Stern Seeking New TV Partner

TV or not TV: It was fun being commissioner in the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird golden age of the ‘80s, and the ‘90s, the Michael Jordan decade, when they harvested money in bales.

Then the century turned. Talk about tough ways to start a millennium.

One day, people are talking about David Stern as a Senate candidate or baseball commissioner and are hiring his lieutenants to run their leagues.

Then Jordan leaves, Stern locks out the players, Tiger Woods explodes and NASCAR gets on the over-the-air networks so that while there may be five NBA and NCAA basketball games a weekend, there’s only one big auto race.

NBA ratings deflated. Then as Stern tried to reinflate them and a budding Laker dynasty arose, his other conference went flat like a bad tire, leaving him with walkovers in the finals and more lackluster ratings.

Then Jordan came back, but in mortal guise this time. What good is he to Stern if he’s merely human?

Now Stern, having stalled to await the arrival of better news, must negotiate his new TV deal with the economy still in its current throes, which is to say looking almost as bad--but not quite, thank heavens--as his Eastern Conference.

Insiders say Stern will have to take a cut from his last $2.4-billion, four-year deal. His friend, Dick Ebersol, the NBC sports boss who put up $1.8 billion of the old package, just low-balled him with a $1.3-billion offer for the next four years.

We don’t know how the friendship is going but we do know Stern, who used to work this out on a casual basis with Ebersol, trotted over to ABC and ESPN. They’re interested, but so far only $2 billion-$2.4 billion worth.

Stern has his heart set on a raise. Otherwise, he’ll have to listen to his owners and players cry when they learn the salary cap might actually go down. They were big enough pains when the cap went up every year.

Imagine the looks on his young stars’ faces when they learn that not only are they kicking back 10% of their pay to make up for their salary overruns in their escrow agreement, from now on it’ll be an annual deduction!

Of course, Stern is hard at work, looking for some star wars/streaming media/e-commercial value to peddle in addition, to get the price up.

Remember, you’re not just getting Shaq, Kobe, et al, but NBA.com-TV, an only slightly abandoned women’s league and a new minor league with franchises blanketing Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama!

Not that this isn’t an attractive package, even in its current state.

As usual, the TV people are doing their rights-fees-are-done-escalating number, which they’ve been trotting out for 20 years ... of escalating rights fees.

The owners, in this sport and others (see: Bud Selig Breaks Them Up on Capitol Hill), are still doing their woe-is-me number.

What everyone else wouldn’t give for their troubles. TV can also be translated as “license to print money” and it’s still a good idea to own a team, since there are so many channels, cable systems and networks, and so few major leagues.

In the meantime, this could still work out for the NBA ... especially if ESPN gets all or part of the cable package.

In modern sports promotion, ESPN is the billion-pound gorilla that can prop up the NHL, revive baseball when it’s sagging and help develop NASCAR.

When you’re talking about the core audience, “SportsCenter” is king but that’s just the beginning.

The best thing ESPN does is promote itself, but No. 2 is promoting its partners. The first thing it does is get some advertising hot shop, like Weiden and Kennedy, the Portland, Ore., outfit that does those great ESPN house ads, on your account. These days the NBA image could stand a little makeover.

From Turner, all the NBA gets is exposure and a wild studio show, with the irrepressible Charles Barkley telling Shaquille O’Neal exactly where the league should stick its new rules and lots of other stuff you never thought you’d be watching with your kids.

As a promoter, Turner is a bunch of guys in Atlanta, packaging old movies and Braves’ (America’s Team?) games.

Of course, they beat Ebersol to Barkley, so how slick can those New York City slickers really be?

In the end, the NBA will be on some network and none of the above will have to sell chestnuts on the street, as folks did in the ‘30s when times were really tough. Thank heavens for that too.

Faces and Figures

A battle of wills is surfacing between Bull General Manager Jerry Krause, who drafted Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler, and Coach Tim Floyd, who has resisted playing them. Insiders think Floyd is smoldering about trading Elton Brand for Chandler, which bought Krause time at the cost of giving Floyd a chance to compete this season.

“I may be wrong, but I don’t see how you can be better off trading Elton Brand for a high school kid,” ESPN’s Dick Vitale told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Brand’s a proven player. That’s the part that blows my mind. Here you have one of the nicest kids you ever want to meet, a guy that’s just 23 and averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds, and you trade him for an unproven player.”

Despite the Bulls’ losing record and all the times they’ve been blown out, Curry is averaging 12 minutes, Chandler 11.

This week’s roundup of the carnage left in the Lakers’ wake:

* Milwaukee’s George Karl, who saw a 15-point loss in the Staples Center start the Bucks on a skid in which they were wiped out in five consecutive games, one at home by the Knicks:

“I think the zone maybe bothered [O’Neal] a little bit, but I’m not going to be cocky about it. I think the man is the most powerful, dominating basketball player in the game. He’s so hard to cover and plan for. OK, we controlled him, but we didn’t have a chance of winning a game. You’ve got to do a lot of good things to beat the Lakers, especially when they were playing with the referees on their side like they were.”

* Seattle’s Brent Barry, after O’Neal was ejected in the first quarter and the Lakers beat the SuperSonics by 15 on their home court: “For the people who came out here tonight, I feel sorry for them. It was a joke. They paid to see Shaq kick our [rear ends] and we got our [rear ends] kicked by their bench. It was a joke.”

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s still a business: An Alamodome crowd of 35,052 who bought tickets to see Jordan, saw him sitting on the bench in a suit. Unlike the Pistons, who said they’d issue refunds when Jordan said he’d sit out an exhibition game--he ultimately played--the Spurs kept all the proceeds.

The biggest surprise, in the family, anyway, is that Utah second-round pick Jarron Collins starts while his twin, New Jersey first-rounder Jason Collins, comes off the bench. Showing he’s not only precocious, but unintimidated, Jarron lost 20 pounds before camp and telephoned Karl Malone for advice. “He called me, I don’t know how many times, wanting to know what he could do to get in shape,” Malone said. “He’d say, ‘Karl, this is Jarron, your new teammate. From Stanford.’ I’d say, ‘I know. I know.”’

Not that they’re tiring of hearing that they donated a savior to the Nets, but the Suns are subtly reminding people that Jason Kidd wasn’t great at finishing drives to the basket. As Phoenix Coach Scott Skiles noted of Stephon Marbury, “He can get to the hole at will. And he will finish at the basket.” ... Before playing the Nets, Marbury told the Mesa Tribune he’s actually happy to see his former teammates doing well. “Really?” asked the reporter. “To be really honest,” Marbury replied, “don’t put down ‘happy.’ I really don’t care.” ... In the wake of much Marbury-bashing in the New York press, the Nets and the old, nonfinishing Kidd routed the Suns, 106-87.... Net forward Kenyon Martin, on the team’s turnaround: “Trust me. It’s 360 from where it was.”