CBS Sports is "going out of its way to quash reports
that it plans to sell some NCAA Men's College Basketball
Tournament games to a cable network," according to John
Dempsey of DAILY VARIETY. CBS Sports President Sean McManus
outlined three main reasons why the net won't sell off the
early round games to cable outlets: 1) Protecting local
affils; 2) Continuing the NCAA's relationship with DirecTV
to carry the early-round games; 3) CBS affils could shortly
offer HDTV signals which would allow four spinoff channels
and it "would be relatively easy for the CBS stations to
employ those extra channels as outlets for the concurrent
NCAA games" (DAILY VARIETY, 11/22). In Dallas, Barry Horn
noted McManus' mentioning that early round games were
available on DBS and wrote, "Sounds like a perfect sales
pitch for DirecTV" (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 11/20).
CBS' LONG COATTAILS: In Miami, John Dorschner reported
that SportsLine got a "healthy boost in its stock price
thanks" to part-owner CBS' $6B NCAA TV rights deal. With
news of the deal on Friday, SportsLine was up $6.25, or
15.72%, to close at $46. The CBS deal might allow
SportsLine to "provide live radio broadcasts of all college
tournament basketball games via the Internet -- a move that
could greatly increase the number of visitors to the site."
Raymond James & Associates analyst Phil Leigh: "We believe
SportsLine.com users will ultimately have point-and-click
access to the entire 64-team tournament." Leigh thought the
deal would allow SportsLine to create NCAA Web sites and
sell merchandise (MIAMI HERALD, 11/20). CNBC's Bill
Griffeth asked SportsLine CEO Michael Levy if he was
"expecting some kind of revenue streams specifically from
this deal." Levy: "We certainly expect a lot of traffic to
our site, because this is the most concentrated promotion we
get on CBS." Griffeth: "But there are no hard dollars
coming from this? You're just saying it'll probably be more
from the advertising -- that you can charge more for more
eyeballs as a result of the promotion. Is that what you're
saying?" Levy: "Yeah. ... We see tremendous growth ahead in
ad sales around this tournament" ("Market Wrap," 11/19).
AD SALES FOR 2000: In the SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL,
Langdon Brockinton reports that media buyers say that some
30-second TV spots for the 2000 NCAA men's basketball finals
are "going for more than $700,000 each." But "generally
speaking," an advertiser cannot buy time on the tournament
"alone," as it must have a presence on the regular-season
schedule. One media buyer said an advertiser must spend $6M
on CBS' NCAA coverage to get a 30-second spot on the Finals,
as well as one unit in each of the Final Four semifinal
telecasts. CBS has "already sold close to" 90% of its ad
inventory for its '99-2000 NCAA men's basketball season
(SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 11/22). AD AGE's Frankel &
Friedman report that CBS received "only modest" 8-10% price
increases for its 2000 men's tournament, with 30-second
spots for the Final in the $600,000 range (AD AGE, 11/22).
