St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 19

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH WEDNESDAY, JULY 9, 1997 Li 3 JUL 09 1997 Radio Picture Clearing Up For Rams Division I Grid Playoff Inevitable Maybe After a tumultuous offseason, the Rains' radio situation for 1997 seems to have settled with KFNS and KSD-FM set to simulcast the games. Rams contests had been carried on KSD-AM and KSD-FM in the club's two years in St. Louis. But the company that owns the rights, Boston-based American Radio Sys- MEDIA VIEWS terns, recently sold KSD-AM.

So it shuffled the AM portion of the package over to the only outlet in town that it now owns on that band KFNS, the all-sports station. Meanwhile, there has been talk that American Radio was trying to dump the Rams' package altogether. Karen who heads American Radio's local operations, had agreed to pay the Rams $25 million over seven years when she swung the deal shortly after the team moved to town. At that time, she was move from KFNSKSD-FM this season, although a change could come next year. TV Time: The Rams' exhibition telecasts will return to KTVI (Channel 2), which had them in the Rams' first season in town.

They were on KDNL (Channel 30) last season. "This will be a nice forum to introduce coach (Dick) Vermeil to St. Louis," KTVI general manager Spencer Koch said. It also will provide a platform for the station to promote its new 9 p.m. newscasts, which debut Aug, 25 a tack the station took two years ago when it used Rams broadcasts to plug its switch of network affiliation from ABC to Fox.

Fox's Kenny Albert will do the play-by-play, and former East St. Louis, Mizzou and San Diego Chargers player Kellen Winslow the analysis on the three exhibition telecasts that are locally produced. The other exhibition game, Aug. 15 at Dallas, is a Fox production that will be shown nationally. KTVI will air a half-hour pregame show before all four exhibition telecasts.

Billiken Beat: Bob Ramsey will be back for his 12th season as the radio voice of St. Louis University basketball. KMOX obtained the rights to the Billikens for next season, and it had been uncertain if Ramsey would be retained. That's because in the past KMOX has not been keen on using announcers employed at other local stations, and Ramsey is a talk-show host at KFNS. Mike Kelly left KMOX this spring to remain the voice of University of Missouri sports.

The Tigers have left KMOX for KTRS, which is a rival of KMOX. Management at KMOX didn't want him broadcasting games on KTRS while also working for KMOX. KMOX and KFNS, however, have a close working relationship. When two of the teams that KMOX carries are playing at the same time, it often sends one of those broadcasts to KFNS. Ramsey also is the play-by-play man for about 30 Cardinals telecasts on Fox Sports Midwest cable, his first significant involvement in broadcasting the Redbirds.

"This is the best year I've ever had," Ramsey said. "Unbelievable. Getting to do Cardinals baseball, getting to work on KMOX the station everybody (interested in broadcasting) shoots to work at when they're growing up in this town 1997 has been a wonderful year." Kelly's Corner: Dan P. Kelly, who recently was hired as the radio voice of the Blues despite having no on-air broadcasting experience at any level, will gain a little seasoning this summer by doing play-by-play of some Vipers roller hockey games on KFNS. He is scheduled to make his on-air debut on July 24.

"Actually, roller hockey seems harder to do" than ice hockey, Kelly said. "You're not as familiar with the players, plus there are breakaways after breakaways." Kelly, 23, is a son of former Blues broadcaster Dan Kelly, who died in 1989. The plan is for him to broadcast six Vipers games, plus playbffs. He will replace Dave Leggitt, who recently was fired as the club's publicist and radio voice. Vipers President Bernie Federko said the move was not made to create an opportunity for Kelly to receive some experience.

Federko also is the analyst on Blues radio broadcasts and will be working with Kelly in that role. "That had absolutely nothing to do with it," Federko said. "We relieved Dave of his duties because of some in-office things, not because of the broadcasts. In fact, I didn't even think of using (Kelly) until somebody said to me that wfe'd have to do something about the broadcast situation. He hadn't entered my mind at all." Leggitt said he could buy that.

"I really don't believe in conspiracy theories," he said. "I didn't see eye-to-eye with somebody else in the office. Let's leave it at that." DAN CAESAR Kramer has powerful supporters, including Nebraska athletic director Bill Byrne and Washington's Barbara Hedges. "Absolutely not," Hedges said when asked if she supported a playoff. "Bowls provide the greatest opportunity for our student-athletes that they could have, and a playoff system simply could not replicate that.

Bowls do so much for us and for the communities they serve." Although some plans call for an incorporation of the bowls into a playoff, Kramer says that would not work. "It (a playoff) works in the NFL because Green Bay plays its first three games at home," he said. "Fans can't travel to New Orleans and Miami and Los Angeles week after week, and if you have some games on college campuses, the large and small bowls will lose support. "I think a playoff would ruin our bowl system." Others fear the Alliance already is doing that. The Alliance, governed by the major-conference commissioners, produced a meeting of No.

1 Nebraska and No. 2 Florida in the 1996 Fiesta Bowl and arranged Florida's national title game with Florida State last season. It also doubled the payday from three major bowls virtually overnight. But attendance and television ratings dropped dramatically at the two Alliance bowls that did not play host to the national championship game the past two years, and smaller bowls also have suffered. A national committee of athletic directors again is studying the possibility of a postseason playoff for Division I-A.

Missouri athletic director Joe Ca-stiglione, chair of the Big 12 Conference ADs, thinks the concerns of Kramer and other commissioners are valid but not insurmountable. "For us to make a playoff work, we must deal with the challenges effectively, and we must have a plan we can adopt," Castiglione said. "But I'm in favor of doing that. Because, in the long run, that's where we're going to be." 1997, Dallas Morning News DALLAS These are fast times in the world of major-college postseason football. After decades of the good-ol'-boy bowl system, the 1990s has produced a new style of postseason football.

We've had a Bowl Coalition, designed to eliminate October bowl bids, and a Bowl Alliance, created to generate a possible No. 1 vs. No. 2 bowl game. A new and improved "Super Alliance," designed to guarantee a meeting of the country's two top-ranked teams in a bowl showdown, is set to begin after the 1998 season.

But those fancy-named postseason formulas represent little more than a dressed-up compromise between two powerful factions of NCAA leaders those who have for years cried for a postseason playoff and those who don't want to hear about it. The issue was studied by a special NCAA committee two years ago. That committee decided against a playoff, temporarily quieting the voices calling for a championship tournament in the one sport, college or professional, that does not have one. But after two years of mixed reviews from the Bowl Alliance, many of those in charge of the game are beginning to doubt that the Alliance, Super or otherwise, is the solution. "Eventually, we'll get to a playoff," Texas athletic director Wally Groff predicts, "whether it be four years or 10 years down the road.

"The Alliance was a move in the right direction. The Super Alliance is closer. "If every other sport, including college football at the Division I-AA, II and III levels, has a playoff, how do we not have one? I never have been able to find anyone to answer that question satisfactorily." Alliance architect Roy Kramer, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference, has tried. His list of reasons why a playoff won't work begins with the fact that only a small number of teams could participate unlike the 64-team NCAA basketball tournaments and ends with his fear that a playoff could spell the death of the bowls. with EZ Communications, mmmmmm which since has merged with American Radio.

The $25 million figure was something competitors said at the time was grossly in excess of the market value. The package also contains a marketing plan she valued at a similar amount. Carroll could not be reached to comment Tuesday, but sources say the deal has lost a lot of money and that Carroll has met with KMOX general manager Rod Zimmerman about sending the broadcasts to his station. However, because the season is so close the first exhibition game is three weeks from Saturday sources have said there will be no Cet this free overnight. 9 Bonus 444 Northwest Plaza St.

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