NBC remains bullish on mini NBA season
Ratings in jeopardy
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Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports, said during a telephone hookup with reporters that "at the end of last summer, we were 50% sold-out in the NBA schedule, and I don't know of one single advertiser whose money has gone away" despite a lockout that canceled all scheduled games starting Nov. 3.
And getting advertisers to buy the remaining spots in the NBA schedule at high prices may not be all that difficult, he added. "We're in the unusual situation of being able to tap into an abundant amount of money that's available in the first quarter, partly because there's no Winter Olympics this year," Ebersol said.
NBC will have lost only five NBA telecasts to the lockout (a Christmas Day doubleheader and three weekend games in January). Although the NBA mathematicians are still putting the final touches on the new regular-season schedule, which will stretch through the first week in May (two weeks later than the original blueprint), Ebersol says NBC will add only three or four additional regular-season games, which will go into that late April/early May period.
The NBA won't change its post-season playoff-game and championship-game schedule, except that it will start two weeks later than the original schedule and climax on or about June 29, instead of June 20.
The ratings of NBC's games could fall off because of: 1) viewer disenchantment with the owners and players, whose confrontational antagonism caused the loss of almost half the season, and 2) the possible retirement of Michael Jordan, whose Chicago Bulls telecasts consistently draw NBC's top NBA ratings.
Ebersol said he expects rabid NBA viewers to be in front of their TV sets in force when NBC's telecasts begin, at least in part because "the greatest fan interest in the national product doesn't really begin until" early February, when the Super Bowl has ended, turning pro football fans loose to concentrate more on the NBA.
With regard to Jordan, NBC will protect itself if the superstar retires by scheduling backup regional games on the dates it schedules Bulls' telecasts, Ebersol said.
