Abc Gives Football Games New Look
A season opener of Oklahoma vs. Northwestern on Aug. 23 plus three New Year’s Day bowl games and a continuous score and clock graphic will be part of ABC’s college football coverage this season.
The network also announced Tuesday an extension of its football contract with the Pacific-10 and the addition of Dan Fouts to its broadcasting team.
The network begins its 32nd season of college football telecasting with the Pigskin Classic between Oklahoma and Northwestern at Chicago’s Soldier Field. On Aug. 24 it will show the Kickoff Classic between Syracuse and Wisconsin at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
Other big regular-season games include Florida State at Southern California at night and Tennessee at UCLA, both Sept. 6; Colorado at Michigan on Sept. 13; Nebraska at Washington and Arizona at Ohio State, both Sept. 20; Notre Dame at Michigan on Sept. 27; Miami at Florida State on Oct. 4; Ohio State at Michigan on Nov. 22, and Texas at Texas A&M and Nebraska at Colorado, both Nov. 28.
The network also will have a tripleheader Dec. 6 featuring the championship games of the Western Athletic Conference, the Big 12 and the Southeastern Conference.
ABC’s bowl lineup will begin with the Florida Citrus Bowl, to be followed by the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl.
The network also was chosen as the national network TV partner of the Bowl Alliance and will televise the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and Rose bowls, starting at the end of the 1998 season.
The network extended its coverage of Pac-10 games for six years, to 2006, making it ABC’s longest-running deal with any conference for football.
Fouts, an NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, will work as an analyst with play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger.
Irabu helps ratings
ESPN’s broadcast of Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu’s third major-league start for the New York Yankees drew ratings 35 percent above the cable network’s average for its “Sunday Night Baseball” telecast.
The Yankee’s 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers had a 2.7 rating, meaning that 1.9 million U.S. households had their televisions tuned to the game. Sunday was the first time one of Irabu’s starts was aired nationally.
ABC moves Bite Fight replay
ABC has changed the date for its replay of the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson Bite Fight. It was originally scheduled for Aug. 7 but has been moved to Aug. 14.
The replay had been set for the same night as Time Warner’s TVKO pay-per-view card featuring the rematch between Montell Griffin and Roy Jones Jr. The dueling dates angered Time Warner officials, who two months ago had signed a promotional deal with ABC-owned ESPN to hype the Griffin-Jones fight.