Another Super Rout Would Be Another Turn-Off for NBC

It’s back by unpopular demand--same time, same station, same teams.

NBC, which televised Buffalo-Dallas I, also gets Buffalo-Dallas II.

It’s probably not what NBC had in mind last April when it bid $41 million for Super Bowl XXVIII.

In the four-year television contract that expires this season, the Super Bowl rotation was ABC, CBS and NBC for XXV, XXVI and XXVII, with XXVIII left open for bidding.

The NFL, which never misses an opportunity to pick up an extra $40 million or so wherever it can, came up with that plan.

NBC was the winner--or loser, depending on how things go Sunday.

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Play-by-play announcer Dick Enberg calls this game the most important for one team--in this case the Bills--in the history of the Super Bowl.

“If the Bills lose, they will be a four-time loser and will always be equated with losing,” he said. “If they win, they will undo all that and be given credit for a great accomplishment--going to four straight Super Bowls and winning the fourth.”

Enberg is hoping for a close game.

“If it’s a good game, the ratings for the second half will go through the roof,” he said. “We’re all hungry for a climactic finish. What would be perfect would be a Super Bowl overtime.”

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Enberg, a former San Fernando Valley resident, said that at one time he lived in the Northridge Meadows apartment complex, where 16 people died in the Jan. 17 earthquake.

This will be Enberg’s sixth Super Bowl as the play-by-play announcer, and his second with Bob Trumpy as his analyst.

Trumpy, asked if he was going to renegotiate his contract now that analyst John Madden got $32 million over four years from Fox, said, “I mentioned that to Dick Ebersol (the president of NBC sports) and he said something about Toys R Us certificates.”

Trumpy’s annual salary is about the same as the $325,000 per game Madden will make at Fox.

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NBC could have saved a lot of money by simply rerunning last year’s pregame show. But it has come up with a new one.

One difference will be the host. It was Bob Costas last year; this year it will be Jim Lampley. The cast includes Bill Cosby.

Among the features will be a look back 25 years ago at Super Bowl III, in which Joe Namath guaranteed a New York Jet victory over the Baltimore Colts--and delivered.

Costas, on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno on Wednesday night, was asked why he was already at the Georgia Dome.

“The pregame show is set to start in about an hour,” Costas said.

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The Super Bowl is always the most-watched sporting event each year, with the pregame show often placing second.

But this year, the pregame show has some competition--particularly in Los Angeles.

ABC has UCLA-California basketball at 1 p.m., the same time the Super Bowl pregame show starts on NBC.

Last Saturday, the Bruins’ victory over Arizona State on Channel 5 got a solid 5.3 rating. Last February, a UCLA-Oregon game on Channel 7 got an 0.9 rating.

Nothing like an unbeaten record and a No. 1 ranking to improve ratings.

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Add basketball: It’s a shame UCLA’s game against Stanford on Thursday night was delayed by Prime Ticket because of the Kings.

Meanwhile, USC-Cal was live on ESPN.

Even Long Beach State was on live television. Channel 56 carried the 49ers’ game against UC Irvine. It was the second of six Long Beach games the Orange County station will carry, all at 8:30 p.m.

Long Beach State was willing to change starting times for $3,000. The school figured it needs the exposure.

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What would Super Bowl Sunday be without Charles Barkley?

A special edition of “Inside Stuff” will follow the 9:30 a.m. Phoenix-Boston NBA game on NBC Sunday, and the whole show, entitled “Sir Charles,” will focus on Barkley.

During a conference call with television sports columnists this week, Barkley, currently sidelined because of knee and back problems, said he might retire after the season because his body is telling him to.

Asked if broadcasting was in his future, he said, “No, I don’t think so. I’ve never had to work for a living, never had a job. I’m good at doing nothing. I don’t think I want to change that. I’m interested in acting, though.”

Then he announced his political aspirations for the first time.

“I’d also like to run for governor of Alabama in 1998,” he said.

Barkley said he wasn’t kidding.

TV-Radio Notes

Of all the Super Bowl-related shows, the best one is always NFL Films’ “Road to the Super Bowl.” This year it will be on Channel 4 Saturday at 7 p.m. Although Steve Sabol and crew had only a week to put the finishing touches on this one, it still figures to be a winner. . . . So does TNT’s “Super Bowl Saturday Night,” which will be televised Saturday at 5 p.m. Among those appearing on this show is comedian Jeff Foxworthy, a name that could also apply to John Madden and Co.

Fox ballyhooed a news conference that was held in Atlanta on Thursday. It was announced that Pat Summerall and Terry Bradshaw had been hired, along with executive producer Ed Goren. Someone should tell Fox there’s nothing as stale as yesterday’s news. . . . With the departure of Bradshaw and others, CBS has scrapped plans to continue “NFL Today.”

On the next edition of “Front Page,” Fox’s prime-time news magazine show on Tuesdays at 9 p.m., there will be never-before-seen footage of Babe Ruth’s “called shot” during the 1932 World Series. The footage was acquired from the great-grandson of a spectator at the game. KMPC’s Jim Healy, who as a young reporter was covering a news conference at the Ambassador Hotel for the Hollywood Citizen News in 1947, asked Ruth if he had indeed called the home run he hit on the next pitch. Ruth told Healy he was simply shaking his arms in anger at the Chicago Cubs’ dugout. Someone in the Cubs’ dugout had rolled a lemon out at Ruth.

Don’t be surprised if Howie Long ends up at Fox. . . . Long went on with Doug Krikorian and Brian Golden of KMPC to announce his retirement Thursday before his news conference. . . . On Tuesday, Long had been on with Joe McDonnell, a critic of Long’s. McDonnell was nice to Long when he was on the air, but soon went back to ripping him. . . . Two weeks ago from Buffalo, XTRA’s Rick Schwartz predicted that Long would retire. And Wednesday night, Schwartz speculated that much of the Raider coaching staff would soon be dismissed.

ABC offers coverage of Senior Skins golf this weekend from the Mauna Lani Resort on the big island of Hawaii. Vin Scully was scheduled to work the telecasts, but because of his son Michael’s death in a helicopter crash last Thursday, Brent Musburger will replace him. . . . CBS announced it will televise Nancy Kerrigan skating in an exhibition at Boston’s Northeastern University in prime time on Saturday, Feb. 5. The show will be taped Feb. 4.

There’s a lot of sports programming on television this weekend, but Mac Lipscomb, the new executive producer of Showtime Entertainment Television, still believes the multi-fight, pay-per-view card at the new MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas Saturday night will do well. “Despite the (Pernell) Whitaker fight, Julio Cesar Chavez is still a national draw,” he said.