Wednesday, January 8, 1997

Cowboys, warts and all, are still big ratings grabbers

By Mike Bruton / Knight-Ridder Newspapers (Jan. 8, 1997)

(KRT)

As the Cowboys went down in flames without ceremony Sunday afternoon, it occurred to me that the line of long faces might extend well past the Dallas bench.

The gloom might have descended upon NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and his team of suits at the league office. It could have crept into the psyches of the millions of Cowboys fans who love the Pokes because of the lack of something positive in their lives to love.

One would definitely think that Fox Sports, now preparing to broadcast its first Super Bowl, on Jan. 26, was as pancaked as Deion Sanders on the play that sent him to the sideline with a big headache.

Remember that as beleaguered as Dallas might be by the problems brought about by the conduct of some of the team's players and the not-so-benign neglect fostered by owner Jerry Jones and coach Barry Switzer, the Cowboys are the biggest ratings grabbers in the NFL.

Consider that only a victory this weekend by the New England Patriots would guarantee a team for Super Bowl XXXI from one of the nation's top television markets.

As cute as the Packers' leaps into the stands are, Green Bay is still a backwater village as a TV market.

The thought of a matchup between second-year expansion teams Carolina and Jacksonville must strike sheer terror in the heart of Fox Sports executive producer Ed Goren.

Not so, say the people at Fox.

"Our job is to broadcast the game," said a Fox Sports spokesman. "No matter who wins next week, we'll be there with bells on to broadcast Super Bowl XXXI."

That's a fairly predictable response, and it promotes the notion that if more than 138 million people watched Super Bowl XXX, they did so because the game has come to be an Event &emdash; not because Dallas and Pittsburgh played each other.

There's some truth to that, because before that game, the last time the outcome of a Super Bowl was in question in the fourth quarter was in 1991, when the New York Giants held on to beat Buffalo, 20-19.

The last time the AFC won a Super Bowl was in 1984, when the Raiders torched the Washington Redskins, 38-9.

Yet through the years the Super Bowl remained one of the highest-rated programs of any sort on television.

There is a little gremlin gumming up the works this season, however. Regular-season ratings on NFL games were down across the board.

Fox averaged an 11.3 (each point equals 970,000 homes), down from the 12.5 of a year ago. NBC did a 10.9, down from 11.1 in 1995. "Monday Night Football" on ABC did a 16.2, down from 17.0.

Let's say the Jaguars and the Panthers end up in the Louisiana Superdome on Super Sunday and the ratings for the game, though handsome compared with a normal telecast, are down compared with recent Super Bowls.

Could the networks ask for the same outrageous advertising fees for Super Bowl XXXII? Probably. Would they get those fees? Maybe.

That's why the networks are in loud dispute with the way Nielsen has handled the 1996 ratings.

Because Nielsen added 1,000 more metered homes, the networks contend that the ratings only appear to be down and that just as many, if not more, people watched pro football in 1996 as they did in 1995.

The networks point to the disparity between the overnight ratings (an average taken from the top 33 to 35 markets) in 1996 and the national numbers.

For example, Fox Sports' overnight average was 14.3, a full three points higher than the national average. Before those 1,000 homes were added, the nationals usually were slightly below the overnights.

"I can't believe," said the Fox spokesman, "that there are that many more people in smaller markets who are not watching NFL games."

(Mike Bruton is a sports columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Write to him at: The Philadelphia Inquirer, 400 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19130.)

(c) 1997, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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