Rangers on TV more next season

By AL PICKETT / Sports Editor

Good news for local Texas Rangers' fans.

Fox Sports Southwest announced Thursday that it has reached a multi-year agreement with LIN Television to sub-license cable television rights to Texas Rangers baseball games, beginning in the 1997 season.

The agreement means a total of 130 games will be broadcast on Fox Sports Southwest, which is channel 32 on TCI Cablevision in Abilene.

Lin Television, which last year acquired all Texas Rangers' television rights, will sub-license to Fox Sports Southwest 60 games that will be televised on an exclusive basis to the network's entire five-state region of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of New Mexico.

Fox Sports Southwest will also distribute an additional 70 games in all areas except the Dallas and Austin markets, which will be able to view those games on LIN Television's two Metroplex TV stations.

Longtime Texas Rangers play-by-play announcer Mark Holtz and former Rangers general manager-turned television analyst Tom Grieve will team to call all the games.

Fox Sports Southwest (formerly Prime Sports Southwest) had been the exclusive cable television home of the Rangers since 1983, with the exception of last year.

Last year's exclusion angered Rangers' fans statewide. Locally, TCI Cablevision responded to upset viewers' demands by putting nearly 90 Rangers' games on its preview channel in Abilene only. But cable viewers in the outlying areas were left without the ability to see the Rangers.

Now all area cable subscribers which receive Fox Sports Southwest will be able to see 130 games this season.

"This will allow more fans in the outer markets to see more Texas Rangers' games in 1997," said Texas Rangers' president and general partner Tom Schieffer.

"The Fox Sports Southwest agreement assure every Rangers' game available for local telecast will be seen throughout the entire Rangers' territory," added William Murphy, LIN Television director of sports sales. "The partnership with Fox Sports Southwest and LIN Television guarantees that Rangers' fans will get the highest quality local telecast available anywhere in the country."