Games glut

All-sports, all-the-time has caused ratings erosion

NBC has given up rights to the National Football League. It has given up rights to Major League Baseball. Now it has lost the National Basketball Association contract. NBC used to be the dominant sports network. In its retreat from sports, is it possible that NBC is smarter than the other networks? Before you answer, remember that NBC is also the network which brought us the XFL last spring -- a disaster unmatched in sports television history.

But NBC is acting on reality: Ratings in virtually all sports are plummeting. Even in those rare instances when viewership is not down, the networks are taking a bath. For example, NASCAR, which has been one of the rare TV sports successes in recent years, comes at a huge price. NASCAR ratings may have skyrocketed -- up 25 percent -- but NBC (in a joint venture with Turner Sports) and FOX, the two NASCAR networks, have paid for that increase with losses of more than $100 million.

For so long the networks took it as an article of faith that even if you lost money acquiring the rights to some sport, the contract would pay off down the road, because sports are the one attraction guaranteed to bring males -- especially young males -- to the TV set. But at some point, games became too expensive even as a loss leader. Heck, football, the great TV reliable, is no longer a sure thing. Ratings for both the Monday-night and Sunday-night NFL games -- the league's showcases -- were off 10 percent this season, accelerating a steady decline.

Why? Well, men probably aren't losing interest in sports. It's just that there is a glut of games on TV, all fighting for the same eyeballs. With more to come. After rejecting NBC's lowball offer, David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, cobbled together a deal with ABC and ESPN, Turner and AOL, that brought in as much money as the old contract, but which means even more televised games. In fact, the Turner/AOL component means a whole new NBA network. Also in the works: a new all-tennis network. Wouldn't 24 hours of just Anna Kournikova be more profitable? Or maybe that's exactly what the tennis network executives have up their sleeves.

And next month: the Winter Olympics. But is the bloom off that rose, too? The last couple Olympics have been disappointments in the U.S., both for ratings and aesthetics. NBC is banking that having the games in an American time zone will restore their popular glory. The Winter Olympics have always been more appealing to women, but NBC also is trying to rope in that elusive young-male audience. Breakneck events like hot-dog skiing and something called the skeleton are supposed to provide the chills and thrills that the XFL failed to deliver.

NBC has produced a spectacular 90-second trailer, which stars a handsome snowboarder, that will be airing this month in movie theatres and on late-night TV. Pulling out all the stops, NBC actually dragged Tonya Harding onto a ballyhooed appearance for its game show, Weakest Link. This is called synergy in the business. Or sleaze in polite company -- it's like using O.J. Simpson to promote the NFL.

But it's hard times in sports TV. Let the Games begin? Will the games never end?

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

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