Sunday, April 15, 2001
Sports on TV-Radio
Craig, Williams get run on ESPN2
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ESPN2 is happy to have Cincinnati's rising stars, Dante Craig and Ricardo Williams, on its Friday Night Fights card this week. The network already is talking about having them on again.
But if Craig and Williams are as successful as boxing experts expect them to be, they won't be long for Friday Night Fights.
“If the demand for them grows, they'll command dollars above what we can play,” said Bob Yalen, director of boxing for ESPN. “That's happened before. It happened with Oscar De La Hoya.”
But right now, FNF is the right place for Craig and Williams.
“Their people are very smart to put them on with us,” said Teddy Atlas, who will serve as ESPN2's analyst for Friday's show at Cintas Center. “If they were fighting on HBO, they'd be making a lot more money. But you don't need a pocket full of money for your third fight.”
Williams and Craig are trying to build their records and name recognition. They got a head start as Olympians. But Friday Night Fights keeps them fresh in the mind of boxing's core audience.
“We can offer them exposure,” Yalen said. “They're going to be seen by the most people. Both in the U.S. and internationally.”
Friday Night Fights is ESPN2's No. 1-rated show. It averages a 0.8 rating. That's 540,000 sets of eyes on each fight.
“We triple the rating of HBO,” Atlas said. “We love to say that, because (ESPN and ABC) paid $600 million for the right to the NHL.”
FNF does get top-notch boxers. Williams and Craig will fight on the undercard for Friday's event. The feature bout is Michael Lerma and Bronco McKart. Two of the last three FNF have featured title fights.
Williams, a 137-pounder, and Craig, a 147-pounder, face good competition. Williams (2-0) faces Damon Guerra (9-1), and Craig (2-0) fights Sherwin Davis (6-0).
Fighters like Craig and Williams want to fight often as they develop, so ESPN2 has a lot of chances to get them on.
“We're a weekly show,” Yalen said. “So if they have something set up for May, June and August, and they want to add a fight in July, we can work them in.”
Yalen produced the boxing and Atlas did the analysis during the Olympics for NBC, so they are familiar with Williams and Craig.
“Boxing's my forte,” Yalen said. “I saw a lot of them in amateurs. I knew these guys were destined to be stars.”
Atlas agreed: “They're very experienced because they fought so much as amateurs. They don't have to fight the kind of fighters most guys do their first two years.”
MORE BOXING: ESPN's Outside the Lines will take a look at boxing reform. Greg Page, the former heavyweight champion who was injured in a fight March 9 in Northern Kentucky, will be part of the story, which airs at 10:30 a.m. today.
GOTTA BE A QB: Fox is holding a press conference Monday to unveil a badly kept secret. They are adding Troy Aikman to their NFL team.
Because he is a high-profile quarterback, Aikman will jump into Fox's No. 2 spot. But first he's off to train on NFL Europe games.
Bengals analyst Dave Lapham was the odd man out to make way for Aikman. Lapham has done NFL Europe for three years.
That's the problem guys like Lapham face: They work their way up the ranks, only to pushed back every time a big-name like Aikman wants to try the booth.
ROME RETURN: Jim Rome, who has missed the last nine days of his show (noon to 3 p.m., WCKY-AM 1360 HOMER), will return Monday.
On the air, they've been saying Rome is on vacation. But longtime listeners probably can deduce the real reason.
E-mail jfay@enquirer.com.
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