SportsDay

Panthers-Eagles matchup didn't rate with local fans

By BOB WOLFLEY of the Journal Sentinel staff

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Milwaukee viewers were not as interested in watching the NFL's conference championship games this season compared to last season.

Assuming the overnight ratings for the games Sunday don't differ from the final, the Carolina at Philadelphia game had a rating 17% lower than the NFC Championship Game the year before, Tampa Bay at Philadelphia.

The AFC Championship Game, Indianapolis at New England, had a rating 4% lower than the previous season, when Tennessee played at Oakland.

The Carolina-Philadelphia game, carried on WITI-TV (Channel 6), had a local rating of 26.5, or 230,947 television households. Tampa Bay-Philadelphia last season had a 31.9 rating. The Indianapolis-New England game had a 24.4 on WDJT-TV (Channel 58), compared with 25.4 for Oakland-Tennessee in 2003.

This season in the Milwaukee market, the highest rating for an NFL game not involving the Packers was a Jan. 10 NFC playoff game, Carolina at St. Louis (28.5).

Nationally, the AFC game had an overnight rating of 26.6, up 3% from last year. The NFC game got a 25.0 national mark, down about 8% from last year.

The national overnight ratings measure the 55 largest TV markets in the United States, covering nearly 70% of the country.

Sports money ball

In a center-spread story in the Jan. 12-18 edition of SportsBusiness Journal titled "Political Hardball," the magazine examines the link between politics and sports leagues.

The story is accompanied by a chart with some of the contributions made to presidential campaigns by owners or executives in sports through the third quarter of 2003.

For example, it shows Wendy Selig-Prieb of the Brewers made a $1,000 donation to Dick Gephardt, a Democrat running for President.

SportsBusiness Journal says the biggest political contributors in sports in the 2001-'02 political cycle were Indiana Pacers owner Melvin Simon, who gave $2,029,500 to Democrats between 2001-'02; Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, who gave $1,861,500, 99% which went to Democrats; and Cincinnati Reds owner Carl Lindner, who gave $1,344,000, 90% to Republicans.

NBA Commissioner David Stern gave $334,050 in that period, 96% to Democrats.

Limit Cable Cam

If granted the authority, as a Prince of the Sports Broadcasting Realm, I'd order National Football League TV game directors to severely limit the use the "Cable Cam" angle, those shots provided by the camera on a cable stretched over the field.

The angle should be used mostly in replay, not live action.

It should not be used for live shots of kickoffs, because it's hard to pick up the ball or ball carrier and impossible to get a sense of the depth of the return.

When it's positioned behind the quarterback, as it usually is, it does give the viewer a sense of what the quarterback is seeing, but on some pass plays receivers aren't shown in frame or they run out of frame. It works better on running plays.

On third and short, the angle should never be used because the first-down marker is the only thing that matters and that's best handled from a high, side angle, not from the back where you can't judge how far the ball carrier has advanced.

Rivers praises Cassell

During the ABC-TV telecast of the Minnesota at Houston National Basketball Association game Saturday, Brad Nessler noted that Timberwolves guard Sam Cassell was not in the top 10 in fan voting for the All-Star Game.

Fan voting is just one component of determining all-star rosters.

Game analyst Doc Rivers said he thought Cassell's role on a team that's had a terrific first half of the season would put Cassell in the All-Star Game.

"I'd be very surprised if Sam did not make the All-Star Game roster," Rivers said.

Cassell has never been an all-star in his 10 seasons in the league.

DayLights

Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, referring to the coaching decisions made by St. Louis' Mike Martz and Green Bay's Mike Sherman in the second round the NFL playoffs: "Get me rewrite on the phrase, 'Be like Mike.' " . . .

Former Brewers TV broadcaster Matt Vasgersian was hired as host of the television coverage of the World Series of Blackjack this month at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. It will be televised in March on GSN, the network for games.

Call SportsDay at (414) 223-5531 or send e-mail to bwolfley@journalsentinel.com

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