NFC Title Game Is Everyone’s Favorite

For football purists, the real Super Sunday is this weekend. There is double the football with about a quarter of the pregame hype.

Also, a strong case can be made that the NFL championship will be decided Sunday in San Francisco instead of Jan. 25 in San Diego. It’s basically a foregone conclusion that the winner of the NFC championship game between the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers will end up Super Bowl champion. An AFC team hasn’t won the Super Bowl since the Raiders did it in 1984.

So Fox has the main event Sunday at 1 p.m., with NBC carrying the undercard--Denver at Pittsburgh in the AFC title game at 9:30 a.m.

To NBC’s credit, it isn’t trying to convince anyone otherwise. It isn’t doing any of the shameless drumbeating ABC and CBS did last week over their respective bowl games, the Rose and Orange, when each network claimed its game was the game.

There is none of that nonsense. On a conference call with reporters this week, NBC’s Cris Collinsworth and Sam Wyche were honest in their evaluations.

Collinsworth, in response to the first question--Is this the year the AFC has a chance to win it all?--said, “If San Francisco wins, it will be a touchdown favorite, Green Bay a 10-point favorite.”

After Wyche said it was at least possible for the AFC team to win, Collinsworth replied: “What portion of your house, Sam, are you willing to put on that?”

About halfway through the conference call, someone who identified himself as Phil from Franklin Lakes, N.J., was on the line. Turned out it was Phil Simms.

Simms passed on some advice to Collinsworth. “You don’t have to have the answers, just let on that you do and keep on talking,” he said.

At least the NBC group is loose.

MADDEN ON HOT SEAT

When Fox had its conference call to promote the NFC title game, most of the questions were on John Madden’s status--will he stay or will he go?

A column this week in USA Today by Rudy Martzke indicated that Sunday’s game may be Madden’s last with Pat Summerall, his partner for the last 17 years. Madden may be headed for ABC and “Monday Night Football,” according to Martzke, who isn’t the first to suggest that.

Said Madden: “It’s premature to speculate on anything because we don’t know how the TV contract is going to go. Anything can happen because nothing has happened. The last time, we thought CBS was there forever and it wasn’t.”

CBS lost the NFC package to Fox.

The networks and NFL were expected to have a new four-year deal by now, but an agreement has been pushed back by the NFL’s desire to get a labor agreement first. A guarantee of long-term labor peace provides the NFL with a strong bargaining chip.

Meanwhile, the networks, in the midst of budgeting and scheduling for the new year, would like to have a new contract in place as soon as possible, preferably before the Super Bowl.

The current four-year contract provides the NFL with $4.4 billion. A new one is expected to double that. If all of the current carriers agree to pay the NFL’s asking price, CBS gets shut out. If one network says no thanks, as CBS did four years ago, expect some interesting developments.

DODGER TV BATTLE LOOMS

If the sale of the Dodgers to Rupert Murdoch ever gets approved--the vote was delayed again this week--it figures Fox Sports West 2, owned by Murdoch, will televise more games than the 40 it did last season. The Dodgers, under the current setup, televise fewer games than any major league team.

But Tribune-owned Channel 5, the Dodgers’ over-the-air flagship station, is trying to stop Fox Sports West 2 from televising more Dodger road games and has filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court. The station claims Fox Sports West 2 doesn’t have the right to televise more games.

A GRAND LADY

Dodger announcer Vin Scully spent last weekend in Nanuet, N.Y., to bury his mother, Bridget Reeve, who celebrated her 97th birthday Dec. 21 but died nine days later in a nursing home in Culver City. Scully brought his mother to Southern California from Nanuet in 1990.

Scully’s father died in 1932, when Scully was 4, and his mother didn’t remarry for 18 years. Scully has many stories about his mother, but his favorite may be about the day he came home in 1950 and his mother excitedly told him, “Red Skelton called.” She told her son he called to offer him a job with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Turns out she meant Red Barber.

SHORT WAVES

Tracking the Bruins: UCLA, which was on Fox Sports West 2 Thursday night, will be on the FX cable channel Saturday night against Oregon. . . . Bill Walton, the commentator on the FX telecast, may be the busiest man in broadcasting. Saturday night’s game is one of seven he’s announcing during an eight-day stretch. He’s also doing the Laker-Clipper game tonight for Fox Sports West 2. . . . NBC begins its regular NBA coverage Jan. 18, and Walton that day will work Indiana-Boston, which marks Pacer Coach Larry Bird’s return to Boston.

Fox Sports West and KLSX-FM (97.1) have come up with an unusual promotion. A name will be mentioned each night next week on a “ones to watch” segment on Fox Sports News, and callers to the afternoon “Tom Leykis Show” on KLSX the next day with the correct name have a chance to win a trip to the Super Bowl. . . . There are no final national ratings yet for the Rose Bowl, but in the overnights representing the nation’s 38 largest markets, the Rose Bowl beat the Orange Bowl, 19.0 to 13.3. . . . Nice job by producer Kevin Grigsby and crew, as well as reporter Ed Arnold, on the two-part sports year-ender on Channel 5 last weekend. . . . NBA analyst James Worthy has blossomed on Fox Sports News. The way he dissected New York Knick Coach Jeff Van Gundy’s blowup with John Starks the other night was superb. . . . From Golf Channel chairman Arnold Palmer: “Never a day goes by that I don’t hear the comment: ‘Thanks for the Golf Channel.’ That makes me feel pretty good.”

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Jan. 1-4: THURSDAY, JAN. 1

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Event Ch. Rating Share Rose Bowl: Michigan vs. Washington State 7 21.2 41 Cotton Bowl: UCLA vs. Texas A&M; 2 12.6 26 Sugar Bowl: Florida State vs. Ohio State 7 11.5 19 Florida Citrus Bowl: Florida vs. Penn St. 7 4.9 10 Gator Bowl: North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech 4 3.2 6

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FRIDAY, JAN. 2

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Event Ch. Rating Share Orange Bowl: Nebraska vs. Tennessee 2 11.7 20

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SATURDAY, JAN. 3

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL playoffs: Minnesota at San Francisco 11 21.0 47 NFL playoffs: New England at Pittsburgh 4 18.2 43 Figure skating: World Challenge of Champions 7 5.8 11 Figure skating: Ladies Pro Championship 2 4.4 10 Women’s college basketball: UConn at Tennessee 2 1.0 2

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SUNDAY, JAN. 4

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Event Ch. Rating Share NFL playoffs: Denver at Kansas City 4 24.2 46 NFL playoffs: Tampa Bay at Green Bay 11 19.7 43 Snowboarding: World Cup competition 2 1.7 4 Golf: Andersen Consulting World Championship 4 1.6 3 Women’s college basketball: Oregon at Stanford 2 0.8 2 Women’s college basketball: Colorado at Illinois 2 0.7 2

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Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households.