Some markets forced to show Ravens games

Sunday, October 26, 2003

By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau Chief

HARRISBURG -- Television station manager Matt Uhl wants to run every Pittsburgh Steelers game in the fall, but sometimes he gets blocked and tackled by National Football League officials.

Uhl, who runs WHP Channel 21, the CBS affiliate in the midstate area, is trying to avoid repeats of "the fiasco" two weeks ago, when angry Steelers fans from Harrisburg, York, Lancaster and other nearby towns deluged him with hundreds of angry e-mails, phone calls and voicemails.

Why in the world, the irate fans demanded, had WHP carried the Sunday game between the Baltimore Ravens and Arizona Cardinals rather than the clash between the Steelers and the Denver Broncos?

"Even though most of the country was watching the Steelers game, we were forced by NFL rules to carry the Ravens game," Uhl said last week. "I had over a thousand e-mails, calls and voicemail messages protesting. The Steelers fans are overwhelming around here compared to Ravens fans. It's about 80 percent to 20 percent."

The Steelers and the Ravens are both American Football Conference teams, whose games are usually carried by CBS. But when the two teams play at the same time on the same day (normally a Sunday), the Ravens win out because Harrisburg is considered a "secondary market" to Baltimore, about 75 miles away. That's the NFL rule, said league spokesman Steve Alic. The fact that Steelers fans outnumber Ravens fans about 4 to 1 in the midstate area doesn't matter, Uhl said.

Today , however, Steelers fans here will get a break, because the team's home game against the visiting St. Louis Rams will be shown on the local Fox affiliate. St. Louis is a National Football Conference team, whose games are carried on Fox. The Ravens are playing Denver, and will be on CBS.

On that Sunday two weeks ago, Uhl said, only three television markets in the U.S. were forced by NFL rules to carry the Ravens' game -- Harrisburg, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. CBS had even promoted the Pittsburgh-Denver game nationally as a key game, whetting the appetite among Steelers fans in this area, an appetite Uhl said he wasn't able to satisfy.

Rob Buchanan, a state Revenue Department employee who's president of the Harrisburg Steelers Fan Club, is a supporter of Uhl's ongoing effort to get the league to change its TV policy. A couple years ago, Buchanan and the other 1,000 members of the Harrisburg fan club collected more than 20,000 signatures in support of letting WHP show Steelers games instead of Ravens games, submitted them to the NFL and "the NFL more or less just blew us off."

"We have many transplants here from western Pennsylvania in this area," said Buchanan, a native of Altoona. "We drink Iron City Beer, or Stoney's, or Rolling Rock. We have kielbasa at our tailgate parties. Some of our members even painted their houses or cars black and gold. There's a Steelers' bar near here painted black and gold."

Uhl stressed that as a fan, he's neutral on the Ravens-Steelers issue. "I'm born and raised in Philly and I'm an Eagles fan."

He said there are more Eagles fans in central Pennsylvania than fans of any other team, but Pittsburgh is "definitely No. 2," far ahead of Baltimore. "At Christmas time, the retail stores are usually sold out of Steelers merchandise but there's a lot of Ravens merchandise left on the shelves," he said.

Uhl said that several seasons ago -- when the Ravens won the Superbowl -- he ran a "crawl" across the bottom of the TV screen during games, asking viewers which team they'd rather see the following season, the Steelers or the Ravens. Admittedly it was an unscientific survey, he said, but between 80 and 90 percent of the respondents wanted the Steelers.

He's talked to the league repeatedly over the past several years without much luck, but things may be changing.

"The NFL wasn't interested in knowing what our fan preference was, but at least they're willing to talk about it now," he said.

Uhl admitted that "the conflict," as he calls, doesn't happen every Sunday. It's usually between three and five times per season, when both the Ravens and Steelers are on the road at the same day and time. While three to five conflicts may not seem like a lot, considering the 16 regular-season games and four pre-season games, Uhl said he's in the business of attracting viewers, not alienating them.

The next conflicts will come in December, when the Ravens and Steelers both play on the afternoon of Dec 7, and then the next Sunday, when the Steelers play at the New York Jets and the Ravens will be at Oakland. Both Sundays, the Ravens game will air.

Money is another factor in WHP's desire for the Steelers, but Uhl insists it's not the major one. Because of the greater viewership for Steelers' games, WHP can charge higher advertising rates.

"But it's not about the money. It's about giving fans what they want," Uhl said.

Ron Wahl, a Steelers spokesman, may have some hopeful news for Uhl and for the Steelers fan club. Wahl said the team has been talking to the NFL about the chances of getting its games shown regularly on WHP.

"We've been in communication with the program director at the station and with the NFL," Wahl said. The league is "in the middle of evaluating all the [television] territories and we are hopeful we can have this station cover our games," he said. "We would very much like for them to do that. We're lobbying the league to look at this."

Uhl said there is a precedent for what he's asking. Some sections of southern Georgia were being shown Jacksonville Jaguars, from across the state line in Florida. Those fans really wanted the Atlanta Falcons games, from their home state. Uhl said an exception was made to the NFL policy so the fans there could get the games of the team they were loyal to, Atlanta.

Uhl admitted that some viewers in his station's territory, especially in southern York county do in fact prefer the Ravens over the Steelers. It's a bedroom community to Baltimore, only about half an hour away. Uhl said he'd be willing to let them get the Ravens games from the Baltimore CBS affiliate if he were allowed to show Steelers games.

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