Sunday, April 02, 2000
SPORTS ON TV RADIO
Why Reds aren't on TV
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Look at the Reds today: Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Larkin, Dante Bichette, Pokey Reese and Sean Casey. Established stars and future stars. Now, recall 1998: Eduardo Perez, Jon Nunnally, Chris Stynes. That explains why the Reds aren't on free television.
The Reds' TV deal was negotiated with Fox Sports Net when the team was trying to sell the building-for-the-future concept. No over-the-air station wanted to be part of the deal.
Reds fans never bought the young-and-hungry package.
So the Reds pumped up the payroll and tried to win last year. They did win 96 games. This year, they added Griffey, the most marketable player in baseball.
But the TV deal is still the deal that was signed when Nunnally, Stynes and Perez were the future of the Reds.
The Reds are one of only two teams in baseball without an over-the-air package. The Montreal Expos, who have no TV contract at all, are the other.
Monday's opener will be on Channel 5, but that's a one-shot deal. Fox Sports Net, which will air 85 games this year, holds exclusive rights to the games. There was interest from over-the-air stations about carrying more games. But a deal wasn't reached.
Fox's contract has five years left, but there is a window next year to get games on over-the-air TV. Look for one of the local stations to pick up some games, probably on weekends when it's easier to pre-empt network programming.
Fox Sports Net does a nice job on the games. The productions are first-rate. They've added a pregame show for every home game this year.
But cable-only games miss about 35 percent of the homes in the area. The Reds should be more concerned with the fact that they are near the bottom of baseball as far as TV revenue goes.
Fox Sports Net pays the Reds about $3 million a year in rights fees. According to Broadcasting & Cable, only the Expos, Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers get less.
The New York Yankees get $48.8 million. The Chicago Cubs, division rivals of the Reds, get $46 million. But even the teams closer to the Reds' level do much better. The Houston Astros get more than $10 million, and the Pittsburgh Pirates get more than $7 million.
The acquisition of Griffey puts the Reds in position to re-negotiate. FSN averaged a 2.1 rating for Reds broadcasts in 1998. That went up to 4.1 last year. The guess here is they'll average over 6 this year.
If a player hit 20 home runs in '98, 40 in '99 and 60 in 2000, his agent would demand that the 1998 contract be torn up. The Reds ought to act like a player if the ratings jump again.
OUTSIDE DEBUT: ESPN's Outside the Lines debuts as a weekly show at 10:30 a.m. today. The show, hosted by Bob Ley, will try to be the Nightline of sports.
Thefocus this week will be on Maine Central Institute. Tuition payments to the school by AAU coaches led to NCAA suspensions of former UC player DerMarr Johnson and several other.
MORE ESPN: ESPN will send its “A” team — Jon Miller and Joe Morgan — here to call Monday's opener. The game will be blacked out in this area.
ESPN will operate under its new contract with baseball this year. To you the viewer, that means a lot more baseball coverage. Twice as much, in fact: more than 1,000 hours of coverage.
MARTY ON HOOPS: If you listened to Marty Brennaman call any of the North Carolina-Florida game Saturday for CBS Radio, this should amaze you: Brennaman, who does only two basketball games a year, doesn't have to do any special preparation to get in the basketball mode.
“I just sit down and do it,” he said. “It usually takes me a couple trips down the floor to get into the rhythm.”
Must be like riding a bike — you never forget how. Because Brennaman is as good a basketball play-by-play man as there is.
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