Columnist Tim Graham: The Football Network promises nonstop gridiron action

Tim Graham

Wednesday, Oct. 28, 1998 | 11:37 a.m.

Tim Graham's media notebook appears Wednesday. His page 1 column appears Thursday. Reach him at tim@lasvegassun.com or 259-4078.

They laughed at the guys who conceived ESPN.

They howled even harder when ESPN2 was dreamed up.

They rolled on the ground when the Golf Channel was proposed.

They begged for mercy when the Classic Sports Network emerged.

Jantonio Turner hears the giggles now.

Turner has spent the last two years formulating The Football Network. After teeing up the 24-hour gridiron channel for a one-month trial in September, he is ready to kick it off.

"I would come home from work on the weekend," Turner explained, "turn on ESPN to find out what happened that day, and they would show three little clips and then go to golf. Then they would go from golf to hockey.

"That's when I said there should be a network dedicated to football."

The Los Angeles-based network is open to airing anything that deals with America's great spectator sport.

There will be live games, mostly consisting of college, prep and fringe pro leagues. Turner is considering the creation of the first national high school title game.

Additional programming will come from highlight shows, coaches' shows, news conferences and football-related movies like "The Longest Yard," "North Dallas Forty" and "Brian's Song."

"People can go to the networks and watch the big games and then come back to us for the other six days of the week," Turner said. "We don't mind that.

"When you look at football it's not just the game that's interesting. It's the tradition and the rivalry and the history of the game. That's all available for us to expose."

Turner admitted The Football Network won't be able to capitalize on the Tuesday-through-Friday void created by the NBA lockout. He predicted the full-time launch will happen after this year's Super Bowl.

The Football Network test run hit the airwaves Sept. 5 and was received by about 1.5 million homes with large satellite dishes.

"That's what the cable companies needed to see to show we were real and that we were a presence," Turner said.

Now the network is working with the National Cable Television Cooperative, an agency that represents more than 5,300 cable systems with 8.5 million subscribers.

The NCTC can help place the Football Network. Turner also is negotiating with small dish companies like DirecTV and EchoStar.

In analyzing The Football Network's prospects, Turner uses the Golf Channel as a model. The links-exclusive station debuted in 1995 to a reported 155,000 homes. After investing $135 million, it is on track to reach 25 million homes by the end of this year.

More March Madness

Finally, college basketball fans will be able to watch whatever NCAA tournament game they want rather than swallow whatever CBS tries to feed them.

CBS and DirecTV announced a deal on Tuesday to broadcast out-of-region tourney games via pay-per-view. Subscribers to the satellite company (approximately 4.1 million homes) will be able to select whatever game they choose from the first three rounds in addition to what CBS offers.

Prices have not been determined.

Static

ESPN2 reported its "Friday Night Fights" series has more than doubled viewership for that time slot. For the first four weeks, ESPN2 has averaged an 0.9 rating (517,000 homes), an increase of 127 percent for the same time period in 1997. ... Three Disney networks -- ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 -- will combine to air 64 U.S. soccer games through 2002. The games will include friendly matches, World Cup qualifiers and U.S. Cup tournaments. ... Fox Sports Net announced plans to broadcast the sixth annual Major League Baseball Japan All-Star Series next month. The eight-game exhibition tour pits top U.S. players against their Japanese counterparts at the Tokyo Dome. It starts Nov. 6. ... FX offers a Saturday night Pac-10 basketball package this season. The schedule opens Jan. 2 with Arizona at UCLA. ... Calls have been coming in from readers who have not been able to find "The Power and the Glory" CD from NFL Films (reviewed in this space Oct. 14). According to NFL Flims, the main outlets are Circuit City, Kmart, Sam Goody, Target, Wal-Mart and select Tower Records locations.