Live football broadcasts are worth more than their weight in gold to canny television moguls who use the contests to build ratings, says Lynn Kahle, a University of Oregon professor at the James H. Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. Kahle says the war for National Football League game broadcast rights has itself become a high stakes game. "Rupert Murdoch raised the ante four years ago when he paid twice the market value to win the NFL away from CBS. He bet the network and he won," Kahle says. The move catapulted Murdoch's Fox Network from a ratings pygmy to a ratings giant after Fox used the high-profile time to promote its own shows. "The economics only work if the networks believe athletic contests are the most effective way to promote their network. The Fox experience tends to support that," Kahle says. It won't stop with the mega bucks now being spent for national sports, Kahle says. Murdoch is already setting up a world rugby league so he can promote the television networks he owns while he broadcasts the games. He's even trying to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers because, when the Korean and Japanese players on the team play, ratings skyrocket in the two countries. Disney, says Kahle, is playing the same game with its acquisitions of ESPN and ABC. "People really care about sports and they'll follow the games to any network that broadcasts them," Kahle explains. SOURCE: Lynn Kahle, James H. Warsaw Professor of Sports Marketing, UO Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, (541) 346-3373; e-mail, lkahle@oregon.uoregon.edu. -30- #T-6046/Daybook,SportsMarketing