Suitors Vie for ‘Sunday Ticket’

If you’re an NFL fan, “NFL Sunday Ticket” is, well, just the ticket. If you have it, all Sunday games are available--except for the Sunday night game on ESPN--thus eliminating complaints about which games the networks pick. The games are on successive channels, so it is easy to surf.

The package is reasonably priced at $179 for existing subscribers and $199 for new subscribers as part of a fall promotional package.

“NFL Sunday Ticket” is by far the most popular sports package of its kind. It has been around since 1995, but only on DirecTV and old C-band satellites.

That may change. By next season, “NFL Sunday Ticket” may also be available on digital cable. Or maybe on only digital cable.

DirecTV’s deal with the NFL expires at the end of this season. A new deal is being negotiated, and digital cable wants at least a piece of the action, if not an exclusive deal.

The negotiations have been going on for several months, but are intensifying.

The NFL this week brought in Steve Bornstein, former president of both ABC and ESPN, to help with the negotiations. Bornstein was named senior advisor to Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

“We are at an important and opportune time in the area of NFL television,” Tagliabue said. “We must consider our alternatives with respect to our ‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ satellite package and the evolving digital cable universe.

“We will focus intensively on the NFL’s strategic choices. Steve Bornstein’s extensive experience and knowledge of broadcast, cable and new media will be a tremendous asset to us in this task.”

So where is “NFL Sunday Ticket” headed?

“We are confident we can make a new deal,” said Michael Thornton, DirecTV’s senior vice president of programming and acquisitions. “Getting it exclusively may be another story.”

Digital cable provider InDemand, as well as several major cable companies such as Comcast and Time Warner, are also after the package. Comcast and Time Warner own stakes in InDemand.

It’s believed “NFL Sunday Ticket” is now in about 1.3 million homes. The addition of digital cable could push that figure to 3 million in the not-too-distant future. If that were the case, and if the price were to go to $200, the package could conceivably generate $600 million a year.

That’s about what each of the four network carriers--Fox, CBS, ABC and ESPN--now pay.

DirecTV now pays about $150 million a year for “NFL Sunday Ticket.” Media analysts expect that fee to more than double, which would mean a pretty good chunk of change for the NFL.

One problem, though. There’s the eight-year, $17.6-billion contract with the networks to be concerned about. If “NFL Sunday Ticket” takes too many eyeballs away from the free Sunday telecasts on CBS and Fox, that’s not good from the league’s standpoint.

“We’d rather the package be supplemental and not dilute the network package,” said NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy.

However, McCarthy said there were provisions in the contracts with CBS and Fox that provide for monetary compensation.

It is believed that CBS and Fox now are compensated $8 million-$15 million annually.

Increased compensation would help CBS and its parent company, Viacom, and Fox and its parent company, News Corp., offset their financial shortfalls on pro football.

“We’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars on our NFL contract,” News Corp. President Peter Chernin told Cable World magazine. “If the NFL finds a way to make tens of millions of extra dollars, we would expect to see some of that shared with us.”

A potential problem for DirecTV is its uncertain future. A merger was announced last October in which EchoStar would take over DirecTV for $25.8 billion, pending approval by the Federal Communications Commission. The merger would give EchoStar, which owns the Dish Network, control of the satellite industry. But EchoStar and its controversial chief executive, Charlie Ergen, are facing resistance.

There’s a possibility that the merger will not be approved by the FCC, which is expected to make a ruling by early November. If the merger is not approved, that will open the door for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., which also attempted to buy DirecTV from its parent company, General Motors, to get back into the picture.

But DirecTV’s Thornton says the proposed merger and the resistance have not affected negotiations with the NFL.

“It’s still business as usual,” he said.

Whatever way the NFL goes--a new exclusive deal with DirecTV, an exclusive deal with digital cable or a combination of the two--options are key for viewers.

Ideally, in future years the pay package will become more available but not to the detriment of free telecasts.

Big Hit: 900,000 Buys

HBO reports that Saturday’s Oscar De La Hoya-Fernando Vargas fight had 900,000 pay-per-view buys, generating $45.6 million. It ranks second all-time among non-heavyweight fights, surpassed by only De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad in 1999, with 1.4 million buys and $70 million.

De La Hoya-Vargas will be replayed Saturday at 9:45 p.m. on HBO and again Sunday at 9 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. on HBO2.

Laker Update

Although the Lakers aren’t saying anything, word is a replacement for Chick Hearn will be named early next week. Paul Sunderland remains out front, but Fox Sports Net’s versatile Bill Macdonald and longtime Seattle SuperSonic play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro might still be in the running. Joel Meyers, a candidate at one time, already has a lot on his plate, working St. Louis Cardinal radio broadcasts and San Antonio Spur telecasts.

The Lakers are apparently determined to stick with simulcasts for at least another year.

College Football

Colorado-UCLA on Saturday is a 12:30 p.m. game on ABC, with Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts, and USC-Kansas State will be on TBS at 4 as part of a new Pacific 10-Big 12 package.

The TBS announcers will be Ron Thulin, best known for his NBA work for TNT and TBS, and Charles Davis, a defensive back for Tennessee in the mid-1980s and an assistant athletic director at Stanford in the mid-1990s.

Davis left Stanford in 1996 to work in Disney World’s sports ventures in Orlando, Fla., and was the tournament director of the Disney Golf Classic in 1998 and ’99. He is now a full-time broadcaster.

Short Waves

Angel fever continues to spread. Tuesday night’s 1-0 victory at Oakland averaged a 4.3 rating with a peak of 7.2. The 4.3 is the highest rating for a September Angel game since 1998.... Good move by Fox Sports Net 2 to pick up Saturday’s two big prep games in Hawaii. Long Beach Poly faces defending state champion Kahuku live at 8 p.m., and Concord De La Salle, which has won 126 consecutive games, faces St. Louis High of Honolulu live at 11 p.m. Long Beach Poly and Concord De La Salle meet Oct. 12, and that game will also be televised by Fox Sports Net 2.

Shaquille O’Neal is the host of Shaq Jam 2002, a charity concert at the Wilshire Theater at 7 p.m. Saturday. The event, featuring DMX and a long list of musicians and comedians, benefits Athletes and Entertainment for Kids and is being taped for a pay-per-view showing later this year.... “Survivor Africa” winner Ethan Zohn will be part of the Galaxy telecast on Channel 9 Saturday night.... KXTA (1150) station manager Greg Ashlock said in this space last week that Lee Hamilton of XTRA (690) has the top-rated afternoon drive-time sports-talk show in Los Angeles. Actually, that is not the case, according to Tony Siracusa, national manager of Spanish-language Radio Unica. He says Radio Unica’s KBLA (1580) has the top-rated sports talk show in L.A. with an average rating of .4. Siracusa said Hamilton averages a .2 rating among men 18-49.

In Closing

CBS commentator Brent Jones, the former San Francisco 49er tight end, got off a good line during Buffalo’s 45-39 overtime victory over Minnesota last Sunday. When the Vikings’ Randy Moss was shaken up and had to leave for one play, Jones said, “The Vikings are now in their Roberto Duran offense: No Moss.”