ESPN, ABC to carry World Cup

World Cup mania may not have taken the United States by storm yet, but it appears to have infested the offices of ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.

All three networks will provide extensive coverage of the 1994 World Cup Soccer Tournament, which begins Friday.

ABC – and local affiliate WVII (Channel 7) in Bangor – will begin their Cup coverage with a big game at 11:30 a.m. Saturday: USA vs. Switzerland at Detroit.

“We’re pretty excited about the World Cup,” said WVII Programming Director Jim Reed. “It’s something different for us. And I think we’re sold out as far as local ad spots during coverage.”

Speaking of ads, a unique feature of this Cup coverage will be the absence of commercials during games. Commercials will only be aired during pregame, halftime, and postgame segments.

ESPN will air 32 live games, ESPN2 five, and ABC 11. Counting tape-delayed games, ESPN will televise 46 total. The U.S. team will appear three times (twice on ABC) before the playoff rounds begin.

ESPN’s first game – Germany vs. Bolivia in Chicago – is on at 2:55 p.m. Friday. ESPN2’s first game – Spain vs. Korea Republic – is also Friday, at 7:25 p.m.

Network executives, and those at their affiliates, are hoping to cash in on the interest generated because the U.S. is hosting the Cup for the first time.

“I think it will attract some new viewers for us, and that’s always good for the station,” Reed said.

Bangor’s WLBZ-TV (Channel 2) pulled the plug on Sunday afternoon’s Boston Red Sox game with Baltimore after the game was interrupted by a 1 1/2-hour rain delay.

With the Sox trailing in the top of the fourth, the game was held up by steady rain at approximately 2:30 p.m.. After staying with the feed from WSBK-TV (Channel 38) in Boston for more than an hour, WLBZ switched to a broadcast of a Perry Mason movie.

Less than an hour later – at approximately 4:25 p.m. – the game was resumed. But WLBZ personnel elected not to go back to the Sox game in favor of continuing the Perry Mason broadcast.

“I made the call at 4 p.m. to go to a movie,” said WLBZ Station Manager Jeff Marks. “We couldn’t stay with baseball blooper clips and Sean McDonough forever.”

But what about not switching back to the game 25 minutes later?

“We figured with the game only in the fourth inning (when resumed), it would cut into our 6 p.m. newscast – which it would have – if we went back to it,” Marks explained. “And we also had an NBA Finals game at 7 p.m.”

Marks says he may add another Red Sox game to WLBZ’s 20-game TV schedule as a makeup for Sunday’s lost coverage, but “we haven’t decided on whether to pick one up or not yet.”

WABI-TV (Channel 5) in Bangor will televise the Class B and D state championship high school baseball games Saturday. The B game starts at 11:30 a.m. and the D starts at 3 p.m.

Home Box Office’s live coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament this year from the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club June 20-30 marks the network’s 20th anniversary of providing live Wimbledon coverage.

HBO will provide viewers with 36 hours of live coverage and another five of tape-delayed action. Jim Lampley, Billie Jean King, John Lloyd and Barry MacKay will call the action.