Basketball Fills Out the Weekend Plate

Football and more football. Between all the bowl games and the first round of the NFL playoffs, football dominates the holiday fare.

But there is also some pretty good college basketball mixed in, as conference play gets into full swing.

There will be a Pacific 10 tripleheader on Fox cable outlets Saturday, beginning at 3 p.m. with the Pac-10 game of the week, Oregon State at Stanford, on Fox Sports West. USC’s conference opener at home against Arizona State is a local telecast on Fox Sports West 2 at 5 p.m., and UCLA’s conference opener at home against Arizona is a national telecast on FX at 7:30.

FX, a four-year-old channel that is in about 60% of cable households nationally and about 65% in Southern California, is carrying five Pac-10 games, and they are all top quality.

Besides Saturday’s UCLA-Arizona game, FX has California-Stanford on Jan. 9, Stanford-UCLA on Jan. 16, a nonconference game between Louisiana State and Arizona on Feb. 13 and Arizona-Stanford on Feb. 27.

Fox owns the rights to all Pac-10 games as part of a nine-year, $55-million contract that runs through the 2005-2006 season. Games on ABC--six upcoming UCLA games will be on ABC--were sold to the network by Fox.

According to Duane Lindberg, Pac-10 assistant commissioner in charge of broadcasting, a deal with CBS fell through last summer, and Fox took the package intended for CBS and put it on FX in an effort to build up that network.

That is not good news for Comcast and other cable subscribers who do not get FX. Nor is it good news for DirecTV subscribers.

But according to FX spokesman John Solberg, a numbers of deals, including one with DirecTV, are in the works.

FX started out exclusive to cable, but the Federal Communications Commission ruled last summer that it has to be available to satellite services as well. FX has since made a deal with EchoStar.

MORE (OR LESS) BASKETBALL

There are two ways to look at the UCLA TV basketball schedule. Of the 20 games that remain, 15 definitely will be televised--six on ABC, five on Fox Sports West 2, two on Fox Sports West and two on FX. That’s the good news. The bad news is that as many as five will not be televised, not even delayed.

The five non-televised games are Jan. 9 at Oregon, Jan. 28 at Washington State, Feb. 4 against Oregon, Feb. 25 against Washington State and March 4 at Arizona State.

There is still a possibility the Oregon game on Jan. 9 will be televised if things can be worked out with the Ducks. The Jan. 28 and Feb. 4 games aren’t scheduled because of Fox Sports West commitments to the Kings and Nevada Las Vegas, and scheduled Clipper games bump off the other two UCLA games. Of course, if there is no NBA season, those dates probably will be freed up for the Bruins.

Announcing Saturday’s Arizona-UCLA game for FX will be Steve Physioc and George Raveling.

Raveling sees a very balanced conference.

“Stanford and Cal are at the top of an eight-team race,” he said.

He sees Oregon State and Washington State as the longshots.

ANGEL UPDATE

Physioc was one of the busiest announcers anywhere in 1998, working more than 150 events. He did 85 Angel games, 35 Fox Sports Net baseball games, 11 college football games--”Ten of those were the best games I’ve ever seen,” he said--and about 20 college basketball games.

But there is a possibility he won’t be returning to do the Angel TV package next season.

His contracts with the Angels and Fox Sports Net expire next week, and the Disney-owned Angels would like to have him exclusively and not share him with Fox Sports Net.

“I want to continue to work for both and I’m confident we can work out a deal,” Physioc said.

If they can’t, Physioc will have to decide between the Angels and Fox Sports Net.

The Angels recently hired Rex Hudler as their TV commentator, signing him to a three-year deal that will reportedly pay him $270,000 in 1999, not bad pay for a broadcast rookie.

The Angels wanted one commentator instead of two--Sparky Anderson and Jerry Reuss--and would have gone with Anderson had he been willing to travel.

SHORT WAVES

CBS is high on Terry Donahue, who worked the Sun Bowl for CBS on Thursday, and is prepared to offer him an attractive new contract. But Donahue is also said to be a candidate for at least two NFL coaching jobs--in San Diego and Baltimore. He could be facing a tough decision in the next few weeks because he has grown very fond of CBS and broadcasting.

“The Year in Sailing” on ESPN today at 11:30 a.m. will feature footage of this week’s Sydney-Hobart race tragedy. . . . Attention car buffs: Saturday from 7-8 p.m., Channel 2 will broadcast a commercial-free special, “Behind the Wheel,” from the Greater L.A. Auto Show at the Convention Center. Larry Carroll is the host. . . . Attention Ivy League basketball fans: The conference has made a deal with DirecTV for a nine-game, Friday night package that begins Jan. 8 with Brown at Princeton at 4 p.m. The package will be carried on Channel 303. . . . In an effort to get Cal State Fullerton games on radio, announcer and packager Ronnie Wald made a deal with KWRM (1370), a Spanish-language station. One twist is Wald has to cue up commercial breaks in Spanish.

The Southern California Sports Broadcasters will hold their annual awards luncheon at Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake on Feb. 8. Chick Hearn will be inducted in the group’s Hall of Fame, Dr. Frank Jobe will receive the “Good Guy” award, Peter O’Malley gets the President’s Trophy and The Times’ Mal Florence will receive the “High Five” award. Winners in seven categories will also be announced. . . . Sportscaster Charlie Jones’ book, “What Makes Winners Win,” which made the New York Times’ business best-seller list, becomes available in paperback on Jan. 6.

IN CLOSING

Broadcasts on the Internet are nothing new. Today’s Rose Bowl can be heard at www.broadcast.com/sports/ ncaa/bowl98. What is new is what ABC and ESPN are launching in conjunction with Monday’s Fiesta Bowl. Enhanced TV is an interactive service for PC users. By calling up www.ESPN.com, fans will have access to tons of information as the game progresses, and they can also play a QB-1 type game in which they can try to predict who will carry the ball on the next play.

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What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Dec. 26-27, including sports on cable networks:

SATURDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: Kansas City at Oakland 2 10.2 22 Pro football: Minnesota at Tennessee 11 9.5 27 Skiing: Bumps and Jumps 11 3.5 10 College football: Heritage Bowl 4 1.5 4 College basketball: Kentucky at Louisville 2 0.9 3

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Cable Network Rating Share College football: Insight.com Bowl ESPN 1.3 3 Hockey: Phoenix at Kings FSW 0.9 2 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSW2 0.3 0 Horse racing: Malibu Stakes FSW 0.2 0

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SUNDAY

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Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: Miami at Atlanta 2 11.2 31 Pro football: Seattle at Denver 2 9.9 24 Pro football: St. Louis at San Francisco 11 6.8 17

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Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Washington at Dallas ESPN 5.9 11 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSW2 0.5 1 College basketball: Columbia at Nevada Las Vegas FSW2 0.2 0

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WEEKDAY RATINGS: Monday--Pro football, Pittsburgh at Jacksonville, Ch. 7, 12.3, 21.

Note: Each rating point represents 50,092 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.