Crazy like a …

Sporting News, The, Sept 5, 1994 by Mike Antonucci

Corporately volcanic and financially radioactive. That's what the NFL-Fox deal has been.

Last December, with one of the flashiest moves in TV history, Fox Inc. Chairman Rupert Murdoch rearranged the network world, revamped countless careers and set off an economic chain reaction that's still pulsating through the nation's major broadcast markets.

To understand how big this is, start with the money: $1.58 billion that's going to the NFL for four years of NFC games; perhaps more than $50 million annually for everybody and everything related to production and promotion; and $500 million for a 20 percent stake in an important group of TV stations that decided in May to join the football-enhanced Fox lineup.

Or consider it from this perspective: The folks who came out of the scramble as losers tried to sell CBS this summer.

Right now Fox has monster-sized momentum. It has charisma, energy and freshness. Boldness, desire and urgency. John Madden, America's Team - the Cowboys - and nervy commercials in which players sing, appear bare-chested and preach non-violence. The network is getting more publicity than the marriage of Michael and Lisa Marie, and it's driving toward the first regular-season telecast as if it wanted to remake "Speed" with the new Madden Cruiser.

No one is sure the ultimate result won't be an ocean of red ink, but it doesn't seem to matter.

"Let me tell you about Rupert Murdoch," Madden says. "I've never met a guy like this, who does something first and then figures out how to make it work. The rest of us are so busy thinking about how we're going to do something that we don't get it done."

Murdoch, an An" who has experience with billions of dollars in losses and debt as well as outrageous success, does a lot of things. He controls an international conglomeration of media holdings, including The Times of London, HarperCollins Publishers, TV Guide and a satellite TV network in Asia. The NFL deal wasn't his first football deal, but previously that sport was defined for him as soccer.

"The top three sports in any country are football, football and football, no matter what kind of football, and it's the heartbeat of the country," says David Hill, another Aussie, the president of Fox Sports and a quote machine for superlatives.

The evening before Fox's inaugural telecast, the preseason game between the 49ers and Broncos, Hill sat in a window corner during a party at San Francisco's Hard Rock Cafe, flexing confidence with almost every sentence.

He described Murdoch as "the greatest media mogul the world has ever known." He said Fox Sports had assembled "pound for pound, probably the best production team in the world." He warned that people have been underestimating Murdoch's investment wizardry for decades.

"Wait till September 4," he says, his eyes gleaming at the thought of the NFL's opening Sunday. It is his only concession to Fox's preseason learning curve.

When Fox landed its NFL contract, the obvious and overwhelming explanation was the enormity of its bid (commonly estimated at about $100 minion more per year than CBS offered). But a buzz also began about Fox's ability to create more fans in younger age groups.

That, after all, was the genius in the 8-year-old network's creation. It was designed to attract a youthful, irreverent, urban and advertiser-susceptible audience bored by the other networks. Which is how the country got "Beverly Hills 90210" and "The Simpsons."

Somehow, this aura would be loaned to the NFL. Exactly how was unclear, and apprehension spread quickly. There was fear of football games being announced by the cast of "Married ... With Children" and interviews being conducted by real comedians instead of just players turned broadcasters. The specter of wildly "Foxified" football became the first major public relations test for Hill and his rapidly collected staff .

Yes, Fox could "grow" the NFL's demographics, but it would be accomplished mainly through promotional strategies and maybe the pregame show. The game coverage wouldn't be affected, except for audio and visual improvements.

"I don't want anyone looking at Fox and saying, |That's not football,' " Hill says. "We're not seeking to be different."

Better, certainly. More watched, absolutely. But never, never untrue to the average sports fan. Hence the linchpin slogan that declares Fox's priorities: "Same game, new attitude."

The keys to being better are mostly technical. More cameras and replay machines (including super slow-motion) head the list, but other ingredients are graphic innovations, such as keeping the score and time m the comer of the screen, and an emphasis on sound quality that will be apparent through the use of Dolby Surround stereo and microphones that pick up more field noise.

Just having fancy equipment isn't enough to guarantee first-rate broadcasts, however, and neither are all the veteran production people hired from CBS and other networks. Everything has to jell, and Madden points out that that's not automatic.

"I would hope we would start by being as good as CBS, " Madden says, still sounding every bit the coach. "I believe that before you can get better than, you have to get as good as."