Fox Brings Us Tyson At Half The Price
Don’t you think Don King’s a crook? Stripped of frills, that was the question Fox Sports president David Hill fielded so deftly.
“The Fox network is not at all leery of dealing with Don King,” Hill said. “It’s been a very pleasurable experience so far. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gone ahead for a second time.”
Ozzie Smith couldn’t have made a better shortstop play on that one, even before he was over the hill.
Saturday night, Fox brings the Don King promotion of Mike Tyson vs. Buster Mathis Jr. from Philadelphia to free TV, giving the pay-per-view challenged a rare chance to see the former world champion.
Originally, the fight was scheduled for Nov. 4, the opening Saturday night of television’s fall ratings sweeps period, but Tyson broke his thumb. For weeks, Fox sympathizers wore big thumb bandages in memoriam.
“The media would have given such extensive coverage to the fight that we had wanted to plan our entire month around it. ‘Knockout November,”’ Hill said. “We spent a lot of time in design and manufacture of promos for our sweeps schedule.”
Fox was going to pay $10 million for the first fight. Now, it’s paying about half that, so there’s your silver lining. And ratings numbers still should reach the roaring 20s.
“The ability to bring Tyson to free TV and to show the entire country what this Tyson phenomenon is all about, I think is a great honor for us,” Hill said.
Fox Sports has made a couple of changes to its original plan. Rather than three hours, the show will last two hours, 5-7 p.m. PST. And instead of Pat Summerall, the blow-by-blow announcer will be another Fox NFL man, Kevin Harlan, doing his first TV fight.
“As disappointed as I am that Pat is not doing it, we believe Kevin has a huge future as a broadcaster,” Hill said. “We acquiesced to Pat’s wishes, feeling that he’s too deep into the football season now to take a week off.”
James Brown still will be the host, with Bobby Czyz and Sean O’Grady as ringside analysts. John Madden was in Philadelphia earlier in the week to tape some segments with Tyson that will be used on the show.
Out takes
Fox owner Rupert Murdoch was known to have been keenly disappointed when NBC won the right to televise the 2000 Summer Games in Murdoch’s native Australia. Now, NBC has locked up the Olympics through the year 2008 for a total $3.57 billion.
“An absolute master stroke for Juan Antonio Samaranch and the IOC,” Hill said. “This underwrites the Olympics well into the next century because it means despite any global economic downturns, U.S. rights money is guaranteed to host cities.”
Hill also predicted it will mean a record number of cities bidding for the final three games on NBC’s agenda - 2004, 2006 and 2008.
As for NBC, Hill said, “It’s a bold, impressive move.”
Here we have the case of the copycat coach.
Terry Donahue followed Dick Vermeil to UCLA. Now, he’s following him to television as a college football analyst for CBS. He’ll work both the Fiesta and Sun bowls. Vermeil works for ABC.
“Dick and I have been great friends. I replaced him at UCLA, now it seems like I’m following him into TV work. I certainly consulted with Dick, but everybody makes their own decisions,” Donahue said.
“I had to make my own decision, but Dick was certainly helpful, because he’s been in the industry a long time. He gave me a real good view of the pluses and minuses of getting out of coaching and into broadcasting.”