Fox Playing This One For More Than It’s Worth

Sports television has given new meaning to the term checkbook journalism.

The way it works is, a television network hires a big-name, out-of-work coach for $650,000 or so. Then when the rumors start circulating about the coach returning to coaching, the network doesn’t have to chase down the story. It has already bought and paid for the exclusive.

NBC fined-tuned this practice with the likes of Bill Parcells, Pat Riley and Bill Walsh.

Now Fox is taking it to a new level with Jimmy Johnson. The former Dallas Cowboy coach has said he will announce his plans on Sunday’s NFL pregame show and the network is using that as a promotional tool.

All week, Fox has been ballyhooing the big announcement, and today network publicist Vince Wladika is flying out to Los Angeles from New York for the big event.

More than likely, it’s much ado about nothing. There’s no way Johnson can announce that he’s going to coach the Philadelphia Eagles or Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as rumored, since neither team has a coaching vacancy. And he certainly can’t announce he will coach the St. Louis Rams, whose move is not yet official.

Odds are that Johnson will simply say he has decided to stay in television for another year.

Sure, he could say he is going to pursue coaching opportunities, but why would he announce that now?

Scott Ackerson, who produces Fox’s pregame show, said Johnson on his own said last Sunday he would have an announcement Sunday.

“We didn’t plan this or script it,” Ackerson said.

Maybe not, but Fox sure seized the opportunity to boost ratings. Pretty foxy, actually.

And Johnson is no dummy. He is a quick learner and already knows how to play the network television game. The object is to get good ratings, and that’s what this is all about.

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Add Foxy network: Ackerson, asked earlier this week about where the announcement would be placed in the show, said, “We’ll all sit down (today) to format the show.”

But count on Johnson’s announcement coming at the end, with plenty of teases beforehand.

Fox is in a ratings war with NBC, and the network knows it will win big on Sunday, beating its rival at its own game with a bought-and-paid-for “exclusive.”

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Add Johnson: He also works for HBO and was grilled about his plans on the pay-cable network’s “Inside the NFL,” which was aired Thursday night.

Even though he didn’t give a definitive answer, he said Fox had not pressured him to hold the announcement until Sunday.

Fox pays Johnson $650,000, HBO $250,000.

As we said, Johnson is no dummy.

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Last add Fox: Some rivals have criticized Fox for treating the Johnson story so frivolously. Last Sunday, Fox had Johnson trying on Tampa Bay Buccaneer and Philadelphia Eagle caps, even though Sam Wyche and Rich Kotite are still coaching those teams.

“We were spoofing ourselves,” Ackerson said. “We were saying all these rumors and reports are getting ridiculous. Sam Wyche himself didn’t think it was a big deal. He said, ‘I’ve got a Fox hat.’ He got the joke.”

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L.A. rarity: With the Rams and Raiders both on the road Sunday, the Los Angeles market will get that rare extra NFL game.

The bonus game for L.A. is San Diego at the New York Jets on NBC at 10 a.m., and it will go up against the Rams and Chicago Bears on Fox.

The second game of an NBC doubleheader is also a good one, Cleveland at Pittsburgh.

Then the Raiders’ game at Seattle at 5 p.m. will be on Channel 9 and ESPN. The NFL requires an over-the-air station to carry games on cable television involving local teams.

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Saturday games too: It’s quite a weekend for NFL fans, what with two games on Saturday as well.

It will be Minnesota at Detroit on Fox at 9:30 a.m. and Denver at San Francisco on NBC at 1 p.m.

NBC sideline reporter Jim Gray will be busy this weekend. He’ll work the game in San Francisco on Saturday, then take a red-eye flight to Pittsburgh to work Sunday’s Brown-Steeler game.

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End of an era: Roy Firestone will tape his final regular “Up Close” program for ESPN on Monday, when George Raveling is his guest. The show will air that night at 9:30.

Shows taped earlier will continue through the week until Friday. The final original show of the Firestone era, to be shown at 9:30 p.m. next Friday, will feature Wilt Chamberlain.

Firestone is discontinuing the nightly show to concentrate on specials and other television opportunities.

New host Chris Myers takes over the nightly show Jan. 23. Between Dec. 23 and Jan. 23, ESPN will show “Up Close” repeats and specials. There will be a 14-year retrospective Jan. 6 at 10 p.m.

TV-Radio Notes

Prime Ticket’s “Press Box,” which is expanding to serve seven other regional sports networks beginning Jan. 1, has hired three new anchors. They are Andre Aldridge, Randy Sparage and Paul Sunderland. Aldridge, a USC graduate, worked at Channel 4 as a sports producer and reporter, was a regular at KMPC when it was all sports and has done fill-in work at several L.A. stations. Sparage, another USC graduate who was a Times sportswriter in the early 1980s, comes from the CBS affiliate in Dallas. Sunderland has done a variety of jobs for Prime Ticket and also works for NBC and ESPN.

The Southern Section Division I championship football game between Mater Dei and Bishop Amat last Saturday on Channel 13 got an impressive 6.0 rating. The station used nine cameras to cover the game and it was a good telecast, but we sure could have done without sideline reporter Vic (the Brick) Jacobs, who was once fired by Channel 13. Particularly bad were Jacobs’ interviews with Mater Dei players during the game. They were intrusive and unnecessary. “We didn’t know he was going to do that,” said play-by-play announcer Randy Rosenbloom. . . . At least Jacobs wasn’t as bad as Randy Kerdoon last year. Kerdoon showed up to do halftime analysis in a Ram jersey and shoulder pads and tried a few inappropriate jokes. For example, he brought out a balloon with a women’s face on it and pretended to be in a singles bar delivering a few “aerial passes.” . . . It worked out nicely for Fox to use four Mater Dei defensive backs to illustrate defensive alignments on its NFL pregame show last Sunday.

For the record: The last Raider home game on “Monday Night Football” was a 1985 San Diego game, not a 1983 Miami game. . . . UCLA radio commentator Marques Johnson believed he was unfairly criticized in this space last week for not questioning the call that sent J.R. Henderson to the free-throw line for his game-winning free throws against Kentucky. “When I saw the play on the monitor I immediately said, ‘Boy, that wasn’t much of a foul.’ But we didn’t have access to a TV monitor.” XTRA should do something about that. Most radio announcers have a monitor nearby.

Recommended viewing: “In this Corner . . . Boxing’s Historic Battles” is another outstanding HBO documentary. The first showing will be Tuesday at 10 p.m. The special examines four fights: Jack Johnson vs. Jim Jeffries in 1910, the second Joe Louis-Max Schmeling bout in 1938, the second Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight in 1965, and the first Ali-Joe Frazier fight in 1971. Jim Lampley is the host. . . . On this week’s edition of “This Is the NFL” Sunday at 8:30 a.m. on Channel 11, NFL Films names the 1976 Raider offensive line as the greatest of all time. That line included Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, John Vella, George Buehler and Dave Dalby.

The taped Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge on ABC Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. from PGA West in La Quinta is the only golf competition that has players from the PGA Tour, the Senior PGA Tour and the LPGA Tour competing head to head. This is another event put on by Jack Nicklaus’ production company, Golden Bear International. . . . On ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” series Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., the state of high school athletics in the ‘90s is explored. . . . Doug Flutie has been hired to work the Sun Bowl on Dec. 30 with Jim Nantz.

Radio beat: Steve Edwards and Eric Tracy will do their 5-8 p.m. “Sportstalk” show today from Hollywood Park. . . . Brian Golden and Doug Krikorian will be on the air six days next week, beginning Sunday with a 2:30-5 p.m. show on KMPC. The rest of the week they will fill in for vacationing Edwards and Tracy on KABC. . . . Ram radio commentator Deacon Jones will do the sports spots on the KMPC morning show next week.