Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 18, 1995 TAG: 9511200084
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In fact, the changes in the college football TV landscape may enhance the chance viewers will see the Hokies and 'Hoos annually under new contracts running from 1996-2000.
With the breakup of the College Football Association package after this season, the ACC will keep its primary package on ABC, where it will share time with the Big Ten, Pacific 10 and Big 12. The Big East moves to CBS, which returns to regular-season college football with Tech's league and the Southeastern Conference sharing time slots.
The Big East begins to share TV revenue next season, as the ACC has for a decade. The Hokies will take home $360,000 from today's game at UVa (noon, WSET). Their game appearance checks will be smaller on CBS, but as part of a Big East pool, the Blacksburg school will fare comparably in dollars as in the recent years of success.
While the ACC is on ABC and the Big East on CBS, each conference also has a deal for dates on ESPN and ESPN2. The ACC will continue to have a noon syndicated schedule through Jefferson Pilot Sports. The Big East will discuss whether it wants to continue syndication at league meetings Monday and Tuesday in Newark, N.J., although there will be less inventory for a league package than now.
ABC will continue to regionalize its schedule most weeks, meaning an ACC game will air most every date in a 14- or 15-week season. The Big East is guaranteed 9-12 games on CBS annually, and associate commissioner Tom Odjakjian said early indications have CBS airing 10 in 1996. In the contracts, a "Big East game'' or ``ACC game'' is defined as either a non-conference game at the home site of a league school, or a conference game.
The ACC will have up to 10 more games annually on a combination of the two ESPN networks. The Big East deal calls for 12 games on ESPN and ESPN2, with at least seven of those on the original all-sports network.
The Big East's contracts with CBS and ESPN total about $77.5 million over five years. The ACC figures to earn just more than $80 million, but that includes the JP conference package.
While the ACC will continue to divide all TV money equally among nine members - paying each $16-17 million annually - the Big East plans to pay a school around $235,000 for each CBS appearance, $125,000 for an ESPN date and nothing for an ESPN2 game. The Big East also figures to pay each of its eight schools slightly more than $1 million in pooled revenue.
In the Big East-CBS deal, the network is required to air at least five different league schools each year, and no team may appear in more than four games in one season. Each school has to make at least one appearance over the five years of the contract.
Earlier this week, Virginia coach George Welsh again stated that he'd like to see the UVa-Tech date moved to an earlier spot on the schedule. Tech wants the game to stay at the end of the year. In the next five years, the networks and conferences will have more to say about that.
``As that game has become more attractive, it's more likely there will be requests to slot the game on the schedule,'' said ACC assistant commissioner Rick Chryst, who handles TV scheduling for the league. ``It's interesting that there are a lot of [network] crossover games like that. They all probably can't be played at the end of the season.''
In addition to Tech-UVa, late-season rivalries that will flip-flop between networks include Georgia-Georgia Tech, Clemson-South Carolina and Florida-Florida State. Odjakjian said from early talks with CBS, it appears that next year's UVa-Tech game at Lane Stadium will remain late in the season, although it could be a CBS candidate for Thanksgiving Day or the Friday after Thanksgiving.
``The thing about a game like that is that you can schedule it [for TV] ahead of time on a particular day, and you know, because it's a rivalry, it will still stand up as a good TV date,'' Odjakjian said.
Attractive non-conference games also will enhance a team's chance to appear, such as the Texas-Virginia game next Sept.14, and Tech's potential date with Auburn two weeks later. Both networks will begin locking in some games for next season in the next month.
CAPITAL IDEA: The federal government has been shut down this week, but they've been kicking around a political football in the office of Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.). The phone rang at Jefferson-Pilot Sports in Charlotte, N.C., and the caller asked for JP President Ed Hull.
It was the 92-year-old senator on the line. Thurmond was inquiring whether JP Sports, which has regional telecast rights to ACC and Southeastern Conference football, would consider televising today's Clemson-South Carolina game at least to his Palmetto State constituents.
``He said his office had gotten some calls about the game not being on, and he just expressed his interest in seeing it,'' said JP Sports executive producer Jimmy Rayburn. ``He didn't threaten us in any way. He just said he'd love to see us do it.''
So, JP Sports, which is televising two ACC games today, got the kickoff moved to 12:30 p.m. and added the game in Columbia, S.C., to its SEC regional schedule that already included Vanderbilt-Florida and Tennessee-Kentucky.
AROUND THE DIAL: Sunday's San Francisco-Dallas telecast was unsurprisingly the highest-rated of the NFL season, getting a 21.3 rating and 39 share for the Fox Network. It was the highest Nielsen for a Sunday afternoon NFL game since November 1985, when a Chicago-Dallas game did a 22.5 on CBS. ... The Ohio State-Michigan football game will go to more than 60 percent of the nation's TV homes next Saturday, but it will be available only on pay per view in this region and throughout the Southeast. ABC also had the Florida State-Florida game in the same time slot (noon, WSET). ... ESPN2 has live coverage of Virginia's visit to Tennessee for a high-powered women's basketball matchup Sunday at 3:30 p.m.
by CNB