Abc Sports

ESPN's Steve Bornstein replacing Dennis Swanson as president of ABC Sports this week is a sign ABC is shifting into a higher gear under Disney, its new owner. Bornstein, 43, has brought ESPN and its sibling, ESPN2, to the point to which they almost run themselves. He was looking for another challenge, and it happened to be under the Disney umbrella. Disney thinks big. Maybe if it had bought ABC a few years ago, NBC might not have had such an easy time wrapping up the Olympics into the next century.

In 10 days, ABC Sports and ESPN will be headed by the same person. George Bodenheimer, the top man at ESPN for the last 4 1/2 years, will add the presidency of the ABC division to his title, effective March 14, succeeding Howard Katz. ESPN and ABC are subsidiaries of the Walt Disney Co.; they often share programming, production and personnel. In a conference call yesterday, Bodenheimer and Alex Wallau, president of ABC, said that viewers should notice no immediate changes on either channel.

Dennis Swanson, the president of ABC Sports for the last decade, announced his retirement from the network yesterday. ESPN president Steve Bornstein replaced Swanson, 58, in a move that had been expected since the Walt Disney Co. took over the network. Bornstein, 43, has been ESPN's president since September 1990, six years after ABC bought 80 percent of the all-sports cable network. "We have long felt that the two divisions need to have a closer relationship to better coordinate their goals and activities," Robert Iger, the president of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., said in a memorandum to his department heads.

Donna deVarona, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who set 18 world swimming records before setting out on a 30-year broadcasting career, has sued ABC Sports, saying she was discriminated against because of her age. DeVarona, 52, filed the $50 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan late Monday, saying she was terminated from her most recent employment with ABC Sports because of her age and gender. ABC responded with this statement: "As a result of the change in events covered by ABC Sports, including the loss of the Olympics, deVarona's role had diminished greatly over the years.

ABC will televise this summer's All-Star Game, Dennis Swanson, president of ABC Sports, announced yesterday. The telecast of the July 11 game at The Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers, will be a joint production between ABC Sports and The Baseball Network. NBC thus will televise the World Series. This year's All-Star Game will be the first carried by ABC since 1988. Al Michaels, Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer will be the announcers on the telecast, scheduled to begin 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Jeffrey Lurie doesn't want Dick Vermeil, but ABC Sports still does. Vermeil, primarily a college football analyst for ABC, will be part of the network's pregame show for the San Francisco-San Diego Super Bowl matchup on Jan. 29. Vermeil and Brent Musburger, the pregame host, have been an ABC announcing team for five years. They'll continue working together next season, now that Vermeil and the Eagles have failed to reach agreement on a deal to make him coach and general manager.

Friends at ABC Sports, and many others in the industry, are mourning the deaths of Jack O'Hara, his wife, Janet, and daughter, Caitlin, 13. They perished Wednesday night in the TWA plane explosion off Long Island, N.Y. O'Hara, 39, had been the executive producer of ABC Sports since 1991. One of the bright young people in sports television, O'Hara had been with the network for 14 years. A five-time Emmy Award-winner, he was on the Paris-bound flight to supervise coverage of the final weekend of the Tour de France cycling race.

ABC will televise this summer's All-Star Game, its first telecast of the mid-season event since 1988, ABC Sports president Dennis Swanson said yesterday. The telecast of the July 11 game at the Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers, will be a joint production of ABC Sports and the Baseball Network. Al Michaels, Tim McCarver and Jim Palmer will be the announcers. Last year's telecast had a rating of 15.7, the highest-rated sports program of the summer. The Internal Revenue Service, in a decision that could have repercussions throughout professional sports, approved a complicated plan yesterday to help keep the Royals in Kansas City.

Good news for sports fans: The ABC sports department, after losing more than $60 million in 1986, has a sporting chance to make a profit this year. Such a return to profitability should mean more and better viewing. For ABC (Channel 6), it depends on the World Series, which the network will telecast in October. If the baseball classic lasts only four or five games, the ABC sports division will lose money again. If the series requires six or seven games to reach a conclusion, the additional commercials will enable the department to finish 1987 in the black.

Sunday is the biggest day of the year for draftniks. For the 12th consecutive year, ESPN is televising the NFL draft live from the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Manhattan. ESPN will be on the air from noon to 6:30 p.m. Chris Berman will be the host, supported by Tom Jackson, Joe Theismann and Mel Kiper. At another set, Mike Gottfried and Fred Edelstein will join Robin Roberts. Kiper's top five forecast is: wide receiver Raghib Ismail and cornerback Todd Lyght, from Notre Dame; defensive lineman Russell Maryland, Miami; wide receiver Alvin Harper, Tennessee; and running back Nick Bell, Iowa.

The Wimbledon tennis championships will be televised by ESPN, ending NBC's 43-year run broadcasting the Grand Slam tournament. ESPN and the All England Club reached a 12-year agreement beginning next year that gives the cable network the U.S. television rights to all matches at Wimbledon. The announcement was made Tuesday. ESPN had owned the rights to televise early rounds of Wimbledon, with NBC picking up coverage as the tournament progressed, culminating with the Breakfast at Wimbledon broadcasts of the finals.

A former Yale University varsity catcher, Jon Litner batted over .400 in his senior year but realized he didn't have the bat speed and other natural gifts to make the big leagues. So this student of the game attended law school and joined ABC Sports. Later, the National Hockey League hired Litner, who also played linebacker on the Yale football team, as chief operating officer. Today Litner runs Comcast SportsNet, the unit within the sprawling Comcast Corp. with 10 regional 24-hour sports networks and 40 million subscribers.

Even a cinder-block fire hall, a sparse crowd, and bad lighting can't diminish Lynn Swann's star power. When he enters the Vigilant Fire Company, looking football-fit at 54 and wearing a suit and tie, the few dozen audience members pop out of their fold-up chairs to cheer him. Swann flashes a megawatt smile, grabs a stool at the front of the room, and tells them why he left a comfortable life as a celebrity broadcaster to run for governor of...

ABC said yesterday that it had pulled back its contract offer to the Bowl Championship Series. ABC has been the home of college football's four major bowls, including the national title game, since the current system was implemented in 1998. Earlier this month, the BCS opened up the bidding for the broadcast rights to the Orange, Sugar and Fiesta Bowls after being unable to come to an agreement with ABC during the exclusive negotiating period. Loren Matthews, senior vice president for programming for ABC Sports, said the network still will broadcast the national title game once every four years when it is hosted by the Rose Bowl.

Terrell Owens showed he could catch a football - and a naked Nicollette Sheridan - during last night's Monday Night Football telecast on ABC. The MNF teaser, featuring Owens and Sheridan, may have been more stimulating than the game. Sheridan, who plays serial divorcee Edie Britt on the ABC Sunday night hit Desperate Housewives, is clad in only a white towel as she confronts Owens in the Eagles locker room. After a few exchanges, Sheridan drops the towel and leaps into Owens' arms.

ABC Sports delivered one of the most poignant stories of the 2003 golf season Sunday when it presented the final round of the 132d British Open from Sandwich, England, an event that obviously should have been sponsored by the folks at Subway. A competition buffeted by gusting wind on a course that staved off nearly every approach shot, the tournament gave viewers an opportunity to grouse over horribly inaccurate putting as well as another occasion when Tiger Woods couldn't come from behind to win a major.

In 10 days, ABC Sports and ESPN will be headed by the same person. George Bodenheimer, the top man at ESPN for the last 4 1/2 years, will add the presidency of the ABC division to his title, effective March 14, succeeding Howard Katz. ESPN and ABC are subsidiaries of the Walt Disney Co.; they often share programming, production and personnel. In a conference call yesterday, Bodenheimer and Alex Wallau, president of ABC, said that viewers should notice no immediate changes on either channel.

For years, Christmas Day has marked the debut of the NBA season on traditional network television. This year the tradition continues, but with some changes. The league will observe the holiday by offering up an attractive doubleheader featuring rematches between last season's conference finalists. In the opener, with a 6 p.m. tip-off, the Boston Celtics visit the New Jersey Nets. Then, the Los Angeles Lakers host the Sacramento Kings, in the season's first regular-season renewal of what has become one of the more bitter rivalries in professional sports.

Roone Arledge, 71, who as a broadcasting executive fundamentally altered American television and helped entrench ABC as a major network, died yesterday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the network said. Mr. Arledge's influence was so great that it changed American sport itself, as television coverage of an event became more important, both culturally and financially, than the live contest. Convinced that sports, and later news, should be emotional experiences for the viewer, Mr. Arledge created Wide World of Sports, Monday Night Football, and Nightline.

Come to the X Games, get a free tattoo. Seems only natural, right? Before every parent panics and forbids their children from making the much-anticipated trip to the sports complex this week, understand that the tattoos are not permanent. But like the X Games themselves, they are fun. The X Games return to the sports complex tomorrow and continue through Monday. They include competitions in Bicycle Stunt, Moto X, Skateboard, Speed Climb and Aggressive In-line Skate.