NO L.A. TEAM GOOD FOR TV.

Byline: Marla Matzer Staff Writer

Los Angeles might have lost its bid for an expansion team to Houston on Wednesday, but fans who like to watch football and the TV networks were winners.

Quite simply, it means more football games with attractive matchups for the networks to broadcast and profit from. If L.A. had a team, for instance, CBS and Fox probably wouldn't be able to show as many weekend doubleheaders as they do now. The networks would lose, and so would viewers.

It works this way: If a city has a home team, home games will only be broadcast in that market if the game sells out at least 72 hours in advance. (Remember when Raiders playoff games were blacked out.) Also, road games of the team are always favored for local broadcast, no matter the quality of the teams. So unless your team is very good and very popular, you may get the short end of the stick as a TV viewer. (In other words, you get to watch your 4-10 team against another 4-10 team, while everybody else in the country watches a couple of undefeated teams go at it.)

Though advocates for pro football in Los Angeles seemed to think television would want a team in L.A., representatives for the networks - who were skittish about speaking on the record - claimed not having a local team in the second biggest TV market in the country isn't in itself a big drawback.

``So far this season, game ratings are up 30 percent on ESPN,'' said a spokesman for that network, ``so we feel the league overall is performing fine as it is.''

``Clearly, L.A. is a desirable market,'' said executive at another network. ``There's three times the viewers in L.A. But there are a lot of ifs. A terrific rating in L.A. is better than a terrific rating in Houston. But if the team doesn't sell out and isn't that good, you're better off having those two factors in Houston.''

Anne Elliot, vice president of marketing communication for Nielsen Media Research, agreed: ``Los Angeles is a larger market . . . but it depends on the market getting behind a new team and watching.''

Last year, ABC, ESPN, CBS and Fox committed to $17.6 billion in contracts with the NFL for eight seasons, and many believe that the networks will lose money on the deal. But pro football for the networks is often a way to lure fans to their other shows. (You may have noticed Fox's analyst John Madden touting the `` '70s Show'' during Sunday's Tampa Bay-Minnesota game.)

``Today's sport events are very valuable in promoting other programming,'' said Leslie Anne Wade, CBS Sports vice president of communication. ``It's changing universe in TV - there are so many options. Major sports events are one of the few things you can count on. They still get good numbers. Young men as an audience are harder and harder to reach - they're attractive to advertisers and harder to find.''

Wade added that the ratings for football on CBS are up 18 percent, and ``it's rare for anything on network TV to go up that much in a year.''

There are those who think that the Houston decision isn't the end of the line for L.A. football, including Madden. ``Houston got the expansion team. But I think L.A. will get a relocated team. . . . I believe the owners really wanted to go to Los Angeles, and gave (those proposing a Los Angeles expansion team) every opportunity to get it together,'' Madden said, ``so I don't think this is the end. But in order to make it work, the stadium issue has to be solved. A stadium has to be built, or at least committed to.''