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More Saturday night sports on ABC?

I've long known sports would be ideal for Saturday night; it brings eyeballs, mostly young, male viewers that advertisers crave. The next step is for other networks to copy the formula. Fox will probably be last to do so, with its winning lineup of COPS and AMW, along with the CW.

The article says basketball or college basketball could take over the time period. That still leaves the April-August, or June-August, months unfilled. ABC doesn't show NEXTEL Cup racing until September when the Chase starts.

Hmm... do I see "Saturday Night Baseball" in the future? And could that come with a few extra, unimportant, games in a little something called the LCS?
 
You Are Correct Sir!

This is the best strategy I've any of the over-the-air networks doing

on Saturday Nights so far.

At first I was afraid that ABC wouldn't do well without the NFL

like CBS did after losing it the first time.

But Saturday Night Football is a winner.

Now all they need to do is put college basketball,

acquire the LCS/Game package, and that will at least carry them over

to September 2nd when they will televise their first NASCAR Race in 7 years.

The only problem is that the LCS deal will acquire a nightly program ala

Baseball Tonight. I'm certain they can squeeze it in during the late night alongside

Jimmy Kimmel and Nightline.

But this is great if they pull this off.
 
Hold on, pardners. Its not so much that its "Sports" but its "College Football"..or..."football"....and every freaking game counts...unlike college hoops.. where as long as you finish in the top 65, THEN you get excited..

If ABC..um..ESPN unloads hoops on ABC, it would be more for bragging rights, and that much less ABC has to spend on programming. It would be more of a favor to Disney than anything....Ratings wouldnt match football.

A reference needs to be made to the current contractual status of the networks with conferences for hoops. Sometimes the Lincolns and Raycoms of the world have a few saturday nights slots for ACC and SEC fare. Not sure theyd be too happy giving that over to ABC
 
Studio20 said:
Hold on, pardners. Its not so much that its "Sports" but its "College Football"..or..."football"....and every freaking game counts...unlike college hoops.. where as long as you finish in the top 65, THEN you get excited..

If ABC..um..ESPN unloads hoops on ABC, it would be more for bragging rights, and that much less ABC has to spend on programming. It would be more of a favor to Disney than anything....Ratings wouldnt match football.

A reference needs to be made to the current contractual status of the networks with conferences for hoops. Sometimes the Lincolns and Raycoms of the world have a few saturday nights slots for ACC and SEC fare. Not sure theyd be too happy giving that over to ABC
Click to expand...
At first glance, it's not much different from college football... but as it stands ABC has a piss-poor situation when it comes to college basketball, broadcasting only one or two games in sporadic weeks, usually the Pac-10 or Big 12, or minor ACC games.

What would be more likely to happen is ESPN using its existing contracts to provide college basketball. ESPN isn't really losing anything, and the conferences are ecstatic. They're probably ecstatic anyway; CBS, as it stands, is the only broadcast network providing college basketball. That relegates the Big 12, Big East, and I think ACC (!) championships to ESPN, which, due to CBS' dearth of regular season games, is the true dominant provider of college basketball. (Don't diss the regular season games. Games like North Carolina-Duke and conference championships beat ABC's NBA regular-season coverage in the ratings.)

The thrust of the article talks more about the NBA, and specifically, the obstacles to it. Any new Saturday night package would require a tweaking in ESPN's contract with the NBA, and would be highly unlikely this season. If it were to happen this season, start times for games would have to be tweaked all over, which is easier to do in college.

You have a point about college football, but if we look at the ratings we see that non-sports Saturday primetime often gets 3's and 4's in overall viewers. A high 2 would probably be good enough in the money demos to keep advertisers happy. For the biggest college basketball games, the ratings can reach the 2.6-2.8 range. And imagine a day where ABC takes over for CBS' long run as the broadcaster of March Madness - Dickie V will finally be able to call the NCAA Tournament, baby!

(At the least, it's better than putting on My Network TV!)
The only problem is that the LCS deal will acquire a nightly program ala

Baseball Tonight. I'm certain they can squeeze it in during the late night alongside

Jimmy Kimmel and Nightline.
Click to expand...
About the nightly Baseball Tonight-style program: I wonder if ESPN would be open to losing another Sunday tradition, this time moving it to Saturday, while NBC, Fox, or CW takes over on Sunday night at 8, with a highlight show at 7, a la NBC's Sunday Night Football.

Barring that, I'm not sure MLB really has broadcast networks, which are more general-purpose, in mind with the "nightly program" (as though Baseball Tonight doesn't do a good enough job of that!). If they're really pursuing more cable than anything else, they're making a big mistake; the NBA splits their conference finals between a broadcast partner and a cable partner, but it's really ESPN and TNT, not ABC and TNT. The broadcast/cable divide still exists and matters; if one's on cable the other is too, if one's on broadcast the other is too, simple as that.

Of course I've only heard about this stipulation from speculation on this board, so I don't know if it's even being pressed. But I do know that one potential cable ally - TBS - isn't going to stand for it because it's as general purpose as a network and the deal would probably require adding even more regular season games. ESPN and Versus won't stand for it because MLB wants to produce it itself.

If ABC does pull this off, you'll see one of these things happen to the highlights show:
*Very late night when no one watches
*Only once a week, before the game or as competition for SNL
*Syndicated, not on ABC at all
*On ESPN or ESPN2, complementing or supplanting Baseball Tonight
*What could be most likely: On ESPNEWS complementing Baseball Tonight

Frankly, though, I think MLB will have to back off that demand. Unless someone can cite something firmer than other posts on here, I'm skeptical they're even demanding it at all. As I said on the "other LCS deal" thread, I think MLB's concern comes down to wanting the other LCS on broadcast. But what do I know? Probably nothing.
 
I`m sure Comcast will give serious thought to the remaining MLB package for Versus, MLB highlights, regular season package & all if it`ll help them get into the big leagues after losing out on the NFL, otherwise Morgan, i`m sure you`re right about other entities not being interested in anything besides the LCS games. About NASCAR/ABC/ESPN, i`d definitely expect to see races on Saturday nights next summer (July-Sept.) whenever possible when Disney takes over the rights to much of the second half of the season (TNT`ll still carry some races).
 
jellyeggs said:
I`m sure Comcast will give serious thought to the remaining MLB package for Versus, MLB highlights, regular season package & all if it`ll help them get into the big leagues after losing out on the NFL, otherwise Morgan, i`m sure you`re right about other entities not being interested in anything besides the LCS games. About NASCAR/ABC/ESPN, i`d definitely expect to see races on Saturday nights next summer (July-Sept.) whenever possible when Disney takes over the rights to much of the second half of the season (TNT`ll still carry some races).
Click to expand...
http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2007/data/schedule.html

ABC only has the Chase for the Nextel Cup. TNT and ESPN have the rest of the second half.
 
Thanks for the clarification & link Morgan, guess that means no Nascar on ABC unless it`s on Sunday Afternoons.
 
ABC's Saturday-night college football has been a success,
I think, for two reasons: (1) lack of any meaningful competiton,
and (2) some marquee matchups (such as Ohio State-Texas,
then ranked 1-2). As long as this continues, ABC should be
in good shape.

I'd like to see college basketball on ABC Saturday nights this
winter, but there are some teams they'll have difficulty getting:
SEC teams like Florida and Kentucky whose games usually air
on CBS. UCLA can't play Arizona or Duke play North Carolina
every week and, as one poster pointed out, interest doesn't
really pick up until March Madness. Still, if ABC can get enough
ranked teams and really promote it, it could work. The NBA? Maybe,
but the ratings aren't what they were in the Michael Jordan era.
Yet because college basketball is essentially a regional thing
(most of us in North Carolina couldn't care less about, say, the Illini or
Indiana unless one of our schools is playing them), I think the
NBA might make better sense from a national standpoint.
 
The answer for ABC Saturday Night Sports is the NBA...and I think it could work.

Why are basketball ratings down? To me, it's a simple answer. Because you don't have many games on broadcast networks (i.e. NBC's double and tripleheader coverage) many of a main demo for the NBA (how do I say this...people who can't afford cable) no longer watch the national games. As a result, ratings (but not pocketbooks) suffer. The answer: Saturday Night Basketball. Think of the possibilities: Spurs/Mavs, Suns/Lakers, Heat/Pistons, Celtics/Sixers, Bulls/Knicks...I can hear John Tesh playing my song already!
 
I'd had thoughts in the past of why didn't ABC or CBS carry weekly college football games on Saturday nights. Once I read where ABC had plans to do it, I also had the thought of why not add Saturday night NBA basketball and MLB baseball. Has someone at ABC been reading my mind? ;D

Didn't ABC come close to having year round sports on Monday nights when they had both Monday Night Football and MLB baseball in the 70's and 80's?
 
No keep March Madness and the Final Four Championship game on CBS. They do such a great job of coverage and all. ABC maybe could play a part in March Madness by showing some games as you aren't able to see all the games at once on CBS. Wait better idea for CBS just use your sister network The CW. As during halftime CBS couldn't show highlights of the other games as ABC would have rights to them. Plus with The CW having some sort of sports would help them. I had the same idea for when UPN was around.

ABC could always show College Hockey on Saturday nights after College Football is done. No one has that contract if their is even one. lol
 
Ken said:
No keep March Madness and the Final Four Championship game on CBS. They do such a great job of coverage and all. ABC maybe could play a part in March Madness by showing some games as you aren't able to see all the games at once on CBS. Wait better idea for CBS just use your sister network The CW. As during halftime CBS couldn't show highlights of the other games as ABC would have rights to them. Plus with The CW having some sort of sports would help them. I had the same idea for when UPN was around.

ABC could always show College Hockey on Saturday nights after College Football is done. No one has that contract if their is even one. lol
Click to expand...

Or better yet, send some games over to their cable channels.

NBC does this with Olympics coverage, sending some events over to MSNBC and CNBC. Viacom does have SpikeTV, which appeals to the type of crowd that watches basketball anyway.

Not sure about CW. Viacom is only a part-owner. And I think the local affiliates like the prime time blocks limited to two hours a night. Though I can't imagine any affiliate objecting to the NCAA tournament.
 
FightingIrish said:
Ken said:
No keep March Madness and the Final Four Championship game on CBS. They do such a great job of coverage and all. ABC maybe could play a part in March Madness by showing some games as you aren't able to see all the games at once on CBS. Wait better idea for CBS just use your sister network The CW. As during halftime CBS couldn't show highlights of the other games as ABC would have rights to them. Plus with The CW having some sort of sports would help them. I had the same idea for when UPN was around.

ABC could always show College Hockey on Saturday nights after College Football is done. No one has that contract if their is even one. lol
Click to expand...

Or better yet, send some games over to their cable channels.

NBC does this with Olympics coverage, sending some events over to MSNBC and CNBC. Viacom does have SpikeTV, which appeals to the type of crowd that watches basketball anyway.

Not sure about CW. Viacom is only a part-owner. And I think the local affiliates like the prime time blocks limited to two hours a night. Though I can't imagine any affiliate objecting to the NCAA tournament.
Click to expand...
That's another reason why I like the idea of ABC getting the NCAA Tournament - or the Olympics! They already have at least three non-ABC places to put games/events. They could cover the Olympics MUCH better than NBC does.

I suspect CBS doesn't give the NCAA Tournament to its other channels because of some legalities in its agreement with the NCAA, though... having to rely on a ticker at the top for whatever games the local affiliate isn't showing is very non-viewer friendly, and if it was possible I have no doubt that CBS WOULD give some of its games to other networks, even ESPN.
 
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