NFL’s Bad Planning Denies L.A. Viewers Game of the Season

Those geniuses at the NFL have struck again.

The Kansas City Chiefs are playing host to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. It’s Joe Montana vs. Steve Young in Montana’s first game against his old teammates.

Fox, which will televise it because the NFC 49ers are the visiting team, has been ballyhooing the game for weeks. It became the game of the year the day it was scheduled. It didn’t sneak up on anybody.

But it won’t be shown in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest television market.

Blame the NFL and its schedule makers. This isn’t a conspiracy or anything like that. It’s simply a case of horrendous planning.

For one thing, the Rams were scheduled to play at Atlanta at 10 a.m. Sunday, same time the 49ers were scheduled to play at Kansas City, and the NFL requires that Fox force-feed us Ram games whether we want them or not.

Sorry Ram fans--those few of you left--but our unofficial poll says L.A. prefers Montana vs. the 49ers.

Another thing is that even if the Chief-49er game were at 1 p.m., L.A. would still get only the Ram game because it’s NBC’s turn to show a Sunday doubleheader. But L.A. doesn’t get the NBC doubleheader because the Raiders are home.

Until someone torches the NFL’s outdated television policies, we’re going to have days like this, although this is one of the worst injustices in recent memory.

Either you or a close friend must own a satellite dish and have forked out $100 to get the NFL’s “Sunday ticket” package of games, or you must find a nearby sports bar that is showing the Chiefs and 49ers. Otherwise, you’re out of luck.

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Complaint Department: Those promos like the one with Craig T. Nelson last Monday during the second quarter of the Raider-49er game are intrusive, corny and embarrassing.

They’re supposed to turn viewers on to a show, but they do just the opposite.

Aside to Ted Harbert, ABC entertainment chief who orders them: Please, no more.

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Now for some good news for NFL fans. There’s a show on TNT next Tuesday at 5 p.m. you won’t want to miss. It’s an NFL Films-produced special, “75 Seasons: The Story of the National Football League.”

Last February, Brad Siegal, the president of TNT, approached Steve Sabol, the president of NFL Films, and asked him to put together a two-hour special. Sabol knew the problem would be cramming all the material into a two-hour show--actually 96 minutes, not counting commercials.

Ken Burns couldn’t fit his “Baseball” series, which begins on PBS Sept. 18, into anything less than 18 1/2 hours, and it is already drawing criticism for being too long.

But “75 Seasons” is an outstanding, tightly edited show. No host, no lectures, just a narrator. It’s NFL Films quality, which says it all.

If you miss it and forget to set the VCR, don’t worry. A videotape will be on the market by the end of the month.

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Add special: Among those interviewed were O.J. Simpson. Sabol visited Simpson at his Brentwood home on Monday, June 6, six days before the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Segments from the interview are used in two spots.

Sabol said he never considered eliminating those interviews.

“O.J. and his 2,003-yard season is too much a part of NFL history,” he said.

One of the many highlights of the special is the Joe Namath pantyhose commercial. Even better is an animated Namath himself.

Sabol went to Namath’s home in Jupiter, Fla., to do the interview, not knowing just how open Namath would be. He went away thinking, “Of the 500 or 600 interviews I’ve done over the years, this is the best ever.”

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Last add special: There’s the good--segments on the Green Bay Packers, the Oakland Raiders, the 17-0 Miami Dolphins, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys and many of the NFL’s top stars, among them Sammy Baugh, who has a colorful way of expressing himself.

There’s the bad--the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ first coach, John McKay, saying after one of 26 consecutive losses, “We didn’t block, but we made up for it by not tackling, either.”

And there’s the ugly--Garo Yepremian’s botched field-goal attempt in the 1973 Super Bowl at the Coliseum against the Washington Redskins.

There’s also a rare television appearance by Jim Thorpe, with Milton Berle.

There’s Ray Nitschke stumping the “What’s My Line” panel the day after he was named MVP of the Packers’ 16-7 victory over the New York Giants in the 1962 NFL championship game. And, no, the panel wasn’t blindfolded.

There’s George Halas saying, “You can have a session with your girlfriend, what’s that last, 20 minutes? But a win in the NFL is a thrill that lasts a whole week, and what a thrill!”

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Another special: Guaranteed to cause controversy is “40 for the Ages: Sports Illustrated’s 40th Anniversary Special,” which will be on NBC Wednesday at 10 p.m.

Bob Costas is the host and 40 of the most influential sports figures since 1954 are named, as picked by SI managing editor Mark Mulvoy, with input from some of the magazine’s writers and editors.

“I was screaming inside about some of the choices,” Costas said Thursday. On the show, he notes that Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Wilt Chamberlain are left off. So is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The list includes, at No. 19, Harold Gores. Who’s Harold Gores? He’s the man to blame for AstroTurf. John Wooden is appropriately No. 16, but Secretariat is No. 17 and Roone Arledge of all people is No. 3. Really.

We won’t reveal who is No. 1, but it’s an obvious choice. So is No. 2.

TV-Radio Notes

USC-Penn State on ABC Saturday at 12:30 p.m. is a regional telecast with Keith Jackson and Bob Griese announcing. . . . Prime Ticket offers Southern Methodist at UCLA at 3:30 p.m., with Bill Macdonald and Tom Ramsey calling the action. . . . NBC offers Michigan-Notre Dame at 11:30 a.m. . . . UCLA and USC were both on ABC last Saturday, with UCLA getting a solid 7.5 L.A. rating and USC close behind with a 7.4. . . . The UCLA radio announcers--XTRA’s Rick Schwartz joining Chris Roberts and David Norrie--jelled in their debut as a three-man team last Saturday.

New York-based Classic Sports Network, scheduled to launch late this year or early next year, offers a preview Tuesday night at 7 on Prime Ticket with a look back at the 1978 pennant race between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. The Red Sox blew a 14-game lead. . . . Plans to launch women’s sports networks late this year or early next year were announced by two outfits this week. One is headed by Michael Weisman, former executive producer of NBC sports, and Terry Kassel, former senior vice president of Major League Baseball Productions. The other is Texas-based Liberty Sports, which is part of Telecommunications, Inc. (TCI), the new owner of Prime Ticket. The first announcement, by the Weisman group, prompted the second. Liberty’s plans have been in the works since January.

Channel 9 offers boxing live from Caesars Tahoe Saturday night, 8-10 p.m. The featured match is light-flyweight champion Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez against Juan Cordoba. The last time Channel 9 carried boxing, on June 11 when Jorge Paez was the main attraction, the rating was a solid 7.4. . . . KMPC plans to broadcast minor league baseball this weekend--Games 4 and 5 of the Pacific Coast League Northern Division best-of-five playoff series between Vancouver and Salt Lake City, provided the games are necessary. Saturday’s game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m., Sunday’s at 1:30. The announcers will be Bob Starr and Angel Manager Marcel Lachemann.

The Kings announced their 1994-95 broadcast package, with Prime Ticket scheduled to carry two exhibition games--including the Duck-King exhibition opener from San Diego Sunday at 6 p.m.--70 regular-season games and all playoff games. Bob Miller and Jim Fox will be the broadcast team. Channel 5 will show eight games. On radio, the Kings will continue to be heard on XTRA, with Nick Nickson handling the play-by-play and former King defenseman Brian Engblom doing the commentary. Spanish-speaking viewers can catch the Kings on Prime Ticket’s La Cadena Deportivo, which will carry 35 games, some of them simulcast by KWIZ Radio. Fernando Gonzalez and Rodolfo Hernandez are the announcers.