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XFL only adds to the list of indignities for NBC

NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol again is under fire.

By SHARON GINN

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 23, 2001

It's getting ugly at NBC.

The rapid failure of the XFL, which the network helped Vince McMahon launch with high ratings and much fanfare seven weeks ago, is making NBC's Sydney Olympics coverage look like a ratings bonanza.

Even though network officials haven't officially backed down from their two-year, $50-million commitment to the football league, NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker this week said only that he didn't expect to pull the plug midseason after Saturday's game drew a 1.6 national rating. The rating is equivalent to a little over 1.6-million homes and is thought to equal the lowest prime-time rating for the so-called "big three" networks in Nielsen history.

All this after the embarrassment of the tape-delayed Olympics. Ratings dipped to the lowest levels for any Games in 32 years after NBC miscalculated that people would stay up past 10:30 to see major events that were 18 hours old. Though it made money on the Games, the network ended up giving free time to some advertisers to make up for the ratings shortfall.

Then there's the NBA, with ratings that are sliding and may not rise soon. NBC is in the third year of a four-year, $1.75-billion deal with the league and soon may face an expensive bidding war to retain the network rights.

At the center of the storm is NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, who was skewered often for his decisionmaking and perceived arrogance at the Olympics and is feeling the heat again. Newsweek this month wrote a two-page story on Ebersol, the XFL and the network's woes.

Privately, officials at other networks are chuckling about NBC's travails, and at least one has taken a public shot. CBS Television president Les Moonves last week asked media buyers and advertisers where they would rather target the coveted young male viewers -- on NBC's XFL and NBA programming or the NFL and NCAA basketball broadcasts on CBS?

Right now it's no contest. But industry analyst Marc Berman, who covers TV for Mediaweek, points out that NBC -- and even Ebersol -- eventually will rebound.

"Despite this calamity -- and it is -- I don't necessarily think this is the end of (Ebersol's) career," said Berman, who was a researcher at NBC for five years. "He'll either continue doing what he's doing or they'll put him somewhere else. Obviously, (the XFL) was a bad decision, but the networks sometimes make good moves, and sometimes they make bad moves."

Berman points out that Ebersol, who helped launch Saturday Night Live for NBC, also was primarily responsible for ousting Jane Pauley from the Today Show, which Berman calls "one of the biggest mistakes in the history of television ... yet he walked away with a better job (NBC Sports chairman)."

Not all the news at NBC Sports is bad. On Wednesday the network was nominated for 23 sports Emmys, more than any other network (12 were for Olympics broadcasts that were generally well done despite the tape delays). In July NBC will pick up the NASCAR coverage, which has been a ratings boon for Fox. And in recent months Ebersol secured Jim McKay, who has a lifetime contract with ABC, to appear during NBC's coverage of the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

But if the network can't make a new deal with the NBA -- at whatever cost -- it runs the risk of becoming a place sports fans tune to mainly for special events such as Wimbledon, the Olympics or tournaments featuring Tiger Woods.

"If the NBA is coming back (wanting) unrealistic amounts of money ... and NBC doesn't want to match it, I can understand that," Berman said. "Right now everything is money sensitive. But their sports franchise right now is hurting. Their whole reputation is up in the air."

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