Whoa, Nellie! No Barnburner This Year

It came as a surprise--make that a shock--when ABC selected the UCLA-USC game Nov. 20 as its featured 12:30 p.m. Pacific 10 game for that day.

Keith Jackson was so excited he decided to take the week off. “I had a week off coming,” he said.

Perfect time to take it.

Jackson, working only Pac-10 games this season to cut down on travel, won’t even have to make the trip from his Sherman Oaks home to the Coliseum for UCLA-USC.

Instead, Charlie Jones will work the game with Dan Fouts.

Jones, a 1950 USC graduate, warms up for that assignment by working Saturday’s USC-Washington State game--another biggie--with former Kansas City Chief kicker Nick Lowery. ABC is televising the game regionally at 4 p.m., after the 12:30 Washington-UCLA game at the Rose Bowl, which Jackson and Fouts are announcing.

Jones, who began as a network football announcer in 1960, was out of a job after NBC lost the NFL to CBS. He recently worked a California-Brigham Young regional telecast, and that was his first ABC assignment since the 1964 American Football League championship game.

It has been a good week for Jones. He is happy with the USC-UCLA assignment--”It’s usually a great game when USC and UCLA are having off years,” he said--and the native of Little Rock, Ark., also learned he has been elected to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile, Jackson said this season has been more draining than he thought it would be. Asked if he’s coming back next season, he said, “It’s my option, but I don’t know know yet.”

LEGAL DEPARTMENT

A lawsuit between USC and former Trojan radio football announcers Larry Kahn and Mike Lamb appears headed for trial unless a settlement can be reached.

USC earlier this year won a $720,000 summary judgment for breach of contract--underpayment of money specified in the contract--against KLM, a company that involved Kahn, Lamb and others, and held the radio rights to USC football for three years, beginning in 1995.

USC was seeking to get another summary judgment to collect from Kahn and Lamb as individuals, which more than likely would force both into bankruptcy. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard C. Hubbell has ruled a trial is needed to determine if USC can go after Kahn and Lamb as individuals or if they are protected by being part of a corporation.

Bob Lisnow, an attorney for Kahn and Lamb, said the recent ruling was a victory for their side, but Dave Roberts, an attorney for USC, said, “If they are claiming the ruling was favorable for their side, then I vehemently disagree.”

Roberts said Kahn and Lamb have not responded to an earlier settlement offer, but Lisnow said they did respond by rejecting the offer. “It was very close to $720,000, so it wasn’t a legitimate settlement offer,” he said, adding that Kahn and Lamb have also offered to settle, but USC rejected their offer.

RACING FOR DOLLARS

It’s apparent that money was more important to NASCAR than loyalty when it made its new $400-million- a-year deal with Fox-FX and NBC-TBS, which was announced Thursday and goes into effect in 2001.

ESPN, CBS and the Nashville Network (TNN) are major reasons NASCAR is so popular, but those networks all were left out. CBS has televised the Daytona 500 since 1979 and ESPN features many NASCAR races and shows, including “RPM Tonight.”

“We made an aggressive bid given the package,” ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys said. “While we’re disappointed and would have liked to continue our NASCAR relationship, we have an incredibly strong programming lineup and we’ll continue to be the NASCAR fans’ daily lifeline to their favorite sport.”

HE’S ON HIS GAME

Gary McCord, who will serve as a commentator in this weekend’s Shark Shootout at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks with Bill Macatee, Ken Venturi and the CBS crew, has become the talk of the Senior PGA Tour.

McCord is coming off a victory in last weekend’s Senior Tour Championship at Myrtle Beach, S.C. Having never won on the regular PGA Tour, McCord won two tournaments on the senior tour this year, along with $993,291. His other victory was the Toshiba at Newport Beach.

He finished 14th in earnings and now won’t have to play in Wednesday and Thursday pro-ams to qualify. “My life will be so much easier now,” he said. “Reaching that goal was huge.”

McCord, 51, also set a goal of trying to reach $1 million. “I usually set realistic goals,” he said Thursday. “That one was ridiculous. Then walking down 18 Sunday, I thought, ‘Hey, I may get very close to that goal.’ ”

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

One of the most moving pieces you’ll ever see on sports television is a segment on next week’s edition of “NFL Films Presents,” which is on ESPN Sunday at 11:15 p.m. and Monday at 1 p.m. and several other times on ESPN2, including Tuesday at 1 and 5 p.m.

The subject is the friendship between Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier and the effort Brookshier made to get Summerall to quit drinking. Brookshier arranged an intervention with Summerall’s 10 closest friends, who convinced him to go to the Betty Ford Center in Palm Springs. Summerall was presented with a number of letters at the intervention, which took place in a Philadelphia hotel room. The most powerful letter was from his daughter, Susie Wiles.

Summerall talks about the jolt he got when he read that his own daughter was embarrassed to have to share her maiden name with her father.

“They asked me to write a letter and it was like giving me a blank check,” Wiles says in the piece, which has a happy ending.

IN CLOSING

Here we go again. No matter what happens in boxing or how many times fans get fleeced, it’s a given that they will pay for a big fight, and Saturday night’s Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis heavyweight championship fight, even at $49.95, is no exception. TVKO claims it is expecting a million-plus buys, though some observers believe it will be closer to 700,000.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What Los Angeles Is Watching

A sampling of L.A. Nielsen ratings for Nov. 6-7.

SATURDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro basketball: Lakers at Portland 9 6.0 10 College football: Washington at Arizona 7 4.4 12 Horse racing: Breeders’ Cup 4 3.9 11 Golf: WGC American Express Championship 7 3.4 7 College football: Vanderbilt at Florida 2 1.9 5 College football: California at Oregon State 9 1.8 4

*--*

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Tennis: Andre Agassi vs. Nicolas Lapentti ESPN 2.5 7 College football: Tennessee at Notre Dame ESPN 2.5 5 College football: Arizona State at USC FSW 2.2 5 College football: Ohio State at Michigan State ESPN 1.9 5 Golf: Senior Tour Championship ESPN 1.4 4 College football: Minnesota at Penn State ESPN2 1.0 3 College football: Colorado at Kansas State FSW2 0.7 2 College football: Wyoming at Utah ESPN2 0.5 1

*--*

SUNDAY

*--*

Over-the-air Channel Rating Share Pro football: St. Louis at Detroit 11 10.9 27 Pro football: Pittsburgh at San Francisco 11 10.9 24 Pro football: Kansas City at Indianapolis 2 4.6 12 Golf: WGC American Express Championship 7 4.2 9 Bass fishing: Ranger Millennium tournament 11 2.5 6 Running: New York City Marathon highlights 4 1.2 3 Hockey: Edmonton at Mighty Ducks 9 0.8 1

*--*

*--*

Cable Network Rating Share Pro football: Tennessee at Miami ESPN 7.8 13 Pro basketball: Dallas at Lakers FSW 2.3 3 Tennis: Andre Agassi vs. Marat Safin ESPN 1.6 4 Soccer: MLS playoffs, Dallas at Galaxy ESPN 1.2 3 Auto racing: NASCAR Winston Cup 500 TNN 0.9 2 Golf: Senior Tour Championship ESPN 0.5 1

*--*

WEEKDAY RATINGS: MONDAY--Pro football, Dallas at Minnesota, Channel 7, 16.5/25. TUESDAY--Pro basketball, Lakers at Dallas, Channel 9, 5.4/8.

Note: Each rating point represents 51,350 L.A. households. Cable ratings reflect the entire market, even though cable is in only 63% of L.A. households.