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Fox Shows Long-Term Concern About Rams Abandoning Market

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If the Rams were to move out of Los Angeles, you’d think the people at Fox would be doing cartwheels.

With the team gone, Fox could show more doubleheaders here. And the Rams don’t get very good ratings anyway.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. March 11, 1995 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday March 11, 1995 Home Edition Sports Part C Page 12 Sports Desk 1 inches; 23 words Type of Material: Correction
TV-Radio--TNT is suspending its NBA telecasts only on Friday nights during the first two weeks of the NCAA tournament. A report in Friday’s editions was incorrect.

So what’s going on? Why is Fox making a stand against the move?

The network is looking at things long range.

Say in three or four years, the team is under new ownership and management and is winning and selling out regularly.

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If that were the case, then Fox would want that team in the nation’s No. 2 television market.

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The big event on television this weekend, if you don’t count figure skating’s World Championships on NBC, is the announcement of the NCAA tournament field on Sunday. It will happen live on CBS.

For the first time, the show will be one hour, from 3-4 p.m., with the first 25 minutes or so previewing the bracketing.

George Raveling joins Jim Nantz, Billy Packer and Quinn Buckner at the CBS broadcast center in New York, with Andrea Joyce reporting from NCAA headquarters in Kansas City.

ESPN’s selection show will also run from 3-4 p.m., with more analysis to follow on the 4 o’clock edition of “SportsCenter.”

CBS gets first crack at the bracketing, but the ESPN publicity people point out that their network has Dick Vitale. Is that a plus?

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UCLA Coach Jim Harrick will be all over the place. His appearances Sunday will include a selection show on CNN at 4 p.m., and an in-studio appearance on Prime Sports’ “Big Box,” the weekend edition of “Press Box,” at 10 p.m.

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Don’t look for the Pan American Games, which officially begin Saturday and run through March 26, on any of the major networks.

The competition will be on only regional sports networks such as Prime Sports. Turner Broadcasting’s regional sports network, SportSouth, is handling the English-language production.

La Cadena Deportiva will carry the Spanish-language version.

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Tennis in prime time: The championship match of the Newsweek Champions Cup at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells on Monday will be shown by ESPN at 6 p.m., a delay of two hours, so it will be on in prime time in the East.

This marks the first time since the inception of the ATP Tour in 1990 that a tournament final has been scheduled for a Monday.

“Years ago, some tournaments had Monday night finals, and the ATP Tour and ESPN asked us to try this concept once again,” tournament director Charlie Pasarell said. “We believe the concept will be popular.”

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There is good and bad about ABC’s coverage of Saturday’s Santa Anita Handicap.

The good is that ABC sent Dave Johnson to the Florida Derby, so the network will use Trevor Denman’s call of the Big ‘Cap.

The bad is that the Big ‘Cap will be shown live in the East but delayed in the West.

Al Michaels and Charlsie Cantey will be the co-hosts of ABC’s coverage.

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What next? You’ve heard of the Golf Channel. Would you believe a 24-hour channel devoted solely to equestrian events? Yes, it’s scheduled to begin early next year.

The Golf Channel, by the way, is tremendous, well worth the $6.95 a month for those whose cable systems offer it or those with a satellite dish.

The Golf Channel’s call-in show, “Golf Talk Live,” usually is televised only on Mondays but will be on every day next week, beginning at 5 p.m. On Monday, the guests will be Ben Crenshaw and Tom Watson. Later in the week, the list includes Curtis Strange, Fuzzy Zoeller and Ernie Els. Johnny Miller will be on Saturday’s show.

TV-Radio Notes

Although Warren Moon plans to return to the Minnesota Vikings next season, he will also be a regular contributor on TNT’s football telecasts. TNT also plans to use him right away as a reporter on NBA telecasts. Moon is not replacing Lawrence Taylor, who was recently fired. A decision on what to do there will be made later, a spokesman said. Sources say Taylor’s problem was mainly lack of preparation. . . . Because of all the college basketball on television, there will be no NBA telecasts on TNT the next three weeks.

Ratings for Raycom’s Pac-10 basketball package are up 21% over last season. UCLA no doubt gets much of the credit for that. UCLA’s ratings on Prime Sports are nearly double what they were earlier in the season. UCLA’s game against Oregon State on Thursday night was delayed because of King and Duck hockey telecasts, but the Bruins’ final regular-season game against Oregon on Saturday night will be live on Prime Sports, with Chris Marlowe and Anne Meyers reporting.

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Meyers replaces Bill Walton, who has to be in Orlando on Sunday morning to work with Marv Albert and Matt Guokas on NBC’s San Antonio-Orlando NBA telecast. Walton was added because in the fall of 1990 he worked with Orlando’s Shaquille O’Neal when he was a sophomore at Louisiana State. O’Neal’s college coach, Dale Brown, heard Walton was working with Rik Smits of the Indiana Pacers and, through John Wooden, Brown asked Walton to work with Shaq on his skills too. . . . After Sunday’s game, NBC offers a half-hour feature, “Champions and Challengers,” which compares current NBA stars with those from the past.

Boxing beat: The USA network recently took a poll of viewers, asking whom they would like to see Mike Tyson fight after he is released from prison. More than 6,000 responded. The winner was George Foreman with 1,816 votes. Next was Buster Douglas, 1,743; followed by Riddick Bowe, 1,702, and Evander Holyfield, 1,127. . . . Bowe’s fight against Herbie Hide on Saturday from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas will be televised by HBO, with Foreman joining Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant at ringside.

KNX’s sports staff was recently named best in L.A. by the Southern California Sports Broadcasters Assn., and now comes word that the station’s Steve Grad won a state Associated Press award for best sports segment. . . . David Kelly, a USC graduate and son of former Cleveland Brown running back Leroy Kelly, has been hired to do play-by-play for the Wilmington (N.C.) Roosters, a double-A affiliate of the Seattle Mariners. Kelly formerly was the announcer for the Bakersfield Dodgers.

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