Welcome to TV Land

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Nov. 15, 2001 | 10:56 a.m.

Despite its disappointing 3-7 record heading into the season finale on Saturday at Air Force, John Robinson's UNLV football team has had a milestone season.

For the first time since the school began playing football in 1968 under Bill Ireland, every Rebel game will have been televised live locally, including two on ABC network television and two more nationally on ESPN cable. Two others were shown on ESPN Plus cable to several areas around the United States.

To put it in perspective, before Robinson took over for Jeff Horton following an 0-11 campaign in 1998, UNLV had appeared on national TV a grand total of nine times.

The school will reap about $1 million from the Mountain West's TV deal with ABC/ESPN, which is split equally eight ways among its members. The maximum number of appearances per school under that deal is six, which the Rebels will accomplish on Saturday with their second ESPN Plus broadcast.

UNLV garnered another $300,000 from a secondary deal with SportsWest, a regional broadcast network that distributes the games to local stations such as KLAS-TV (Channel 8), KFBT (Gold 33, Cable 6) and Las Vegas One (Cable 39).

Although UNLV struggled on the field this year, the Rebels dominated the local Neilsen ratings, squashing most of the other sporting competition on Las Vegas television.

For instance, when the Rebels hosted San Diego State on Oct. 13 at Sam Boyd Stadium in a game that was shown on the West Coast by ABC, UNLV's game finished with a solid 4.7 rating. Compare that to a 2.0 for the Pac-10 showdown between UCLA and Washington, a 2.8 for Notre Dame-West Virginia or a dismal 0.5 for USC-Arizona State.

In fact, the UNLV-San Diego State game even finished ahead of the Mariners-Indians AL playoff game (3.9).

A Neilsen rating is the percentage of TV homes tuned in to a particular program.

It wasn't just Las Vegas that tuned into the Rebels. In the Los Angeles area Neilsen ratings, the UNLV-San Diego State game drew a 2.3 rating, just behind USC-Arizona State (2.9) and way behind UCLA-Washington (6.0) -- but ahead of games such as Purdue-Michigan (2.0), West Virginia-Notre Dame (1.7) and Florida-Auburn (1.5).

But there is a trade-off for TV exposure, especially when it comes to live broadcasts of local games. The Rebels just missed setting a single-season attendance record with an average of 24,503. If 1,485 more fans had passed through the turnstiles, UNLV would have broken the mark of 24,799 set in 1981 under Tony Knapp when just one game -- at Wyoming -- was televised.

Terry Cottle, UNLV's associate athletic director in charge of sports marketing, estimated each live broadcast probably cost the school between 2,000 to 4,000 walk-up sales per game.

And local high school officials were upset when UNLV agreed to move two games to Friday night at ESPN's request so they could be shown on national cable TV. One of those games, a Sept. 14 date against Colorado State, was later rescheduled to a Saturday (Oct. 20) because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Although Cottle more than likely lost his chance at a school record because of the TV broadcasts, he understands the value in doing it.

"I think from the standpoint of the big picture -- exposure and trying to penetrate the market -- it's good to have every game on TV," Cottle said. "There's no question it hurts you at the turnstiles for home games. But that's part of the give-and-take and the pluses and minuses of being on TV.

"In the big picture, which is recruiting, kids want to be on TV. It helps you get better athletes, better athletes help coaches become better coaches, and then you win. So in the end it's a positive."

Cottle was asked about the possibility of blacking out home games or showing them on tape delay.

"I wouldn't mind having that option," he said.

Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson says UNLV does have that option.

"There's nothing that says they have to televise all their home games," Thompson said. "They could probably negotiate that some be shown on tape delay, but I don't think they'd get the rights fees they're getting currently."

"I think its very important that our games be televised," Robinson said. "Obviously, the season is disappointing and all, but I think the fact all the games are broadcast is indicative of where we are moving to as a program. We certainly have optimism about being on TV from now on."

UNLV recruiting coordinator Joe Hubbard said TV, especially the ESPN and ABC games, has been a big plus when it comes to recruiting.

"That's awesome," Hubbard said. "I call my recruits on Sunday nights. Even if we have lost (on TV), a recruit might say, 'Wow, I can do better than that guy.' And then I tell him, 'Then come on over.' It gives you exposure to a lot of kids. The key is to play well and to play hard.

"In the future, when we grow into a really good football team, being on TV each week will be almost second nature for us. At USC (where Hubbard coached with Robinson in the mid-90s) we never even thought about it. The game was just on TV each week."

Speaking of the future, what about UNLV's TV prospects for next year?

Even though the Rebels had a disappointing season this year, they still have a lot of marketable names when its comes to TV drawing power.

"I think the fact they bring back players like Jason Thomas, Joe Haro and Dominique Dorsey will make them an attractive team for television," said Bob Burda, assistant commissioner of the Mountain West Conference. "And their schedule is an attractive one, too. The fact UNLV is located in the Pacific time zone is also a plus. They can move a game to late in the afternoon so it can be the second game of a doubleheader on the East Coast."

UNLV's next season opener against Big Ten power Wisconsin at Sam Boyd Stadium, tentatively set for Saturday, Aug. 31, would seem to be a cinch for television.

"I know TV is looking at that game since it is on Labor Day weekend and everything," Burda said. "I think they're waiting right now for the schedules to be finalized so they can see what other games are on that weekend."

The Mountain West likely won't finalize its 2002 schedule until March. But then the TV networks can move games around to better fit their plans.

Such was the case last year when UNLV moved its opener at Arkansas to a Thursday night, so it could be shown nationally on ESPN. The Rebels moved their next game against Northwestern to a Friday night for the same purpose.

"It's a trade-off that is definitely worth making for the publicity and exposure, not only for the athletic department, but the entire university," UNLV senior associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie said.

"I don't really see any negatives. I think there are a lot of teams in America who wish they could say they had all 11 of their games shown on live TV this year."