Val Pinchbeck

The gods who look after football TV fans came through in fine style, defeating the miserable skinflint, Al Davis. Davis isn't satisfied with 88,936 people attending the game; he wants his pound of money-flesh of 92,000. ED MARTIN Los Angeles According to Val Pinchbeck, NFL director of broadcasting, in order to lift the TV blackout of a game not sold out 72 hours in advance, both of the teams involved, plus the league, must agree to do so. To have assured a sellout the Raiders would have had to buy about 19,000 tickets, the number that were unsold at deadline time.

Val Pinchbeck Jr., 73, a former NFL broadcast director and a chief advisor to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, died Saturday after he was struck by a taxi in Manhattan while crossing a street near league headquarters. He lived in Oldsmar, Fla. Pinchbeck was senior vice president of broadcasting until his retirement in 1998, serving as NFL liaison to television and radio networks, and helping the league devise its schedule. He had continued to work as a scheduling consultant.

Lowell Ganz may be the essence of the contemporary urban sports fan. A Hollywood screenwriter from New York, he lives in Los Angeles, where, via his home satellite dish, he spends fall Sundays watching his favorite entry in the NFL, the New York Giants. Ganz is passionate about sports and obsessive about certain teams, almost all of which play in New York. He will tell you without apology that, except for the Lakers, he has no interest in local teams. But come Sept.

Lowell Ganz may be the essence of the contemporary urban sports fan. A Hollywood screenwriter from New York, he lives in Los Angeles, where, via his home satellite dish, he spends fall Sundays watching his favorite entry in the NFL, the New York Giants. Ganz is passionate about sports and obsessive about certain teams, almost all of which play in New York. He will tell you without apology that, except for the Lakers, he has no interest in local teams. But come Sept.

Val Pinchbeck Jr., 73, a former NFL broadcast director and a chief advisor to NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle, died Saturday after he was struck by a taxi in Manhattan while crossing a street near league headquarters. He lived in Oldsmar, Fla. Pinchbeck was senior vice president of broadcasting until his retirement in 1998, serving as NFL liaison to television and radio networks, and helping the league devise its schedule. He had continued to work as a scheduling consultant.

After watching the NBA more than double its television deal, NFL negotiators are excited about beginning talks on a new contract Dec. 1. "The NBA concluded a very successful negotiations and we look forward to our turn in the batter's box," said Val Pinchbeck, the NFL's vice president for broadcasting. "We expect a substantial increase in rights fees." Industry experts believe the NFL will get closer to a 50% increase in fees, as opposed to the 105% increase for the NBA. The NFL's four-year, $4.

The NFL's new four-year television contract was all but completed Friday when NBC agreed to pay $752 million for the AFC games plus the 1993 Super Bowl. All that remains are the rights to the 1994 Super Bowl, which will not be awarded until later--within a year. The NBC deal raised the total revenue from all three networks and cable to $3.637 billion. Add another $40 million, which the '94 Super Bowl is expected to bring, and the total is $3.677 billion. That breaks down to $32.

Furious over efforts by the National Football League to "scramble" its telecasts, owners of several San Diego sports bars said Saturday that, collectively, they plan to protest the move through the courts. "I spoke with my attorney for two hours this afternoon and plan to seek an injunction before the first regular-season game (Sept. 9)," said Norman Lebovitz, who owns Sluggo's, with outlets in Hillcrest, La Jolla and University Towne Centre.

The National Football League will announce a new three-year television contract that will include a package of games on ESPN, according to sources close to the negotiations. Each of the three major networks--ABC, CBS and NBC--will pay about 7% less than the combined $493 million they paid for rights in 1986, but the NFL will make up that revenue by branching out to cable television for the first time.

The gods who look after football TV fans came through in fine style, defeating the miserable skinflint, Al Davis. Davis isn't satisfied with 88,936 people attending the game; he wants his pound of money-flesh of 92,000. ED MARTIN Los Angeles According to Val Pinchbeck, NFL director of broadcasting, in order to lift the TV blackout of a game not sold out 72 hours in advance, both of the teams involved, plus the league, must agree to do so. To have assured a sellout the Raiders would have had to buy about 19,000 tickets, the number that were unsold at deadline time.

In the NFL's repeated attempts to speed up games, one of the things it has tried to do is get the networks to take its commercial breaks judiciously. It's been a losing battle. After all, the networks pay the bills--about $17 million per team per season. While the league has stabilized the average game time at about 3 hours, 9 minutes, for the past three years, it hasn't been able to reduce television's intrusion into the game. Surprisingly, there hasn't been any great protest.

Sometime after the Pro Bowl Feb. 1, the heads of the three major networks' sports divisions will meet separately in New York with Commissioner Pete Rozelle and owner Art Modell of the Cleveland Browns, the head of the National Football League's television committee. They will be starting negotiations on a new NFL television package. If successful--and that looms as a big if --Rozelle will inform the league's owners of the terms during the NFL meetings in Hawaii March 16-20.