New game schedule raises broad issues

In the past, not a college basketball game could be found airing Sunday evenings.

This season, that has changed, as Fox Sports Net inaugurates its ACC Sunday Night Hoops program. Although viewers will have one more night of entertainment, its athletic stars will have one less school night to concentrate on their academics.

"I have a hard time [with] the time of games," said Joe Alleva, Duke director of athletics. "We've pushed pretty hard to try to limit the number of nine o'clock games we have. I think this year we only have two, which is okay."

Although precise figures are not public, Alleva said television revenue is vital for the University, and the new deal also adds millions to the Athletic Coast Conference's bustling coffers, making it the only conference with two national cable network partnerships--ESPN is the other.

"It's a very important part of what we do, because a very large part of our budget is paid for by television," Alleva said. "We'd be in big trouble financially without television money."

Duke does not have direct control over television contracts, which are negotiated by the ACC, whose associate commissioner for men's basketball, Frederick Barakat, says he tries to keep 9 p.m. games to a minimum.

Even then, the conference is not the last authority. For the last 20 years, the ACC has sold its basketball television rights to partners Raycom and Jefferson Pilot Sports. It sells its football rights exclusively to JP Sports, a tiny sliver of Jefferson Pilot Financial's television interests.

George Johnson, Raycom's vice president for program and event planning, said Raycom and JP Sports negotiate with ABC, CBS and cable stations ESPN and Fox Sports for top-conference games. JP Sports and Raycom broadcast additional games locally in the Southeast.

The Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics report in June 2001 decried the burgeoning television influence on collegiate sports.

"With the money comes manipulation," the report reads. "Schools and conferences prostrate themselves to win and get on television. There is a rush now to approve cable and television requests for football and basketball games on weekday evenings, on Sundays, in the morning and late at night. So much for classroom commitments."

The report suggested that colleges and universities determine when games are played, how they are broadcast and which companies are permitted to use their athletic contests as vehicles for advertising.

Duke administrators said they do not see much of a problem with an additional Sunday night game.

William Chafe, vice provost for undergraduate education, said that as long as athletes do not play every night, he does not worry about the athletic workload.

Jamie Kimbrough, director of communications for Fox Sports Net, said Sunday-night games limit missed class time.

"The way it is now, if you're going to play a Thursday-night game, you're going to travel the day before the game and there's a chance you might have to miss some class," he said. "If you're playing a Sunday-night game, there is no class Saturday."

Class time is not the only consideration, amid networks that routinely schedule bowl games on Christmas Day and regular-season games on other religious holidays and throughout student breaks--and those conflicts are growing in sports outside of football and men's basketball.

Gail Goestenkors, Duke's women's basketball coach, said her team had to practice Christmas Day this season to prepare for a televised Dec. 26 game against perennial championship contender Tennessee. Goestenkors said that when she arrived at Duke, women's basketball had no television contract. Now, in the regular season alone, her team will make eight network or cable appearances.

"I think it's been very manageable," she said. "I know it's much more difficult for the men's team. They tend to want to put them in the prime-time slot. We're not yet to that point."