Can you imagine a broadcaster under contract to one network appearing on the air for another network without permission and thinking that nobody would find out? Believe it or not, this scenario actually played out in 1982.
First some background ... In 1981-82, CBS, after acquiring the rights to the NCAA Tournament, added a schedule of regular season college basketball games. Leading up to March, the network had used only two broadcast crews. With the NCAA Tournament upcoming, CBS needed some additional announcers to handle the first weekend of the event across eight sites.
On Selection Sunday 3/7/1982, CBS televised two regional games, but rather than using its main announcer team of Gary Bender and Billy Packer on a game, CBS sent them to Kansas City for the Selection Show. The network assigned its #2 crew of Frank Glieber and Steve Grote to Memphis for the Metro Conference title game which went to most of the country. So CBS needed another broadcast team for its other regional game that day, UNLV at South Carolina.
CBS approached Verne Lundquist about doing play-by-play for that game and possibly the NCAA Tournament. Lundquist who was still under contract to ABC and was working for the ABC affiliate in Dallas agreed to call the game for CBS. But Verne never told anyone at his currently employer or requested permission. He felt confident that nobody of importance would even find out because CBS was only sending that game to six small markets.
As it turned out, the game in Memphis game ended early and CBS decided to send the entire network to the conclusion of the game Verne was calling, thus exposing his presence on CBS to a national audience.
While the idea that Verne could keep such a secret from his boss sounds preposterous, keep in mind that this game took place before the launch of USA Today and the national sports media column by Rudy Martzke. And if the primary game hadn't ended early, perhaps Verne would have successfully pulled it off.
Several years ago, I saw this story posted on a message board by someone who claimed to hear it on the Denver radio show of Irv Brown who was the analyst with Verne on that 1982 afternoon. At the time, I was somewhat skeptical of this tale because I was unable to find any mention of it elsewhere. But Verne told the same story to the Sports Business Journal where he also mentioned getting a call the next morning from a newspaper media critic about his appearance on CBS.
CBS wound up using Verne on the first weekend of the 1982 NCAA Tournament as well. But that created another twist as the ABC affiliate in Dallas which employed Lundquist granted him permission to work that event for CBS on the condition that his games would not be slated for regional coverage in Dallas. So this complicated the assignments of announcers to sites until CBS was able to identify what site of games it wanted to televise in Dallas before it could slot Verne.
Soon afterwards, Lundquist moved full-time to CBS.
I don't recall hearing Verne calling a game until the second-round VCU vs. Alabama in 1985. At the time, considering the outcome of the game, I was not a fan of anything to come from it. After a few years of hearing that bemused "My goodness!" when something happened in a game, I grew to like Uncle Verne a lot.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Charles. Verne became more prominent during the 1983-84 season when he called a few "A" games with Billy Packer and was elevated to second weekend status for the NCAA Tournament.
Deletei know that wspa in sc carried the unlv usc game in asheville
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info Daniel. I don't know which other affiliates carried it - presumably a few each in SC and Nevada.
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