When this month’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship games are reduced to television images in offices, bars and homes around town, March Madness becomes TV trauma.
These are, after all, the only days when so many alumni of different Midwestern universities have simultaneous interest in their alma maters’ sporting chances.
Consider the possibilities. WBBM-Ch. 2 has. Among teams the local CBS outlet thinks might be selected Sunday for the NCAA tournament field of 64, here’s the station’s “Top 10” alumni-and-student populations in WBBM’s Chicago market viewing audience:
1. Illinois; 2. Illinois-Chicago; 3. Illinois State; 4. Purdue; 5. Indiana; 6. Iowa, Marquette, Valparaiso (three-way tie); 9. Michigan State; and 10. Michigan.
Compiling the list was not just an academic exercise, says Jim Berman, WBBM director of programming and research. That fan base, along with a viewers’ hotline, will be used to choose which games Channel 2 will show whenever there’s a conflict because two or more of the above are playing in different games at the same time.
After the 64 teams and opening-round matchups are announced (5:30 p.m. Sunday on CBS and ESPN), CBS Sports will select telecasts for various markets.
Then, local stations have until midday Tuesday to request changes in Thursday’s opening games, midday Wednesday for Friday’s games, Berman says. “We’ll encourage viewers to phone and voice their choice of what games they want to see.”
To do so, they should call 773-282-1160, an around-the-clock hotline at WSCR-AM.
Hotline callers may also decide other matchups, such as whether WBBM shows a top seed versus a No. 16 seed, or No. 8 versus No. 9.
CBS Sports will have Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and ex-North Carolina coach Dean Smith in the studio throughout the tournament. Eight duos will blanket all the regional games. Headed by Jim Nantz and Billy Packer, who will work all the way through the Final Four and championship game March 28-29 at the Alamodome, San Antonio, the play-by-play and analyst pairings are Sean McDonough-Bill Raftery, Gus Johnson-Jon Sundvold, Tim Brando-Al McGuire, Ted Robinson-Rolando Blackman, Jim Durham-Greg Kelser, Tim Ryan-Dan Bonner and Ian Eagle-Jim Spanarkel.
ESPN (Expand, Start Presses Now!): Guaranteeing advertisers 350,000 circulation upfront, projecting it will double that by year’s end and vowing not to have a swimsuit issue, ESPN The Magazine will hit newsstands next week.
The larger-page biweekly (every two weeks) will be distinct in other ways from existing sports magazines, particularly Sports Illustrated, by focusing not on games played by individuals or teams, but on “what happens next for that individual, that team,” said editor-in-chief John Papanek. “Our approach will be to spin forward.”
Papanek said Sports Illustrated, his employer for 19 years, “doesn’t aim at the 28-year-old as opposed to the 35-year-old.”
Presumably, that’s a distinction ESPN The Magazine will make in targeting what Papanek called “younger sports fans.” What is that audience reading now? His examples included Wired, Spin and Rolling Stone.
Good gamble? Dave Maloney, studio NHL hockey analyst for Fox Sports, says he has seen the potential in 6-foot-4-inch center Chad Kilger, 22, that prompted Hawks General Manager Bob Murray to trade defensemen Keith Carney and Jim Cummins to Phoenix Wednesday for Kilger and defenseman Jay More.
Kilger, drafted fourth by Anaheim in 1995, “was a great player in junior hockey . . . big, fast, good hands.” Despite his slow NHL career thus far, “it’s tough to give up on a player that goes that high in the draft,” Maloney said.
Not that sweet! Saturday’s showdown between Julio Cesar Chavez vs. Miguel Angel Gonzalez was supposed to feature Christy Martin and three other women boxers on the undercard. But they were dropped this week when the Mexican government reinstated a 1947 national rule prohibiting female boxing.
Mexico City’s Plaza de Toros should be filled for the Chavez-Gonzalez World Boxing Council super-lightweight title bout. Showtime Entertainment Television is betting it will also draw plenty of fans to pay-per-view TV. The bout and undercard air at 8 p.m.
Sofa surfing: Before Roberto Clemente died in a 1972 plane crash on a charitable mission to earthquake-ravaged Nicaragua from his native Puerto Rico, his baseball skills and humanitarian spirit were underappreciated. Both are well documented in a Fox Sports Net film-biography,”Clemente,” airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on Fox Sports Chicago. . . . After CBS showcases the NCAA’s hoops selection on Sunday, the network’s “60 Minutes” is primed to take a tough look at coach Jerry Tarkanian’s basketball program at Fresno State University. Even before Mike Wallace interviews Tarkanian, introductions to five of his players list their problems from arrests and convictions for assault and battery to suspension for drug use.
