The Great TV Takeover

By Richard Zoglin

Let's take a sports quiz. When do kickoffs happen in football? Answer: when the two-minute TV commercial break is over. Why are World Series games played on frigid October nights and on the West Coast in late-afternoon twilight? So viewers at home can watch in prime time. Why do basketball play-offs now include 16 of the N.B.A.'s 27 teams and last well into June, when the heat in old arenas like the Boston Garden can be stifling? Right again: so TV can have more potentially high-rated games. And if television didn't exactly create showboating antics like slam dunks in basketball and end-zone dances in football -- well, what better way to make the evening's sports-highlight reel?

So it goes in the high-stakes marriage between television and sports. It did not take long for these two great American institutions to meet and tie the knot. But only recently did they fully realize how much they mean to each other. For the networks, sports programming is a surefire audience getter in an era of fractionalizing viewership. For sports, TV is the irresistible avenue to mass-audience popularity -- and almost unimaginable riches.

But the marriage entails a kind of Faustian bargain. Any league that wants to pry big bucks from TV's big spenders must, to one degree or another, adapt to the needs of the tube. That can mean anything from inserting commercial time-outs to overhauling the season schedule. As the money keeps growing, so does TV's determination to get the most from its investment by orchestrating the show for maximum viewer appeal. The medium that once simply covered America's favorite sports has virtually taken them over.

And boy, have the bucks grown. The National Football League's new pact, approved a week ago, is a stunner even by the rapidly inflating standards of the medium: $3.6 billion, divvied up among five broadcast and cable networks, to bring every touchdown pass and holding penalty into American homes for the next four years. It is the biggest TV sports deal ever negotiated.

To justify those billions, the made-for-TV show will get bigger as well. Starting next season, pro football will add two more teams to the play-offs and, by the fall of 1992, two more weeks to the season. That will probably push the Super Bowl into February, which just happens to be a ratings "sweeps" period. And for fans who had too much Bud Bowl and not enough Super Bowl last January, relief is nowhere in sight. To help defray the immense cost of football's telecast rights, the networks will add three more 30-second commercial spots to each game next season, and another two in the fall of 1992.

Few would deny that TV has, on the whole, been a boon for the average fan. At nearly any time of the day or night, on national network or local cable outlet, one can find some sort of athletic competition in progress, from tennis and golf tournaments to stock-car races and beach volleyball. TV has boosted interest in some sports, virtually created it in others. NCAA basketball once got almost no national TV coverage; this season some 325 college games were telecast on national TV. Nor has cable, as some feared might happen, drained sports away from broadcast TV. Instead, it has merely added to the bounty. In 1988, 723 sporting events were shown on cable, according to an ESPN study, up from 158 in 1979. During that same period, network offerings rose from 341 to 453. "The appetite for sports in television is bottomless," says Seth Abraham, HBO's director of sports. "Programming tastes come and go, but sports is always a constant. More is never enough."

It is almost impossible to imagine sports without TV. Baseball used to mean a seat in the upper deck at Yankee Stadium or Forbes Field, or the radio voice of Harry Caray or Mel Allen accompanied by a disembodied crack of the bat. Now it is the centerfield camera showing the trajectory of a curve ball, close-ups of the pitcher shaking off a sign and replays of that disputed pick-off play at first base. No wonder fans in the stadium spend much of their time craning their necks at the Diamond Vision screen or gazing into their miniature TV sets. Why watch the game when you can enjoy the sunshine and hot dogs and still follow the action on TV?

The lure of TV dollars has caused new leagues to be created and old ones to be expanded. The World League of American Football will come into being next year, mainly to satisfy a TV demand for gridiron games in the spring. (ABC and cable's USA Network will share the honors.) In some cases, TV has tampered ; with the very rules of the game. The National Hockey League, struggling to make itself attractive to national TV, some years ago expanded the pauses in play following certain penalties to more than 30 seconds to allow time for a commercial. In preparation for the 1994 World Cup soccer matches, the first to be played in the U.S., the president of the sport's international federation has proposed switching from two 45-min. halves to four 25-min. quarters. The reason -- What else? -- is to make the game more appealing to American TV.

Pro football has been manhandled in less egregious but still annoying ways. The game trudges along more slowly than ever, thanks partly to the profusion of TV time outs; the average game length is now 3 hr. 11 min., up from 2 hr. 57 min. in 1978. (The N.F.L. club owners last week instituted some rule changes in an effort to tighten up the action.) Since 1986, the league has allowed controversial calls to be overturned after scrutiny of the videotape replay. Despite widespread criticism, the league last week voted to continue such video appeals, though with a new proviso: the replay officials can no longer listen to the TV commentators. (Hey, who's refereeing this game anyway?)

The huge amount of money pouring in from TV is the major reason for the escalation of player salaries -- and, by extension, labor problems like the current baseball lockout. The flow of TV dollars has increased the already tremendous pressure on college coaches and athletes to compile winning records and reach postseason play. Meanwhile, as drug scandals and other sports controversies proliferate, TV commentators face the difficult task of reporting on events that, in many cases, their employers have a financial interest in. Though less boosterish than they once were, sports journalists have traditionally gone easier on events telecast by their own network. "Too frequently the networks divided sports into 'their' events and 'our' events," notes Dave Marash, a former newscaster who will join ESPN's baseball team this year. "Incidents of probing and candor have been infinitely higher for 'their' events."

The scramble to get more events onto the "our" side of the ledger has reached a frenzied peak. As the networks try to conserve a dwindling share of the TV audience, they are depending more and more on the drawing power of sports. "Sports is the one thing that comes to TV somewhat presold," says Larry Gerbrandt, senior analyst for Paul Kagan Associates. "If you're going to break in a new sitcom, you've got to launch a campaign of awareness. When you add a sports package, people already know what they are getting." The biggest events, moreover, can galvanize the nation around the TV set as few entertainment shows do. This year's Super Bowl, a lopsided contest, drew lower than usual ratings; still, its audience of nearly 74 million was the highest for any show this season.

Cable is increasingly becoming a player as well. ESPN, the all-sports channel launched in late 1979, began by shoveling hours of fringe sports at hard-core fans, everything from dart throwing to Australian-rules football. Now, with an audience of more than 55 million homes, it is aggressively bidding for major sports like pro football and baseball. So is Ted Turner's TNT. HBO, meanwhile, has become the dominant network in boxing; it currently holds the exclusive rights for Mike Tyson's heavyweight fights.

The latest round of escalating league TV deals started in December 1988, when CBS won the rights to four years of major-league baseball for an unprecedented $1.08 billion. That was roughly the same amount that NBC and ABC had paid for the previous six years -- and CBS's package includes only 16 regular-season games, in addition to the All-Star Game, play-offs and World Series. (ESPN, which signed its own $400 million deal, will offer another 161 regular-season contests.)

NBC, which was shocked to lose its longtime baseball coverage, struck back by winning the rights to N.B.A. basketball, formerly held by CBS. The cost: $600 million, more than triple the size of the last contract. Colossal amounts were also shelled out for the 1992 and '94 Winter Olympics (CBS), the 1992 Summer Games (NBC) and NCAA basketball (CBS).

Can the networks really make money on these expensive packages? Many industry observers are skeptical that advertising revenue will be high enough to meet the costs. "These numbers are very hard to justify on any kind of rational basis, given the current state of television," says Christopher Dixon, media analyst for Kidder, Peabody & Co. Many network executives are not happy about the spending spree. Kenneth D. Schanzer, executive vice president of NBC Sports, blames most of the spiral on CBS, which he claims overbid by nearly $400 million on the major-league baseball package, escalating all the subsequent negotiations. "The simple fact is that CBS probably cost the industry a billion and a half dollars," Schanzer says. "That's very sad and unnecessary."

"We're comfortable with the deals we've made," insists Neal Pilson, president of CBS Sports. "It's really irrelevant whether or not a given event makes money. The issue is whether our strategy works in the long term." That strategy is to help rejuvenate CBS's sinking prime-time ratings by purchasing high-visibility sports packages, especially those that air at advantageous times of the year for promoting the rest of the network's schedule.

To help squeeze out more revenue, all of the networks will probably increase the number of commercials they air during games. "Televised sports is one place where dollars can be created out of smoke," says Ron Kaatz, a former ad executive who now teaches at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. "You can add a minute of commercial time and create $200,000 or $400,000 or more worth of added revenue where nothing existed before." The networks could also seek other sources of income, such as a share of the revenue from team-related merchandise like T shirts and mugs or postseason videocassettes.

In the long term, however, TV will probably have to reconsider its free- spending ways. "The rapid ramp-up of sports bidding has to stop," says Terence McGuirk, president of Turner's sports division. "The economic base isn't there to pay for it." Dennis Swanson, president of ABC Sports, concedes that his network will lose money on its new football package, which includes Monday night games and a few play-off contests. "At some point in the next decade," he warns, "somebody is going to realistically ask themselves, Should we stay in the network sports business? Investing in something that has no return is not a good way to do business." Many observers predict that major events will soon go to pay-per-view channels, where viewers who want to see them must pay a one-time fee. NBC, in what could be a harbinger, will supplement its coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics with 600 additional hours on as many as three pay-per-view channels.

Prudent or not, the huge amounts being ponied up by TV are changing the economics of pro sports. Major-league baseball's billion-dollar TV pact is an unspoken issue looming behind the current baseball lockout. "The television revenue isn't being produced by the owners," says Donald Fehr, head of the players' union. "It's being produced by the players. The lion's share of the television money ought to go to the players." With the N.F.L.'s just completed TV deal, clubs will be making money even before they sell a single admission ticket. "The rights fees fueled a salary explosion in baseball," says agent Leigh Steinberg. "Now things will explode in the N.F.L. If the teams have money, they'll spend it."

For college sports, TV revenue poses other, more troubling problems. The 64 members of the College Football Association, for example, negotiated a lucrative five-year TV pact with ABC for $210 million in January. Three weeks later, Notre Dame bolted from the group and signed its own TV deal with NBC for more than $30 million. The move brought cries of foul from other colleges. The increased money and TV exposure, they complained, will give Notre Dame even more of an advantage in national recruiting and will encourage other strong teams to pursue a go-it-alone policy, to the detriment of all college sports.

TV is a double-edged sword for colleges. Media exposure brings national attention and dollars into the coffers. But it also stretches out seasons, wreaks havoc with schedules and helps boost the importance of sports at the expense of academics. Indiana University was forced to play three basketball games this season at 9:30 p.m. to suit ESPN's Monday-night schedule. Coach Bobby Knight complained, noting that his players did not get home from away games until 3 a.m. "To hell with damned ESPN," he told a campus newspaper. "This is absolutely ridiculous to put a college student through." Other Big Ten coaches are more sanguine about the trade-off. "When you talk about the dollars and the exposure," says Michigan State coach Jud Heathcoate, "I think we have to make some sacrifices in our schedule."

The lure of lucrative TV contracts also contributes to a win-at-all-costs mentality that can lead to recruitment scandals and other abuses. "The more pressure you put on, the greater the chances are for coaches to take shortcuts," says Bob Frederick, athletic director at the University of Kansas. Harry Edwards, sports sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, sees TV as a major culprit in the corruption of sports. "The eyes of the athlete have shifted from what you can do to challenge yourself," he says, "to how much money you can make."

To be sure, the dollar signs are hard to miss in TV sports these days. One can see them in everything from Bo Jackson commercials for Nike footwear to the corporate logos attached to a growing number of major events (among the newest additions: the Mobil Cotton Bowl and the Federal Express Orange Bowl). "It used to be that sport was sport, and business was business," says Norman Chad, who writes about media for the sports daily the National. "Now sports is business. Something that was once sweet and in some ways idyllic now is in the mud with everything else."

And yet it is also, on occasion, terrifically entertaining. Sports can still provide moments of great drama, poignancy and inspiration. And TV has helped bring them to an unprecedented audience, including tens of millions of people who have never bought a ticket. The old days may have been better, simpler, less sullied. But how many would know? Only the fans in the stadium were there to see.

With reporting by William Tynan and James Willwerth/New York