6B
Tuesday, November 7.1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Owners return baseball postseason to national TV
Fox, Liberty Media NBC and ESPN seal deals for five years
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Baseball owners returned the entire postseason to national television, agreeing yesterday to four television deals lasting five years and totaling $1.7 billion, $12 million a season to each team.
Acting commissioner Bud Selig beamed during a news conference with the heads of Fox Sports, NBC Sports, ESPN and Liberty Media. He publicly thanked union head Donald Fehr for attending the news conference, and afterward the two shook hands, smiled and chatted amicably for about five minutes.
"This is another significant step in the recovery of our sport." Selig said.
The new contracts allow owners to expand the new playoff round to best-of-
seven, which wouldn't happen at least until 1997.
And with players and owners still lacking a labor agreement, the networks gained clauses stating they didn't have to pay in the event of a work stoppage. But no provisions call for reduced payments if replacement players are used, said Barry Frank, negotiator for the owners.
Fox Sports president David Hill said that he was surprised by the morbidity of the questions relating to a work stoppage, which would be baseball's ninth since 1972. But Fehr was upbeat.
In 1994 and 1995, owners gave their national network TV rights to the Baseball Network, a joint venture among ABC, NBC and the clubs, and had a $42-million-a-year cable deal with ESPN.
Teams received most of their advertising money from The Baseball Network but had no guaranteed-rights fee. According to baseball officials, TBN and ESPN will net each club less than $7 million this year.
That joint venture was bitterly criticized by the union, which preferred an up-front guarantee. And it was angrily criticized by fans, who objected to the regionalized broadcasts of playoff games, which were played simultaneously.
Selig nearly admitted regionalization was a mistake. He said that the new contracts were responsive to the fans.
"Sometimes, in a perverse way, you have to go through some difficult times to get to the step that's best for you." Selig said. "That's what happened in this situation."
Several parts of the deal were groundbreaking. Baseball will televise postseason games on cable for the first time, Fox will have year-round sports programming, and the new cable channel jointly owned by Liberty Media and Fox will have programming starting in 1997.
In addition, several feuds were pushed into the background. NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol joked about his angry remarks in June, when he said that NBC wouldn't broadcast baseball again until the next millennium and called Fox a pushcart network.
"You can go on with recriminations forever, but that doesn't solve anything," Seligsaid.
Several people familiar with the negotiations said that Ebersol was told by NBC president Robert Wright and General Electric chairman Jack Welch, the head of the network's parent company, to conclude a deal if the numbers made sense.
Baseball will receive about $757 million from Fox, $400 million from NBC, $440 million from ESPN and $172 million from Liberty for a total of 1.587 billion. The remaining money, baseball officials say, will come from the sale of international rights.
In exchange, Fox broadcasts three World Series, two All-Star games, part of the playoffs and a Saturday game of the week during the regular season; NBC
broadcasts two World Series, three AllStar games and part of the playoffs; ESPN broadcasts six to 12 first-round playoff games, a regular-season doubleheader on Wednesday night during the season and a Sunday night game each week; and Liberty/Fox cable televisions two games each week during the season starting in 1997.
In the first round of plays, Fox or NBC will televise games in prime time in the East Coast and ESPN will televise games at 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fox also will televise a Saturday afternoon game.
"If we don't have a West Coast start, there might be two games going at once," said Philadelphia Phillies owner Bill Giles, the chairman of baseball's television committee.
In that event, ESPN2 also will televise a game.
Fox and NBC will televise one league championship series each season, with most games in prime time and some in the late afternoon, probably at 3 p.m.
Rat's death propels Panthers to top of Atlantic Division
Ebersol said that the experiment of start-ing World Series weekend games at 6:30 p.m. instead of 7:30 p.m. probably would continue.
Florida jumps out to 10-4 start; catches rodent fever as team becomes a contender in the NHL
The Associated Press
MIAMI - For the Florida Panthers, it is the Year of the Rat.
Ever since left wing Scott Mellanby spotted a rat crawling among equipment bags before the first home game of the season and used his hockey stick to slap the poor creature across the locker room to its demise. Florida has been on a roll.
Fans at Miami Arena, copying Detroit's octopus ritual, have taken to throwing rubber rats onto the ice whenever the Panthers score. The locker room has been renamed the "Rat's Nest," and 10-4 Florida
is in first place in the tough Atlantic Division.
It's the kind of rodent fever the players didn't mind catching.
"It's a nice tradition," said first-year coach Doug Maclean.
Maclean.
Goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck said that if the team was in the old Boston Garden arena, fans would be throwing real rats.
Few gave MacClean a chance this year with the third-vear team.
MacLean was intent on bringing several young players aboard and overhauling the Panthers' trapping defense. There was also some bitterness that coach Roger Neilson had been unceremoniously let go at the end of last season — the second straight year that the team ended up missing the playoffs by one point.
Yet somehow the coach has meshed the old and new into a formidable NHL team. The Panthers' offensive attack is almost unrecognizable from its
dump-and-chase expansion days; passing is exact, and the team swarms opposing goalies.
"I didn't figure this is where we would be," MacLean said. "It's encouraging. The players are working really hard. I certainly didn't expect it."
Tampa Bay coach Terry Crisp said that after losing to Florida 4-1 on Sunday night, the Panthers still played good defense.
"They're much better than what people gave them credit for last year. Quicker, faster, but they still have that same discipline tendency that Roger Neilson instilled in them," Crisp said.
Part of old-new mix includes Vanbiesbrouck, Melanby and rookie Radek Dvorak.
Vanbiesbrouck is off to a fine start, averaging 2.40 goals against after signing a three-year, $6.5 million contract last month.
Dvorak suddenly has scored four goals in less than week, and 10-year pro Mellanby has led the team in goals (9) and points (17) since sacrificing
the rat.
"it's something I don't think anybody expected," Mellanby said of Florida's success. "A good start can go a long way to help you make the playoffs. It won't make it for you, but a bad start can lose it for you."
The team also has refused to be distracted by owner Wayne Huizenga's threats to move the team out of South Florida if he doesn't get a new arena.
"We haven't even talked about it," MacLean said. But some players have attributed a drop in attendance to the controversy.
Still, it is fun for the fans who do come to watch the Panthers. At the Miami Arena these days, you can buy your own plastic rat if you don't bring your own.
"The poor little things," said fan Linda Bell, a Miami civil engineer eyeing fake rats under glass at one of the souvenir stands at a recent game.
Laker spends three hours in jail
"I think it's hilarious," said her friend, Jim Grand.
Former Missouri star Peeler accused of probation violations
The Associated Press
Peeler was released after appearing before a Cole County Circuit court judge.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Anthony Peeler of the Los Angeles Lakers spent nearly three hours in jail yesterday following his arrest for allegedly violating provisions of his probation from a three-year-old assault case.
The former University of Missouri basketball star was placed on five years' probation in 1992 after he pleaded guilty to an assault charge for biting a woman and holding a gun to her head. The Missouri Board of Probation and Parole accused Peeler of failing to maintain contact
with Missouri officials while he lived in California.
"He has committed no new crimes," said Pat Eng, Peeler's lawyer, after he was released. "Far from it. He's not been in any trouble."
"He was faulted for technical things. We're not taking this lightly. It is a very serious matter," Eng said.
Peeler was ordered to obey provisions of his original probation and maintain contact with his Missouri probation officer. He was ordered to send reports to Missouri each month until California's parole board agreed to take the case.
He also was ordered to receive counseling, with reports of the sessions being made to Missouri through the Lakers. He also agreed to give Missouri officials the results of any drug tests the Lakers required of him.
Hartford Whalers hire new coach
Struggling team calls on Paul Maurice to pull out of bad slump
The Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. — The slumping Hartford Whalers fired coach Paul Holmgren yesterday and replaced him with Paul Maurice, former coach of the Detroit Junior Red Wings.
"Unfortunately, due to the lack of production on the Whalers team in the early schedule, we have terminated Paul Holmgren as coach of the Whalers," general manager Jim Rutherford
said.
"Paul has done a lot of good things for this organization and has rebounded from adversity in the past, and I know he will do this in the future," Rutherford said.
Holmgren had served as coach of the Whalers since 1992 with the exception of a sixth-month period between November 1993 and June 1994, when he served exclusively as the team's general manager. He was 54-93-14 as coach.
The Whalers began the year with four straight wins but went 1-6-1 after that, including a 6-1 loss Sunday to the Philadelphia
Flyers.
Holmgren came to the Whalers in 1992 after four seasons as coach in Philadelphia. He never had a winning season as an NHL coach. He played in the NHL for 10 years with the Flyers and Minnesota North Stars.
Maurice joined the Whalers in June as an assistant coach. He came to Hartford after coaching the Detroit Junior Red Wings the past two seasons.
Under Maurice, the Junior Red Wings won the Ontario Hockey League Western Division regular-season title and represented the OHL in the 1995 Memorial Cup.
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