ESPN'S NEXT DEAL COULD BE SUPER.

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

Mark Shapiro, ESPN's whiz-kid vice president of programming, recalled the other day a meeting he had with Roone Arledge, the architect of ABC's ``Monday Night Football'' when it all started back in 1970. This was a few years back, when Shapiro was an ESPN producer, coordinating interviews for the all-sports network's ``Sports Century'' project around 2000.

``He made an off-handed comment that at the rate ESPN was growing, it wouldn't be long before the Super Bowl moved to ESPN,'' Shapiro said of Arledge. ``And now we're halfway there.''

Although it can't be until 2013 at the earliest that ESPN has any kind of shot at hosting the Ultimate Sporting Event With Roman Numerals, it's hardly out of the question as more and more over-the-air sporting events gravitate toward cableland because, in part, of that platform's ability to generate revenues from both advertisers and subscriber fees.

Although George Bodenheimer, the sports chief of ESPN and ABC, said this ``Monday Night'' handoff will not automatically signal higher sub fees for consumers who ultimately foot the bill for the $8.8 billion deal ($1.1 billion a season from 2006 to 2013) announced this week, the business model already is in place.

Of all cable channels, ESPN by far costs the most to have as part of your basic monthly package. About $2.50 of your monthly cable or satellite- dish bill takes care of ESPN, compared to 75 cents or so for TNT, 40 cents for USA Network, 34 cents for MTV, and so on. ESPN generated, by some accounts, more than $2.5 billion just from those sub fees last year and another $1.6 billion in ads - which makes its annual investment with the NFL seem a no-brainer.

With the current contracts in place with most cable systems, by the time this ``MNF'' deal with the NFL ends, you'll probably be paying as much as $4.50 a month for ESPN - even if you don't watch it.

By the middle of the next decade, when the crop of young viewers who watch ESPN, CNN, MTV and FSN notice no distinction at all between over-the-air and cable, a Super Bowl on subscriber-supported network is hardly far-fetched.

Weep if you must that ``MNF'' soon won't be a ``freebie,'' that the days of Cosell and Co. are passed, that Dennis Miller couldn't save it. Disney kept the marquee event of the NFL within the company, and if Tomorrowland means a Super Bowl drops in ESPN's lap anywhere down the road, don't be surprised.

Even if, as Bodenheimer asked the other day, ``who'd have thought 25 years ago we'd have `Monday Night Football,' an American institution, on ESPN?''

--More questions, few answers: With about 15 months to speculate about how this all will shake out, it's not too early for Al Michaels and John Madden to ask their agents for some kind of assurance their jobs on ``Monday Night Football'' will go past the 2006 Super Bowl.

They probably command about $6 million a season combined and may have outpriced themselves in ESPN's budget. Michaels' ABC contract is due to expire after the 2005-06 NBA season. Madden is good through this year, and some matchmakers have already paired him with Bob Costas on NBC's new Sunday night package. Or with Marv Albert. Or with (fill in the blank).

Or, which makes more sense, having ESPN's Sunday night crew of Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Paul Maguire just take over the show. Maybe even add Jim Rome to the mix somehow.

--His Kelly Cup runneth over: Moorpark's Bill Courtland might not be the best-known hockey play-by-play man in these parts, what with West Hills' Bob Miller and Santa Clarita's Nick Nickson holding much higher-profile jobs. But Courtland has one thing going for him these days: He's doing playoff puck.

The Long Beach Ice Dogs' voice through his own Webcast site, Courtland makes the 145-mile round-trip drive to the Long Beach Arena tonight and Saturday for Games 1 and 2 in the Ice Dogs' East Coast Hockey League conference semifinals series against the Alaska Aces.

Does Courtland feel a little guilty that he's working this time of year while all the other NHL broadcasters, such as the Kings' Miller and Nickson, go stir crazy?

``I'm just doing my thing and wishing we all could be watching NHL hockey, but who knows the way the world shakes out sometimes,'' said Courtland, a Grant High of Van Nuys and Cal State Northridge graduate, who played for the Matadors on the men's volleyball team.

Courtland is paid only a small stipend, plus gas money, by the Ice Dogs for doing their games solo on his Internet Broadcast Services Unlimited site (www.ibsu.com), which also can be accessed through a link on the Ice Dogs' site.

Courtland also has subbed occasionally on the KVMD-TV coverage for Dan Hubbard and Charles Smith, but, mostly, he's online trying to make inroads with the Web site he developed six years ago. He also does work for USA Hockey and Cal Lutheran athletic events.

``I'd probably do these Ice Dog games for free, because the real kick is to meet all the people and really have fun doing the games,'' said Courtland, who didn't get into sportscasting until after his 40th birthday. (He supports his wife and three teenage sons by teaching court reporting and captioning for the hearing impaired.) ``But as much as I enjoy this, my bank keeps asking for house payments, so I gotta do something completely unrelated.''

SOUND BYTES

WHAT SMOKES

-- How about a version of Vin Scully doing his best Jaime Jarrin impression? That wouldn't necessarily be the case if Fox Sports Net goes ahead with designs to launch a Spanish-language version of FSN West and FSN West 2 in Southern California sometime next year. According to a report in the Sports Business Journal, the two new regional sports networks would simulcast games involving the Dodgers, Angels, Kings, Ducks, Lakers, Clippers, Galaxy, Chivas USA and Avengers with a new set of Spanish-language announcers and graphics, delivered to the Spanish-language tier channels on cable and dish systems. It makes perfect sense. A variety of census data and TV research show the Spanish-speaking households in Southern California represent between 40 and 50 percent of the population. A Fox spokesman declined to comment on the launch. Fox already has a Fox Sports En Espanol national channel that reaches about 3 million homes, about the same as ESPN Deportes.

WHAT CHOKES

-- Without the presence of a Los Angeles team, a New York team or a LeBron James - he who was included in the recent Time magazine list of the world's 100 most influential people - who in Southern California has an appetite for the NBA playoffs? For its first two telecasts, ABC, which will show 17 games (including the Finals, starting June 9), made sure to lock in defending champion Detroit on Saturday (before knowing it would face Allen Iverson) and then secured Shaquille O'Neal (who didn't make the Time list) and Miami for its Sunday telecast. ESPN, which starts with a tripleheader Saturday, does 27 games together with ESPN2, including the Western Conference finals. TNT, whose tripleheader starts Sunday, has 52 games through the Eastern Conference finals. Only news of note is that TNT has added deposed Minnesota coach Flip Saunders as an analyst.

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BY TOM HOFFARTH