WILL SPORTS REMAIN TV'S REAL DEAL ANYMORE?

Byline: TOM HOFFARTH The Media

NEWPORT BEACH - Whoever said reality bites hasn't had teeth marks left in their rear end by Mark Burnett.

Here's the rebellous bloke from England who has brainwashed American audiences and network executives on the beauty of unscripted programming - reality TV, they call it - starting long ago with the Eco Challenge and worming his way into the prime-time infrastructure with ``Survivor'' and ``The Apprentice.''

His sights are now set on sports. So, yes, it's time to sift through the stacks of bills on your desk, find the letter opener and prepare to poke your own eyeballs out.

As big-time sports become more about how many viewers watched instead of who won or lost, Burnett has come forth with the magic formula - something called ``The Contender,'' which, in his reality, will change the way boxing is forever perceived.

He wants to take 16 amateur fighters - there are applications already available on NBC.com - and give them a tournament where the winner can ``claim a chance at becoming a professional prize fighter,'' as a recent network press release spelled out in vague terms. The key to the success of this 16-week series will be making the viewers care about who survives and who's punched out.

When it'll actually see daylight, who'll be involved (other than Jeffrey Katzenberg as a co-producer and Sylvester Stallone as the host) and if it even gets off the ground considering the red tape boxing's governing bodies will throw out is to be determined. But Burnett definitely had a couple hundred of the highest high-level sports executives salivating as he explained it all at the start of a two-day sports summit at a four-star Newport Beach hotel Wednesday morning.

``Just pure sports are not going to deliver massive ratings,'' he proclaimed in his keynote address at the Octagon/Street & Smith's Sports Group World Congress of Sports gathering.

``My idea is to take an unscripted drama and tell stories. American TV needs to get back to its roots. It's story, story, story. I am a living example. I now, quite frankly, am reinventing Thursday nights.''

And, if we're not watching carefully, it could convince sports programmers that now's the time to reinvent the way they go about televising game coverage in the big Nielsen picture.

The line dividing sports from entertainment programming continues to be rubbed away by those convinced the two have just been one in the same from the beginning. The reality TV bug has already spread to ESPN and its original entertainment division that has spit out such series as ``Beg, Borrow & Deal,'' and is deep into its win-an-anchor-spot series with ``Dream Job.''

Then there's The Golf Channel series, taking a group of low-handicap players and giving them a shot at competing in a real Canadian event. Likewise, the PGA Tour has backed a reality series that'll air on CBS this May, with a winning team earning a spot in the 2005 Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

That doesn't even include the latest Mark Cuban experiment sanctioned by ABC, ``The Benefactor,'' where the Dallas Mavericks owner plans to give away $1 million to whoever whimpers the loudest.

``Reality series have taken over every network and they will for a while because they're doing so well, so it should spill into the sports world,'' said Orly Adelson, the executive producer of ESPN's recently ceased soap opera ``Playmakers,'' who was on one of several panels at the World Congress discussing the way sports and entertainment intersect in today's mixed-media world.

Ross Greenberg, the HBO Sports president and another panelist, doesn't buy into the semantics of the genre, convinced that real sports (to borrow a phrase) will always work in this business as far as he and his network, which is deeply invested in real boxing, are concerned.

``The word 'reality' is thrown around all the time, but you have to look at how it's defined,'' he said. ``We did a show called 'Hard Knocks' about life in the NFL training camps and it was very compelling stuff and great TV - but it was a series of documentaries. Manufactured reality isn't reality. If you put 12 boxers in a house and lead up to a box-off and someone gets 'fired,' that's manufactured reality.''

Jim Lampley, the esteemed HBO boxing broadcaster who also runs his own production company, was preparing to compete with Brunett with his own boxing reality show. But Lampley's project was shelved Wednesday when his main attraction, George Foreman, couldn't commit.

Lampley's idea was to have Foreman as sort of a mother hen to a group of heavyweight contenders, helping them train and prepare for an elimination tournament that would involve - if the ex-champ was up for it - an actual bout against Foreman in the end.

Because of the many hurdles Burnett will encounter by boxing authorities in his pursuit of his series, Lampley isn't completely convinced ``The Contender'' will actually contend for a prime-time audience.

``It's easy to formulate a TV show, but when you have to deal with the actual ordaining of fights that involve certain laws and supervision and medial people, you realize it's not just something you can go in the backyard and put up a stage and have a show,'' said Lampley, an inductee into the World Boxing Hall of Fame for his broadcasting over the past three decades.

``His original plan was long on blue sky and short on legitimate acknowledgment of the organizational landscape of boxing. I'm intrigued by the on-camera human possibility of what this show can provide, but you know how many legitimate boxing matches aren't even watchable, so how will it be to a general audience?''

Maybe get Mike Tyson to bite Richard Hatch's ear?

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Photo:

(color) Producer Mark Burnett has set his sights on ``The Challenger,'' as his next project.

Jeff Lawrence/KRT

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By Tom Hoffarth