Silver Anniversary Off to Golden Start With Raiders, 49ers

Who needs baseball? Football is here, and what a weekend.

The USC and UCLA openers Saturday are both on ABC. Fox makes its NFL regular-season debut on Sunday with Dallas and Pittsburgh. NBC has Joe Montana and the Kansas City Chiefs against New Orleans. TNT has the San Diego Chargers at Denver.

But the event of the holiday weekend is Monday night’s game between the Raiders and San Francisco 49ers.

What a way for ABC to kick off its 25th anniversary season of “Monday Night Football.” Fittingly, the Raiders have the best Monday night record, 30-12-1, and the 49ers have the second-best, 21-14.

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Add Monday night: Al Michaels, Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf are beginning their eighth season together. Believe it or not, no other three-man “Monday Night Football” team has been together longer.

They must be doing something right. “Monday Night Football” has ranked as one of the top-10 prime-time shows on television the last four years. Only “60 Minutes” and “Roseanne” can make the same claim.

During the so-called “golden years,” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when Gifford, Howard Cosell and Don Meredith were in the booth, the series got higher ratings but didn’t rank nearly as high among the competition. In 1978 and ‘79, it ranked 31st and 34th.

“I think these are the golden years,” Michaels said.

He’s got a point. Think about it. Which announcing team would you rather have?

There is no better network play-by-play announcer than Michaels. To borrow a phrase from his old Arizona State chum Reggie Jackson, he’s the straw that stirs the drink.

Dierdorf at times has been overbearing, but he seems to have found his comfort zone. The thing is, he shows up prepared, something Don Meredith was never accused of.

Gifford is still “likable Frank,” the constant who has been with the series for all but the first year.

Cosell? It seems that he’s now being remembered fondly, but back when he was doing “Monday Night Football” many could not stand him.

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Last add Monday night: Lynn Swann has been added as a sideline reporter, something the NFL is finally allowing, with certain restrictions.

The halftime show is new. It will originate from the ABC studios in New York, with Brent Musburger the host. He’ll be joined by Peter King, Sports Illustrated football writer.

Hank Williams Jr. is back, thankfully, so “Let’s get ready for some football.”

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Sunday night football: It has been fashionable among critics in recent years to knock Gary Bender, but under the influence of TNT partner Pat Haden and executive producer Don McGuire, he has become solid.

Haden is simply tremendous, blending humor and insight in perfect doses.

Haden, who has a new four-year contract with Turner Broadcasting, said he never considered going to Fox because he likes being TNT’s main guy.

After TNT acquiesces to ESPN at the midway point of the season, Haden will switch to do games for CBS radio.

Haden also stays busy helping run the venture capital partnership of Riordan, Lewis and Haden. Former USC tennis star Chris Lewis and Haden pretty much run the company since their third partner, Richard Riordan, had to bow out after he became mayor of Los Angeles.

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Add TNT: Lawrence Taylor, hired as an analyst on the network’s “Stadium Show,” talked with reporters on a conference call this week.

“L.T. on TNT,” he said. “Sounds like a perfect marriage to me.”

He also said:

--”One problem is you can’t say the same words on television you say on the football field.”

--”I’m trying this to see if I like it. I’ll work hard to get better, and you never know, someday I might be another Frank Gifford.”

At least he’s not setting his goals too high.

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Pregame shows: Probably most fans Sunday morning at 9 will be watching the debut of Fox’s Los Angeles-based NFL pregame show, with James Brown, Jimmy Johnson, Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long.

Somewhat forgotten is that NBC’s “NFL Live,” which this Sunday will be a one-hour show, has a new look. Greg Gumbel is now the host and will be joined in the studio by Ahmad Rashad, Joe Gibbs and Mike Ditka. Ditka is the only holdover from last year.

Will McDonough will be used mostly as an on-site reporter, this week interviewing Bill Parcells. Jim Gray, who was at NBC before switching to CBS, is back at NBC and will be reporting news from around the league.

Said ESPN “NFL GameDay” host Chris Berman: “The first month you’ll have a curiosity factor. If I was a fan, I’d be curious and look at all the shows. But then by Week 6 or 7, by mid-October, viewership should settle in.”

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Dishing it out: The NFL reports its “Sunday ticket” season packages for satellite dish owners have sold much better than expected, with about 130,000 subscribers. Of those, about 5,200 are sports bars, which pay between $300 and $1,800 for the season, depending on seating capacity. The price for homeowners is $99.95.

Subscribers get all NFL telecasts, with two major exceptions--no blacked-out home Ram or Raider games.

John Morris, founder and co-owner of the Legends chain, said the $1,800 price tag for his establishments is very reasonable. Morris also owns Mum’s restaurant in Long Beach, which will begin showing NFL games as well.

“You can’t complain about the price,” Morris said. “But my concern is policing my competitors so that they’re not showing games without paying.”

TV-Radio Notes

ESPN will commemorate its 15th anniversary Wednesday by having original anchors Chris Berman, Bob Ley and Tom Mees do the 8 p.m. edition of “SportsCenter.” They last anchored “SportsCenter” together on Dec. 2, 1988. . . . Berman has put together a book of his nicknames. “ChrisNames” sells for $8.95, with a portion of the proceeds going to the V Foundation, named in honor of Jim Valvano, the former North Carolina State basketball coach who died of cancer. . . . ESPN’s popular “Outside the Line” series Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. will focus on physically or mentally challenged athletes in a special entitled “Triumph of the Spirit.” . . . On Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., ESPN will televise Bud Greenspan’s outstanding 1970 documentary, “The Glory of Their Times,” about baseball in better days.

What next for John McEnroe? During Wednesday’s USA network coverage of the U.S. Open he stood on his head after promising to do so if Richard Krajicek lost a fourth-set tiebreaker after leading, 6-0. Krajicek lost it, and the next day McEnroe, while upside down, said, “No one can call me a liar now.” . . . Now that his preseason television duties are over, Rich Marotta will be joining Jim Plunkett on KFI’s Raider pregame shows. Monday’s show begins at 4 p.m. . . . Channel 11’s new postgame show, with Rick Garcia, Gary Apple and Jillian Warry, makes its debut Sunday after the Dallas-Pittsburgh game. . . . HBO’s “Inside the NFL” makes its season debut Thursday at 11 p.m.

NBC will televise a two-hour “NFL Kickoff ‘94” special Saturday at 1 p.m. Half of the show will consist of the first “NFL Run to Daylight,” a competition among running backs similar to “NFL Quarterback Challenge.” NBC had Thurman Thomas on last Saturday to promote it and he let it be known that Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith didn’t participate. Probably wasn’t the kind of promo NBC had in mind. . . . Terry Bradshaw and the Northridge Little Leaguers will be on “The Tonight Show” Monday. . . . The Northridge team, back from the Little League World Series, visited KRTH-FM early Monday morning. The next day, disc jockey Robert W. Morgan complained that some television reports of the visit did not mention the radio station by name or the limo service that provided transportation. In what he called a “major media announcement,” he banned NBC news, among others, from ever coming back on the station’s lot. Wow, is NBC going to be able to survive that?

ABC has hired former New York Giant linebacker Harry Carson as a college football sideline reporter. He will join play-by-play announcer Steve Zabriskie and analyst John Spagnola at the Coliseum Saturday for the USC-Washington game, which begins at 12:30 p.m. . . . Keith Jackson, Bob Griese and sideline reporter Lynn Swann will work the 5 p.m. UCLA-Tennessee game at the Rose Bowl. An interview that ABC’s John Saunders taped with Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden will be shown at halftime.

A reminder: UCLA is no longer on KMPC. XTRA is now the Bruin station. Chris Roberts and David Norrie return, with nighttime talk show host Rick Schwartz, a UCLA graduate, joining them. . . . The Prime Ticket Pacific 10 game of the week Saturday at 7 p.m. is Oregon State vs. Arizona State. Phil Stone and former Stanford defensive back Rodney Gilmore call the action, with Paul Sunderland serving as the sideline reporter. . . . Prime Ticket will replay the UCLA-Tennessee game Sunday at 10:30 a.m., with Bill Macdonald and Tom Ramsey reporting, and USC-Washington Sunday at 10:45 p.m., with Tom Kelly and Craig Fertig.