at 10:35 p.m., Sunday at 7:45 p.m., Monday at 10:45 p.m., Tuesday at 5:50 p.m. and Wednesday at 7:50 p.m.

On Thursday, more of the interview will be shown on Williams’ one-hour syndicated show, when Williams deals with the question: “Is Tyson deserving of a new trial?”

Williams’ guests will include Tyson’s attorneys, Alan and Nathan Dershowitz, attorney Gloria Allred, who maintains that Tyson got a fair trial, attorney-author Mark Shaw, whose book, “Down for the Count,” re-examines the facts of the case, and four jurors from the Tyson trial, in which he was convicted of rape.

Williams’ show is syndicated by Viacom, Showtime’s parent company, and Showtime has a business relationship with Don King, Tyson’s promoter. So Williams’ Tyson interview, and his show Thursday, would figure to be slanted in Tyson’s favor.

But Jay Larkin, Showtime’s executive producer of sports, and Williams said they were sensitive to that perception. “We didn’t go into this with any preconceived ideas or agenda,” he said.

The essence of the interview, according to Larkin, is that “Mike Tyson, whether he committed rape or not, believes with all his heart and soul that he did not commit a crime.”

TV-Radio Notes

How many television viewers will watch the World Cup next year, when it is held in the United States June 17-July 17? Alan Rothenberg, president of the United States Soccer Federation and director of the World Cup, said at the Ad Club of L.A.’s monthly meeting at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday: “At the ’92 Olympics in Barcelona, with 200 hours of viewing, the cumulative audience was 15 billion. For the 52 games of the World Cup next year, with only 100 hours of viewing, the projected cumulative viewing audience will be 32 billion.”

KMPC did an outstanding job covering the NBA draft Wednesday, except for one flaw. The station missed the Lakers picking George Lynch because Jim Healy was on the air at the time. . . . Cal State Long Beach Coach Seth Greenberg and UCLA Coach Jim Harrick, who worked as special analysts with Joe McDonnell at the Sports Arena, were excellent. Harrick seemed to enjoy himself, and at the end said to McDonnell, “I’m gunning for your job now.” Said McDonnell: “Since I was after yours all last season, that’s only fair.” KMPC had Paola Boivin and the Long Beach Press-Telegram’s Frank Burlison at the Forum, and Brian Golden, appropriately enough, with the Golden State Warriors. There were also KMPC stringers at Auburn Hills, Mich., Orlando and Philadelphia.

XTRA also did a nice job covering the draft. Lee Hamilton and Brad Cesmat were at the Forum, and reporter Kevin Turner was at the Sports Arena. . . . TNT got a record 4.5 TV rating for the draft. The previous high was 3.7 for the 1989 draft. Last year, the rating was 2.9.

XTRA’s Rick Schwartz and Steve Mason, filling in for the vacationing “Loose Cannons” this week, had NBA Commissioner David Stern on live Wednesday morning. “We called his hotel room and were lucky enough to get him,” Schwartz said. . . . The energetic Schwartz and Mason last Thursday night did an interesting bit with outlandish pitcher Turk Wendell, who was in the midst of his brief stay with the Chicago Cubs. They took the backwoods rookie on a tour of Los Angeles. Wendell waves to his center fielder whenever he arrives on the mound, chews licorice, spits on his shoes, brushes his teeth every half inning and wears two watches on his left wrist. And now he has had a facial in Beverly Hills.

Schwartz and Mason go back to nights when Chet Forte and Steve Hartman return from vacations on Tuesday. Hamilton will be on vacation next week, with Jim Rome taking his spot, and John Ireland working Rome’s midday slot. . . . Because of Dave Campbell’s ESPN commitments, XTRA has done some shuffling of its Sunday lineup. Ireland, who also works for San Diego’s Channel 51, and Channel 11’s Rick Garcia will be on from 9 a.m. to noon, with Campbell contributing by phone, and then Ira Fistel will be on from noon to 4 p.m. . . . Irv Kaze will focus on minor league baseball on his KIEV show tonight at 6:30. His guests will include Albuquerque Manager Bill Russell. . . . Kaze’s recent special on the music of sports, with lyricist Carol Connors, will be repeated Monday night at 6:30.

CBS’ Lesley Visser broke her hip when she fell while jogging in Central Park last week, and it’s not known if she will recover in time to return to work when CBS televises the Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions live from London’s Wembley Stadium on Aug. 8. The announcers will be “NFL Today” hosts Greg Gumbel and Terry Bradshaw, and Visser and Pat O’Brien are scheduled to be there too. . . . Gumbel hasn’t done play-by-play since a Tampa Bay-Cincinnati game with Pat Haden in 1989. Bradshaw last worked as a game analyst at a Minnesota-San Francisco playoff game on Jan. 6, 1990, with Verne Lundquist. . . . Bradshaw will be a guest of Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” Monday night.

Terry Ewert, the coordinating producer of NBC’s Olympic Triplecast from Barcelona and the coordinating producer of NBC’s Olympic coverage from Seoul in 1988, has been named head of production of the world feed for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. . . . NBC will televise the second of the six pro beach volleyball tournaments on its schedule this year when it devotes 1 1/2 hours to the Manhattan Beach Open Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Chris Marlowe and Paul Sunderland are the announcers. . . . On July 21, world champions Shannon Miller and Vitaly Scherbo and other top gymnasts from the United States and the new independent states of Belarus and Ukraine will compete in the Hilton Challenge at the Sports Arena, a U.S. Gymnastics Federation event that will be televised on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” on Aug. 7.