NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, NBA Commissioner David
Stern, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and NHL Commissioner Gary
Bettman, appearing at a panel discussion at NY's Museum of
Radio and TV on Monday night, "offered up an illuminating
and often entertaining 90-minute seminar" on the role TV,
radio and the Internet "play in their respective games,"
according to Leonard Shapiro of the WASHINGTON POST.
Shapiro: "Predictably, hardly a discouraging word about the
future of their sports -- not even the NBA's disappointing
regular season ratings on NBC and TNT -- was heard."
Shapiro adds that Stern "may even have a future as a media
critic considering his very welcome comments on the
increasingly troubled trend of yuk-it-up broadcasts now seen
nightly on ESPN -- the main culprit -- as well as Fox,
CNN/SI and even local sportscasts." Stern: "I think they
need a director or a producer to tell them to get on with
their report. I guess that if that's what people watching
ESPN want, that's what they want. But I don't know if it
is. Our experience is that it's all about the game. You
start from a fan base that wants to know about the game. If
you want to have in-depth reporting on athletes, that's
fine. But when it becomes about the next wisecrack, it
cheapens the game. I think someone should bring some order
to the asylum." Selig "concurred": "Levity is fine once and
a while. But sports fans do tune in to see what the score
is and how their team did. They're also supposed to be
journalists. I think the line has been crossed, quite
candidly." Shapiro writes that all four commissioners
"agreed their sports are likely to remain on network TV for
the foreseeable future." They also agreed that the Internet
"offers virtually unlimited possibilities in keeping their
current fans, nurturing new ones and, as Stern said, in
providing 'enormous revenue opportunities.'"
STERN POINTS FIGURE AT...: Stern, on the NBA's recent
attempt to mic coaches and players: "We'll look back and
laugh at this issue in five years as NASCAR puts cameras in
every car and the XFL puts whatever, wherever. I don't
think tape delays or sound bites from the huddle will be a
major threat to democracy." Stern added the move "wasn't
the networks'" decision. Stern: "That was me. It became a
fascinating experience as the newspaper clips piled all
around me" (WASHINGTON POST, 4/26). Stern said that "some
of the NBA ratings' shortfall was self-inflicted as the
league and NBC ... scheduled a number of games in prime time
on Saturdays," which was a time that was "unfamiliar to many
of its fans." Stern added the number of Saturday night
games next season will be "dramatically" reduced. Stern, on
"supposition in some media corners that the league
engineered its first-round series to try to get maximum
exposures" for Raptors F Vince Carter: "That's a figment of
the media's imagination. The only person who can lead, in
that respect, is the person whose team wins. The notion
that we're scheduling one particular thing so that Vince
Carter can be on ... is bizarre" (Baltimore SUN, 4/26).
NETWORKS HAPPY? NBC Sports Chair Dick Ebersol tells USA
TODAY's Rudy Martzke the net expects "a slight dip" in NBA
playoff ratings this weekend "because we have Game 3s."
Ebersol, on the extended first-round series schedule: "The
ratings don't seem to bear out it's the fans who are
complaining. It's the media and coaches." Turner Sports
President Mark Lazarus: "People are criticizing this as
drawn out, but you get to see every game. Some people were
complaining that you couldn't see every game in the NCAAs"
(USA TODAY, 4/26). Pilson Communications President Neal
Pilson, "along with media buying sources, suggest that NBC
may have to issue make-good advertising spots to some
advertisers because of rating 'deficiencies' during the
course of the regular season." But J. Walter Thompson Exec
Dir of National Broadcast Ron Fredrick said that he heard
that NBC "had sold out most of the regular season and
postseason inventory in advance of the NBA season." NBC
sales execs "suggested that all of the network's postseason
ad inventory is sold out" (ELECTRONIC MEDIA, 4/24 issue).
