BRAINSTORM: WHAT IF TV SPORTS WERE FUN?

By Steve Wulf

Coming soon to a ball game near you: eavesdropping bases.

Yes, the same folks who brought you the Fox Box, the glow puck and an in-studio football field are about to transform baseball, or try to. Since its first broadcast less than two years ago, Fox Sports has left a sizable imprint on televised sports with innovative gimmicks, over-the-top commentary and a philosophy of fun with games. Started from scratch when Rupert Murdoch landed an N.F.L. television contract in 1993, Fox Sports has made imitators out of skeptics. But then the whole idea of a fourth network was once considered impossible.

A few weeks ago, Fox planted an experimental microphone in one of the bases at Baltimore's Oriole Park in the hope that Major League Baseball will approve miked bases for use when the network starts its Game of the Week telecasts on June 1. "We want to do everything possible to make viewers feel like they're sitting in the stadium," says Fox Sports president David Hill. "We want them to hear the ball hit the mitt or what a slide sounds like."

Hill is a transplanted Australian with little reverence for the national pastime. He was recently quoted in the New York Times Magazine as telling his executives, "If anybody talks about any dead guys during a broadcast, I'll sack 'em." (Good thing Fox didn't televise Cal Ripken's 2,131st straight game last year: "Cal Ripken has now played in more consecutive games than...anybody.") Hill explains himself: "What I meant when I said that was I didn't want the announcers just to drop names of dead guys without putting them in context. We now have someone going over old films of baseball greats and transferring them to tape so that when an announcer mentions Lou Gehrig, boom--the viewers see Gehrig."

Perhaps more significantly, Fox has taken over the rather moribund marketing of baseball with a series of fresh, wiseacre promos titled "Same Game, New Attitude." They include the Phillies' Lenny Dykstra jumping into a mosh pit, Yankee first baseman Tino Martinez on the couch of a shrink who happens to be a Don Mattingly fan, and Cal Ripken getting razzed by his mailman, who asks, "I don't suppose you've had to deal with any rabid Dobermans at shortstop, Mr. Streak?" Fox will also do a kids' pregame show, In the Zone, to lure future fans whose bedtimes have kept them from seeing the World Series.

Fox has already made hockey more accessible with the computer-enhanced puck that gives off a comet-like trail when slapped. On its football telecasts, Fox introduced not only a little score box in the corner of the screen but also the comedy team of Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long. They may be best taken in small doses, but a black-and-white barbershop scene that opened a pregame show in Fox's first N.F.L. season and featured the ex-players reminiscing with a barber about the old days of football was as clever and as humorous as TV gets, much less TV sports.

Fox bought into sports for credibility, but it may turn out that sports needs Fox as much as Fox needs sports.

--Steve Wulf