Pro Football '98

GOING WHERE THE ACTION IS
Believing that college football hotbeds can provide players and
fans for their franchises, NBC and Time Warner are moving
forward with plans to give birth to a new league by the summer
of 2000

Despite skepticism in the advertising community and the media,
NBC and Time Warner are moving confidently toward a June 2000
kickoff for their fledgling pro football league. Architects of
the new league, including NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and
Time Warner vice chairman Ted Turner, are considering having 10
to 12 franchises, a 10-week regular season and a championship
game around Labor Day, according to sources familiar with
discussions. The new league would not challenge the NFL, which
traditionally begins regular-season play on Labor Day weekend,
or the NBA, whose national-TV rights are owned by NBC and Time
Warner's Turner Sports. The new league's sole major league
sports competition would be baseball.

In all likelihood the new league won't have NFL-caliber players.
Rather than engage in a bidding war with the NFL for stars, it
would create regional franchises stocked primarily with former
collegians who have a local following and are willing to play
for less than $100,000 a season. One candidate city, for
instance, would be Birmingham, which fervently supported its
United States Football League team in that league's brief run
from 1983 to '85. Last spring 28 players from Alabama and Auburn
who were eligible for the draft--including Tigers star
quarterback Dameyune Craig--weren't selected. Another 53
eligible players from Mississippi, Mississippi State and
Southern Miss were not drafted. No one from NBC or Time Warner
(the parent company of Time Inc., the publisher of SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED) is speaking on the record about the prospective
league, but the planners clearly are counting on large regional
pools of players, mostly in college football hotbeds, to draw
enough fan and TV interest to make the league viable.

Cameras and microphones in the locker rooms and huddles are
among other elements that could serve to distinguish the new
league from the NFL. Also, to capitalize on NFL fans who are
turned off by uncaring millionaire players, the new league may
contractually bind its players to interact with fans--by signing
autographs and making public appearances, for instance.

As fan-friendly as that sounds, the last thing America needs is
a new sports league. So how will the two media giants sell
America on summer football? "The big question is, Can NBC and
Turner create a league that will keep the 21- to 34-year-old
male at home on a weekend night?" says Tony Ponturo, corporate
vice president of media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch,
which buys more than $200 million in commercial time on sports
telecasts. "Baseball's getting stronger, and the growth of
sports is outdistancing the growth of marketing dollars for
advertisers. It'll be tough for the new league, but certainly
you'd have to give it a hearing because of the brains of the
people involved."

The big test will be if NBC can get a 2 share in major markets
in the dead sports-TV weeks from late June until Labor Day by
showing the likes of Craig and former Florida State quarterback
Thad Busby duking it out for Birmingham and Orlando.

Video Game
SELLING VIOLENCE WITH VULGARITY

The marketing campaign for NFL Xtreme, an officially licensed
NFL video game whose slogan is "After the coin toss, anything
goes," flies in the face of good taste and good sense. The print
ad for the video depicts a large, opened can with 100% PURE WHUP
ASS on the label. Another image in the ad is that of Cowboys
wideout Michael Irvin flying helmetless through the air after a
big hit. The copy reads, "There's no rules, no penalties and no
boundaries. It's a helmet-popping, trash-talking, late-hitting
free-for-all. Enjoy."

No, thanks. Forget for a moment the ad's language (naughty words
and faulty grammar are O.K., kids) and consider its message.
Niners quarterback Steve Young is one serious concussion from a
forced retirement, and this NFL-licensed (and NFL Players
Association-licensed) video game is celebrating late hits.
Darryl Stingley is paralyzed for life after getting nailed in
the helmet by Jack Tatum, and this NFL-licensed video game
extols the virtues of helmet hits. Bryan Cox is penalized and
fined for his outbursts, and this NFL-licensed video game is
selling trash talk. It's shameful. How can the league come down
on cheap-shot artists and hotheads while also endorsing this
video?

"It's more of a fantasy game," says NFL director of corporate
communications Chris Widmaier. "There's no blood, no stretchers.
Guys pop right up after they're hit. The marketing of this game
is consistent with how to get the attention of the upper-teen
and early-20s market."

Each year the NFL's highest individual honor, the Man of the
Year award, is given to a player who has demonstrated ability
and leadership on the field and dedication to charity off it.
Last year's winner, Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, looked over
the ad and shook his head. "I'm not surprised," he said. "The
NFL's like NASCAR. NASCAR says it doesn't want to see car
wrecks, but what does America want? Car wrecks. Same thing with
the people at the NFL. They want this stuff. It sells."

New Stadiums
BUT WHERE'S THE SWIMMING POOL?

This season the Buccaneers and the Ravens move into new
stadiums, giving the NFL a total of six facilities that have
debuted in the last seven years. Docked behind the north end
zone at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa is a 103-foot long,
78-foot tall replica of a pirate ship. After each Bucs
touchdown, eight cannons will be fired, shooting confetti and
miniature footballs into the stands.

The stadium in Baltimore, which sits next to Oriole Park at
Camden Yards, boasts the two largest permanent video screens in
the world--100 feet high, 24 feet wide. Following 1 p.m. games,
fans can stick around and watch the late-afternoon NFL games.
For instance, if there are five late games, the one with the
most appeal to Ravens fans will be carried on one screen, and
the other four games will be shown simultaneously on the other,
which will be divided into quadrants for this purpose.

Expansion Riches
BROWNS RECEIVE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

If you're a Cleveland Browns fan, you should be delighted that
Art Modell moved his team to Baltimore two years ago. If he
hadn't, here's what you'd be facing this year: another season in
ramshackle Cleveland Stadium with no franchise quarterback and a
nondescript coach.

Instead, you're a year away from a preseason date with the
Cowboys. You have a new stadium under construction. You will
have an ownership group, no matter which one of the six
candidates is awarded the franchise, with some of the deepest
pockets in sports.

In addition the Browns will have two distinct advantages the
Jaguars and the Panthers lacked when they entered the NFL in
1995. Those two teams picked in a quarterback-poor draft, while
Cleveland could get a franchise passer (Kentucky's Tim Couch or
Washington's Brock Huard, if either comes out after his junior
season). Also, with no competition from another expansion team,
the Browns will be able to select the top players from a pool
made up of at least five players from each of the 30 NFL teams.
Jacksonville and Carolina had to split the pot, meaning each got
14 of the best unprotected players from the 28 teams then in the
league. Says Falcons coach Dan Reeves, "Whoever buys this team
is going to have some incredible advantages that no expansion
team has ever had."

Dispatches
MARINO NOT THE RETIRING TYPE

Next year Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino could be confronted
with his own professional mortality. As he prepares for his 16th
season, he's enjoying a strong training camp, and he says
flatly, "I'd love to play a lot longer." The question is, Does
Miami want that? Coach Jimmy Johnson seems as if he'd like to
wean the Dolphins from Marino--who will count for $7.14 million
against the salary cap next year--and break in Craig Erickson in
'99....

If you're wondering why NFL teams, with multimillion-dollar
training facilities in their home cities, light out for the
countryside each summer, listen to Giants coach Jim Fassel. He
likes having his players bunk two-to-a-room at the University of
Albany (N.Y.). "Guys are rich today, living luxurious lives," he
says. "It's great to get them back to the basics for a month. It
gets their mind-set right."...

The seven-year, $46.5 million contract that the Panthers' Sean
Gilbert signed last spring awes fellow defensive linemen. "That
was the craziest contract of all," says the Bucs' Warren Sapp,
who signed a six-year, $36.1 million deal in March, "but I think
it's right that all the defensive tackles made the big money
this off-season. If you're going to pay a quarterback an
astronomical sum, why not pay the man who knocks the quarterback
out of the game the same price?"

End Zone
JUST WAITING TO EXPLODE

Troubled out-of-work running back Lawrence Phillips has a tattoo
of a bomb on his back, with a wick that snakes over his right
shoulder.

COLOR ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL WITTE FOUNDING FATHERS Turner and NBC think their baby will have a better chance to survive without expensive stars. [Drawing of NBC peacock presenting baby football player to Ted Turner in maternity ward]

COLOR PHOTO: SCOTT WACHTER/TDSI [Barry Sanders in game]

COLOR PHOTO: DON SMITH/SPORTS PHOTO MASTERS One last fling? Marino talks about playing several more years for Miami, but Johnson may have other plans for 1999. [Dan Marino in game]

FIVE FEARLESS PREDICTIONS

1. With all due respect to Dr. Z, Mike Holmgren will guide his
Packers to a 31-20 win over the Jaguars in the Super Bowl. Five
days later Seahawks owner Paul Allen will hand Holmgren the keys
to Seattle, giving him a staggering $3.5 million a year to be
coach and general manager. As compensation for signing Holmgren,
Allen will send Green Bay first- and third-round picks in the
1999 draft.

2. On the strength of a 32-touchdown-pass season, Jaguars
quarterback Mark Brunell will win league Most Valuable Player
honors. Among others, Brunell will edge the Packers' three-time
MVP, Brett Favre, and Chiefs cornerback Dale Carter, who will
unseat the Cowboys' Deion Sanders as the best corner in the game
with an 11-interception season.

3. Barry Sanders (above), who starts the season 2,948 yards
behind alltime leading rusher Walter Payton, will finish it
1,100 yards in arrears--and hold off the Broncos' Terrell Davis
for his fifth rushing title. (I learned my lesson last year
after I picked the Falcons' Jamal Anderson; Sanders nipped
Anderson by 1,051 yards.)

4. For the first time in the '90s, the Cowboys' leading rusher
won't be named Emmitt Smith. Chris Warren, late of the Seahawks,
looks friskier than Smith, and you just know the battle-weary
Smith will miss at least four games with injuries.

5. In a surprise to all except those who remember the job he
did as Browns defensive coordinator in the early '90s, Michigan
State's Nick Saban will beat out George Seifert and a pair of
offensive coordinators, the Packers' Sherm Lewis and the
Dolphins' Kippy Brown, for the Cleveland coaching job. --P.K.

Peter King answers your questions in his NFL mailbag at
www.cnnsi.com. E-mail him at siwriters@cnnsi.com.