Advertisement

1979 Game Still Worth Talking About

Share

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird will forever be joined in basketball lore, but these days their paths rarely cross.

Johnson is busy with his various business interests in Los Angeles, and Bird is busy coaching the Indiana Pacers.

But the two got together recently for an interview session with “Fox Sports News” anchor Chris Myers to discuss the 1979 NCAA championship between Johnson’s Michigan State team and Bird’s Indiana State team and the events leading up to the game.

Advertisement

The interview was conducted at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, and the byplay between the two legends is the highlight of a one-hour Fox Sports Net special, “Magic vs. Bird: The Game That Changed the Game.” It will be on Fox Sports West Sunday at 9 p.m.

Bird agreed to do the interview only because Johnson asked him. And Johnson has a vested interest in the special because Magic Johnson Entertainment and Black Canyon Productions produced the special in conjunction with Fox Sports Net Films.

“They asked me about getting involved,” Johnson said Thursday, “and I thought it was a great idea. I don’t think Larry would have done the interview otherwise, because he usually doesn’t do these things.”

Bird specified the date he would do it and Myers went to Indianapolis despite having flu and a sore throat. He redid the opening for the special after coming back to L.A. and regaining his voice, but nothing could be done about Myers’ scratchy voice on the Johnson-Bird interview.

Johnson flew to Indianapolis a day early so he could hang out with his friend. “Because of our schedules, we don’t see each other very often, but when we get together we always have a ball,” Johnson said. “I went to a game, hung out in the coach’s office, and then we did the interview the next day.”

The special includes dozens of interviews with both coaches, players from both teams and broadcasters such as Dick Enberg, who did the play by play for NBC, and Bryant Gumbel, who served as host of the telecast.

Advertisement

Today is the actual 20th anniversary of the game, and ESPN Classic features it in its “Story of the Game” series tonight from 6 to 8. Although many of the principals were also interviewed for this show, the game itself is the focal point here.

LATE NIGHT BASKETBALL

Three of the UCLA women’s four NCAA tournament games were played at 9 p.m., and the other was at 9:30 p.m. When a game such as Monday’s West Regional final against Louisiana Tech begins at 9 p.m., besides playing havoc with newspaper deadlines, it affects an important fan base--school-aged children.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Tricia Bork, NCAA vice president. “We need the TV money [believed to be about $1 million a year] and the exposure, but we are also aware the late starts hurt our live gates.

“We’re also cognizant of newspaper deadlines. As an example of that, we moved the Georgia-Duke semifinal [tonight] to the earlier time slot [4 p.m.] to help the Eastern writers.

“We’re still going through some growing pains, but we’re making progress.”

Len DeLuca, ESPN senior vice president in charge of programming, sees mostly growth for women’s basketball, and cites that growth as one of the problems.

“We went from 22 national exposures on ESPN and ESPN2 for women’s basketball during the tournament last year to 27 this year, and finding time slots for all those games is not easy,” he said.

Advertisement

DeLuca said preempting “SportsCenter” is not an option. “CBS doesn’t preempt ’60 Minutes,’ ” he said. “And besides, ‘SportsCenter’ provides a good lead-in for those 9 p.m. games.”

Tonight’s other semifinal between Louisiana Tech and Purdue will be on ESPN around 6:30. The championship game is Sunday at 6 p.m. ESPN’s announcers are Mike Patrick and Ann Meyers Drysdale.

SHORT WAVES

The Lakers are back on NBC on Sunday, when they play host to the New York Knicks. It’s a 3:30 game here so NBC can show it at 6:30 in the East. . . . The Knicks and Phoenix Suns will be on TNT today at 5 p.m. . . . The Lakers’ game at Orlando last Sunday got a 5.1 national rating, NBC’s highest for an NBA game on the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

CBS will preview the men’s Final Four in a 90-minute special Saturday at 1 p.m. . . . The Dodger season will be previewed in a special, “Dodgers on Deck,” Monday at 10 p.m. on Fox Sports West 2, with several replays, and an Angel preview, “Angels on the Rise,” will be on Fox Sports West on Tuesday at 8 p.m. and also replayed several times. . . . Channel 9 offers another attractive Forum-promoted boxing card from the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas on Saturday night at 8, with Tom Kelly and Rich Marotta calling the action. . . . ESPN televises Sunday’s historic game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Cuban national team live at 8:45 a.m. from Havana.

ESPN’s Howard Katz was named president of ABC Sports. He replaces Steve Bornstein, now president of the ABC network. ESPN promoted Steve Anderson, son of New York Times sports columnist Dave Anderson, to executive vice president. . . . Gravelly voiced talk show host Scott Ferrell has been named the radio play-by-play announcer for the Atlanta Thrashers NHL expansion team. . . . “Goin’ Deep” has earned Fox Sports Net’s first Sports Emmy nomination.

IN CLOSING

ESPN may not be doing high school students any favors with late-night women’s games, but here’s something nice the cable network is doing. It is supplying tapes to all 18,000-plus U.S. high schools of its “SportsFigures” series that runs on ESPN2 in late-night time slots. The series uses sports figures to help students with math and physics. Infoseek’s Go Network is sponsoring the project.

Advertisement

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for March 20-21, including sports on cable networks:

SATURDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share NCAA tournament: Ohio State-St. John’s 2 5.3 13 NCAA tournament: Gonzaga-Connecticut 2 4.8 13 Golf: PGA Bay Hill Invitational 4 3.0 8 Auto racing: NASCAR Craftsman Trucks 7 1.8 5 Golf: Senior Legends 7 1.5 4 NCAA Division II: Metro State-Kentucky Wesleyan 2 1.5 4

*--*

****

SATURDAY

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Boxing: Ike Ibeabuchi-Chris Byrd HBO 2.4 6 Hockey: Florida-Kings FSW 0.6 1 Women’s NCAA: UCLA-Colorado State ESPN 0.5 1 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSW2 0.4 1 Soccer: MLS, New York/New Jersey-Miami ESPN2 0.4 1 Women’s NCAA: Iowa State-Connecticut ESPN 0.2 1 Women’s NCAA: Virginia Tech-Tennessee ESPN 0.2 1 Baseball: Chicago White Sox-Chicago Cubs WGN 0.2 1 Women’s NCAA: Old Dominion-Duke ESPN2 0.2 0 Women’s NCAA: Rutgers-Texas Tech ESPN2 0.2 0 Golf: LPGA Standard Register Ping ESPN 0.2 0 Women’s NCAA: Georgia-Clemson ESPN2 0.1 0 Women’s NCAA: North Carolina-Purdue ESPN 0.1 0 Women’s NCAA: Louisiana State-Louisiana Tech ESPN 0.1 0

*--*

****

SUNDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: Lakers-Orlando 4 12.5 32 Golf: PGA Bay Hill Invitational 4 6.6 16 NCAA tournament: Michigan State-Kentucky 2 4.2 10 NCAA tournament: Duke-Temple 2 4.0 10 Golf: Senior Legends 7 1.0 3 Skiing: Bumps & Jumps Championship 11 0.8 2 Auto racing: CART Grand Prix of Miami 7 0.6 2 Hockey: Detroit-Philadelphia 11 0.6 1 Hockey: Kings-Phoenix 9 0.5 1

*--*

****

SUNDAY

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Golf: LPGA Standard Register Ping ESPN 0.7 2 Auto racing: NASCAR TranSouth Financial 400 ESPN2 0.6 2 Tennis: Lipton Championships ESPN2 0.5 1 Horse racing: Santa Anita Live FSW2 0.4 1 Hockey: Kings-Phoenix ESPN 0.3 1 Horse racing: International Jockey Challenge FSW 0.3 1 Pro basketball: Chicago-Boston WGN 0.2 1 Horse racing: Gotham Stakes ESPN2 0.2 1

*--*

WEEKDAY RATINGS: Monday, Lakers-Dallas, Ch. 9, 11.3/17; Women’s NCAA, UCLA-Louisiana Tech, ESPN, 0.5/1; Wednesday, Phoenix-Lakers, FSW, 6.8/10.7

Advertisement

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.

Advertisement