Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511060019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Miami is scheduled to appear before the NCAA Committee on Infractions next weekend, a date that is likely to lead to probation for the Hurricanes. Depending on the sanctions, the Big East might be looking for more games like today's attractive Syracuse-Virginia Tech kickoff (3:30 p.m., WSET) for even greater exposure.
The Big East isn't expecting to lose Miami on the tube, however. With five-year contracts with CBS and ESPN beginning next season, deals worth about $78 million to the football members of the league, that's also wishful thinking at this point.
Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese said this week that the NCAA hasn't attached TV sanctions to probation since keeping Auburn off the tube in 1993. There is a notion that Auburn used its telecast absence as an incentive, and, besides, when one team in a league has TV sanctions, the others do, too, because of intraconference play.
``Selfishly, we're hoping the Committee on Infractions doesn't attach TV to any sanctions Miami might receive and what we do know is that in recent years, it hasn't happened,'' Tranghese said from the league office in Providence, R.I. ``No question, that would have a major impact on us.
``To lose any team, especially when you have eight, is damaging enough. To lose your marquee team only compounds that.''
Tranghese said the Big East contracts with CBS and ESPN ``have a renegotiation clause if one of our teams becomes not available for reasons of probation, and I'm sure if Miami weren't available, they'd both be on our doorstep immediately.''
The NCAA has presented Miami with 10 infractions, most reportedly involving abuse of Pell Grant money. The Hurricanes seem likely to receive bowl sanctions and lose scholarships.
However, with CBS picking 9-12 Big East games (league home dates, in or out of conference), ESPN another seven games and five for ESPN2, the TV blackout of Miami would be devastating. Creative Sports again will be selling a syndicated package, too. No Hurricanes would make the Big East package small.
PUNCH LINES: An up-close perspective of Virginia's football shocker over Florida State could be provided Monday night by Dr. Jerry Punch at the Roanoke Valley Sports Club dinner at the Roanoke Civic Center exhibit hall. Punch was the ESPN sideline reporter at the Scott Stadium upset.
Punch said Thursday night on the sidelines that he plans to discuss college football and NASCAR, and maybe even his first profession, medicine. Punch spent the first hours after Ernie Irvan's accident with the Winston Cup driver and his family. He comes to Roanoke after hosting the NASCAR Winston Racing Series banquet tonight at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tenn.
Punch often spends halftime in team locker rooms, and thereby has a unique grasp of a slice of college football few outsiders see or hear. It's also little known that he was a walk-on quarterback for coach Lou Holtz at North Carolina State in the '70s.
``I taught Lou everything he knows about throwing a clipboard,'' Punch said. ``He'd put me in for a play or two in scrimmages. I had no speed and no height, but I could throw a great spiral into the second or third row of Carter-Finley Stadium. Coach Holtz once told me, `Punch, it's not that you're slow, you just reach your maximum speed quicker than everyone else.'''
IN THE RING: The cancellation of Mike Tyson's Fox Network bout tonight against Buster Mathis Jr. will help tonight's TVKO pay-per-view fight between Evander Holyfield and Riddick Bowe to more than 700,000 buys, Time Warner officials predict. That's about 200,000 more than might have been expected had Tyson fought on ``free'' TV.
However, that's only a guesstimate. PPV subscribers are 11th-hour buyers. Consider the advance sales at Roanoke's Cox Communications and Salem's Booth Communications.
When the Tyson announcement was made Tuesday, Roanoke's cable had about 15 Holyfield-Bowe buys, and Salem had two. Those numbers were up to 60 and 10 by noon Friday. Cox marketing coordinator Ann Luther said the Roanoke system is estimating 650-700 buys for this fight, most in the final hours before the show.
Cox's fight-day price for the Holyfield-Bowe card is $44.95. Booth-Salem is charging $39.95.
AROUND THE DIAL: Today's ABC telecast at Lane Stadium will go to 9.8 percent of the nation's TV homes, fourth among the five regionals at 3:30 p.m. The Syracuse-Virginia Tech game will be aired in Virginia, West Virginia, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, N.C., central and western New York, Boston, south Florida and Manchester, N.H. It will not be seen in New York or Washington, D.C., which are among the 42 percent of the nation that will get Penn State-Northwestern.
The six-game combined Nielsen rating for the World Series was 19.5, up 13 percent from the last Series played in 1993. It also was the third-lowest Nielsen for the Series. Only the 1989 earthquake-interrupted Series and '93 Series were lower.
There is no TV of the USA Basketball women's national team game Tuesday night at Virginia, but ESPN will have a live telecast of Sunday's contest between the Olympic squad and defending NCAA champion Connecticut.
by CNB