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Media
Notes By Randy Williams and George Stahl NEW YORK (AQB)--CBS Sports President Sean McManus isn't worried about the upcoming NFL realignment, despite the fact that he said he will have "almost zero" influence on the final outcome. "The good thing is [NFL Commissioner Paul] Tagliabue and his team will spend an awful lot of time trying to figure out what the realignment will do to the television packages because the television packages provide the vast, vast majority of revenue for the NFL," McManus told AQB during its daylong visit to The NFL Today set Sunday. "So he's not going to do anything that's going to invariably hurt us, Fox or ABC. He's going to do basically what's best for the league, and what's best for the league, in the end, is going to be best for the television networks." On Sunday, CBS reported that one of leading realignment proposals would create eight, four-team divisions, and would add Houston to the AFC and move Seattle to the NFC. Under that scenario, CBS would be getting the fourth-biggest television market in Houston, but it also would be losing one of its biggest markets to Fox, which already has seven of the ten largest. Nonetheless, McManus said he's not worried about it because in Paul he trusts. "Listen, the realignment may work that it's a little bit better for Fox over the next three or four years... [but] it'll all even out in the end." "I'll talk to him [Tagliabue] about it, and we'll make our case for what we think is best for CBS. But in the end, he's going to make a good decision. Every decision that Paul Tagliabue has made with respect to the league has been wonderful for television. The television properties are stronger than they've ever been. The ratings are getting stronger. In the end, McManus said, "I'll have my opinion, David Hill at Fox will have his opinion and Paul will make the right decision." NASCAR, March Madness Update McManus also updated AQB on CBS' negotiations for broadcast rights to NASCAR and college basketball. NASCAR, which will open negotiations for the rights in early November, seeks to bring some consistency to its 36-race package to make it easier for fans to know who is televising which races. CBS, Nashville Network, ABC, ESPN, TBS and NBC (on Nov. 14) currently split up the races, and Fox wants a piece of that increasingly profitable track. A possibility is one broadcast network and one cable network covering one half of the NASCAR season, and another broadcast network and cable network covering the second half. "We want it a lot. It's a very important part of our programming mix," McManus said. "It's a very important part of our programming mix, and we would very much hope that we would either maintain or increase our presence in NASCAR." CBS has the men's NCAA basketball tournament through 2002, but the network recently lost its right to negotiate exclusively with the NCAA. Reportedly, the NCAA is interested in getting a deal done for the tournament quickly; however, the organization is under no obligation to do so. And neither is CBS. "There isn't a great sense of urgency on our part, or the NCAAs part, because we've got three more years to go on the deal," McManus said, adding that the two sides have had "very productive discussions." "I would think, talking over the course of the next couple of months, hopefully we can get something done with them. "I think we've got a pretty good track record in renewing our major properties, and there's no more important property to us than the NCAA." McManus said CBS would add a cable partner to show more of the early-round games, if that's what the NCAA wanted. "If we thought with the NCAA that it was better to show some cable coverage in addition to the network coverage, we would do that. I think the way we present it right now is best for the tournament and best for the fans. If we thought differently, getting a cable partner would be the least of our problems. "The fact that it's all on network television puts it in a certain stature that's good for the tournament."
Random
musings on an NFL Sunday spent listening to the radio. Chinese water
torture would've been a more pleasant experience...
For more details and a complete list of televised sporting events for this weekend, check out ArmchairQB.com's Today's Lineup. |
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