AGONY OF CONCEIT; WELCOME TO THE BATTLE OF THE NETWORK MICROPHONIES.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

You know about the Discovery Channel's ``Eco-Challenge.'' It's the annual breakneck endurance race that draws groups of competitors to an outback wasteland and tests their abilities to navigate by foot, kayak, horseback, mountain rope and whatever other physical and spiritual means from Point A to Point B.

Boy, it's inspiring.

It's inspired me to propose my own grueling event. Not for athletes. For sportscasters who put themselves above the call of network duty to cover events.

Call it the ``Bloated-Ego Challenge.''

It's ``Battle of the Network Stars'' meets ``Almost Anything Goes'' done with mirrors - so everyone can check his own reflection.

Each four-person sportscaster team embarks on a predetermined one-year period of self-promotion during their normal duties. They are scored on five skill levels: on-air overexposure, endorsements, TV and/or movie roles (as themselves or otherwise), books authored and intangibles (i.e.: back-climbing, back-stabbing, back-to-back network firings, etc.).

Team points are awarded, but in the spirit of the Ego Challenge, individual points are more important - so they can then be used against their teammates in contract negotiations and general office gossip.

Here's one attempt to handicap the field:

Team ESPN: Chris Berman.

He's simply the Babe Ruthless of his time. The network continues to spotlight Boomer on anything and everything. But his recent appearances on the Michael Jordan commercial and promoting Disney products is the epitome of surfeit saturation. He's solely responsible for ``National TV-Turnoff Week.''

Berman's power shows in that Roy Firestone, Mike Lupica and Dick Vitale, clean-up hitters on any other team, simply fill out this squad. Firestone would interview himself on an ``Up Close'' prime-time special if physically possible. In addition to his ``Jerry Maguire'' cameo, his touring vaudeville act and his ``World According to Roy'' sports videos, we saw ``Bring in Da' Noise, Bring in Da' Firestone'' locally on a Galaxy TV commercial. Draw a line in the sand and Firestone will cross it.

Lupica is the reason ferrets are illegal to keep as pets in most states. He manages to burrow into and contaminate every medium in the free world, even those parts where it's not free. ESPN2 this week announced he will host his own show starting May 4. He refused the title ``Lupica2Night'' because it left out his first name.

Vitale, who endorses his own commercially sponsored sound-alike contest, gets cameos in movies made by Pauly Shore. That's awesome, baby. With a lower-case ``a.''

Team Fox: The place where every employee has a movie project in the works or is pitching one to his boss.

Howie ``Wowie'' Long's work has ignited a firestorm of offers for him to jump off the NFL TV-studio set and permanently onto the silver screen. If Long is the enforcer, then John Madden is the endorser, busier than Robert Downey Jr.'s attorney. He could actually live in his bus off what he makes on his own NFL video games.

Tim McCarver, still taking tomato-soup baths to get rid of the smell from hosting CBS' Winter Olympics in prime time, just came out with his second autobiographical book. Terry ``Home Team'' Bradshaw couldn't even beat ``Fred And Arthel'' in the ratings.

Team NBC: Bob Costas Shock Syndrome has decreased in the last year because his spouse invoked a TV blackout rule, but it only allowed more time to write the foreword to every sports book printed since 1992. Costas' agent almost had booked him for a guest spot on ``Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher'' until the Marv Albert thing opened up more play-by-play work.

Ahmad Rashad and Bill Walton should be reading books to preschoolers at the local library instead of giving ex-athletes the idea that TV work will always be there for them. And then there's Hannah Storm, who uses neither her real name (Storen) or married name (Hicks) and needs ``root, root, root for the home team'' canal work next time she visits the vet.

Team ABC: One appearance a year on the network by Brent Musburger and Dan Dierdorf is one too many. How did 'Burger weasel into the latest Magic Johnson ad for American Express? At least the hyperextended 'Dorf stopped doing the Slim Fast spots.

And here's Vitale again! That's the beauty of the Disney synergy, baby! Two teams for one guy!!

Robin Roberts, indeed a woman, takes her role as ``trailblazer'' a bit too serious. No one watches ``Wide World of Sports'' anymore. That's why she hosts it.

Team CBS: The last sports event on the network that didn't include Jim Nantz's participation was . . . the research doesn't go back that far. Nantz is CBS' answer to Pop-Up Videos.

Gary McCord, with two books and a guest spot in ``Tin Cup'' on his resume, hopes he never does the Masters again. It would ruin his ``bad as I wanna be'' image. Billy Packer's soapbox lost its foundation last year. And blame it on Mary Carillo if you can't watch women's - or men's - tennis anymore.

Team HBO: Jim Lampley, Bryant Gumbel, Frank Deford and Larry Merchant are a journalistic dream team. They have no business in this competition.

Team TNT: Cheryl Miller stands out as the Fabulous Moola on this tag team that would have to include Hubie Brown, Ernie Johnson Jr. (so this is what happened to Chip Douglas from ``My Three Sons'') and Pat Haden (who has far too much going in his life for such frivolity).

Team CNN-SI: Would forfeit two weeks in. Ted Turner found out he could not participate.

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

Fox's somewhat gutsy move to give (ub)Pete Rose a three-day pass to guest co-host ``The Last Word'' with (ub)Jim Rome this week. Last we checked, Fox just bought the Dodgers and Rose was serving a lifetime suspension from baseball. Of course, Fox cleared Rose's appearance with Major League Baseball and would need to do so again if it decided that it was worth a gamble to make the camera-stiff guy with the weed-wacked haircut a permanent fixture.

The latest (ub)Chick Hearn-ism was as good as it gets. After last Sunday's Lakers win over Utah, Chickie Baby summarized: ``As (ub)Jack Nicholson would say, it doesn't get any better.''

Steve Allen's narration in the A&E channel's two-hour special ``The Unreal Story of Professional Wrestling'' (Sunday, 9 p.m.).

For the first time in years, a current Kings player is not available to be a guest studio analyst on ESPN's NHL playoff coverage.

WHAT CHOKES

It took only six months before Classic Sports Network, that cable TV channel that was supposed to remind us of a simple era gone by, was used as a bastardized marketing tool for Disney. ``Replay: The History of the NFL on Television'' was a project that CSN commissioned NFL Films to do a year ago. Then Disney bought CSN last fall. Then NFL Films finished the piece. Then Disney-owned ESPN and ESPN2 showed it this week. CSN has it back, slightly used, to show Saturday at 5 p.m. Most disheartening was that each time the 90-minute special aired on ESPN and ESPN2, it was followed by a 30-minute ``Save the Classics'' pledge break/infomercial hosted by, of all people, a man given a sports Emmy for studio host, (ub)Dan Patrick (not his real name). So how can you ``do your part to save the classics?'' Call your local cable system and loudly complain. That's pretty classy.

Imagine the surprise when Angels' TV play-by-play man (ub)Steve Physioc left voice mail on (ub)George Zimmer's machine to tell him what a great job he did getting him fitted with a suit, and darn if the guy who owns a well-publicized clothing store didn't use Physioc's testimonial in his latest radio spot. You know the commercial. It's the one where people voluntarily call Zimmer's voice mail and tell him what a great job his employees did getting them fitted with a suit, and he uses it on the radio spot.

By Tom Hoffarth E-mail: sptmediaaol.com

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