This Adds to the Monday Blahs

Saturday's Miami-Florida State game is being televised everywhere but on the West Coast, where Saturday morning children's programming takes precedence.

And Monday night, ABC is giving everyone a game few want to see.

The matchup between the winless Dallas Cowboys and winless Washington Redskins might be the worst in the 32-year history of "Monday Night Football."

When Pete Rozelle and Roone Arledge came up with the idea of "Monday Night Football," the thinking was to put marquee games in prime time.

It hasn't worked out in recent years. The last two seasons, ABC hasn't had a Super Bowl participant on its schedule. Neither the Baltimore Ravens nor New York Giants last season, nor the St. Louis Rams nor Tennessee Titans the previous year.

ABC has the Titans three times this year. Unfortunately for the network, the Titans are winless.

There has been talk in recent years of giving ABC some relief by letting the network pick better games during the last few weeks of the season.

But ABC needed relief this week. The Cowboys and Redskins looked like a dud when the NFL put it on ABC's schedule in April. Now it's worse.

ABC needs flexibility. Maybe four or five times a season the network could be allowed to switch games, say 10 or 12 days in advance.

Dennis Lewin, NFL senior vice president of broadcasting, said the issue will be discussed after the season. He said there have been discussions before, but there has never been a definitive plan submitted to NFL owners or competing networks.

"Every owner I've talked to is in favor of doing something," announcer Al Michaels said. "You hear about obstacles such as the difficulty of changing hotel reservations and travel plans. Well, we just saw every game moved from Sept. 16-17 to Jan. 5-6 without too much trouble. And the Super Bowl was moved [back] a week."

Also, ESPN asked the NFL to switch a game to be played Sunday, Oct. 28, to Thursday, Oct. 25, to avoid having to go head-to-head with Game 2 of the World Series under its new schedule. The NFL obliged, moving Indianapolis-Kansas City.

The Giants and the Redskins were originally scheduled as the ESPN game Oct. 28, but that game can't be switched to Thursday because the Giants play the previous Monday. The Giants and Redskins will now play a day game.

ESPN wanted New England-Denver for Oct. 25, but CBS objected.

Michaels realizes the toughest opposition to a plan for flexibility on Monday nights will come from Fox and CBS. Fox chief David Hill once said ABC taking games away from his network "would happen only over my dead body."

"The other networks love it when we have a bad game," Michaels said. "Maybe I would too if I were running one of the other networks.

"But it's not a good thing for the league to have a bad game in prime time on Monday night. I believe this is an important issue. And it's not fair to the fans. They're the real losers here."

Family Matters

As part of a new six-year contract with baseball, Fox has the exclusive rights to the postseason. And during the first round, there isn't enough room for all the games on the big Fox network. At least that's what Fox people say.

So the Fox Family Channel ends up with as many as 11 games. Why Fox Family? Believe it or not, Fox Family has the widest distribution of any of Fox's cable channels. It reaches 83.8 million homes, Fox Sports Net reaches 78 million and FX 74 million.

ESPN reaches 85.2 million homes and ESPN2 80.9 million.

ESPN could again be involved in first-round coverage, beginning next season, because Disney has purchased the Fox Family Channel and included in the package is rights to first-round games. Disney can put those games on any of its channels, and ESPN is the likely spot.

Lowe Blow

Humpy Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway outside Charlotte, N.C., caused a stir last weekend when he threatened to shut down NBC's telecast of Sunday's UAW-GM Quality 500 because the announcers weren't mentioning the track's title sponsor during Saturday's Busch Grand National race on TNT. Wheeler went as far as to order tow trucks to back up to NBC production trucks, ostensibly to tow them away.

The problem was Lowe's, a competitor of Home Depot, hadn't bought any TV ads, so there were no mentions. The dispute was resolved when Lowe's shelled out for a package.

Meantime, Wheeler's maneuvering got all kinds of publicity for Lowe's. No wonder he's called the P.T. Barnum of motor sports.

The only thing that didn't work out for Wheeler is that Lowe's didn't get a lot of exposure on NBC during Sunday's race.