Blaze suffer first shutout — no NBC

The Utah Jazz and the Utah Blaze have a lot in common — more than just their home state and the fact that both play in the Delta Center.

Both teams belong to leagues that have contracts with a major broadcast television network.

Neither team actually appears in games on that major broadcast television network this season.

The NBA, of course, features a limited number of games on ABC. None of those games involves the Jazz.

The Arena Football League features a limited number of games on NBC. None of those games involves the Blaze.

Coincidence? I think not. Major television broadcast networks are interested in games that draw big ratings. And a team located in the No. 36 television market generally doesn't bring that.

To be fair, the Jazz used to appear on NBC (before ABC replaced it in the NBA TV deal) at least occasionally. But that was back when the Jazz were, well, good. And good teams do better in the ratings than bad ones, for obvious reasons.

We do not, of course, know yet how the Blaze are going to do this season. But, historically, expansion teams have not exactly risen to the top of the heap on a regular basis.

(If you'd made a career out of betting against expansion teams in any sport you can think of, you'd be very rich.)

And it's not like the Utah Blaze are the only team NBC has snubbed. Fully a third of the AFL's 18 teams — Utah, Austin, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Nashville and Las Vegas — are not on the network's schedule.

On the other hand, Los Angeles (in the No. 2 TV market) and Chicago (No. 3) are each scheduled to appear five times; Philadelphia (No. 4), Dallas (No. 7) and Colorado (No. 18) will each make four appearances.

The biggest surprise in NBC's schedule may be that the team in the No. 1 market, New York, only has one scheduled appearance.

The owners and fans of the Blaze just ought to hope that NBC was right when it put this schedule together — that the network has selected the games that will attract the largest audiences.

Unlike the NFL, NBA or major league baseball, the AFL doesn't receive a penny in rights fees from NBC. The league and the network will split the advertising revenues from the televised games.

As with all commercial television, the higher the ratings, the more the network can charge for advertising. And the more the network can charge, the more it has to share with the AFL.

So . . . go NBC!

NO SHUTOUT: The Blaze won't be on NBC, but a third of their 18 games will be televised locally by Fox Sports Net-Utah — and five of those telecasts are live.

That kicks off with the season opener at San Jose on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

Other games are a tape-delayed telecast of Utah at Los Angeles on Feb. 25 and live telecasts of San Jose at Utah (March 4); Utah at Grand Rapids (March 16); Utah at Tampa Bay (April 1); Arizona at Utah (April 7); and Utah at Chicago (May 6).

POOR KSL: It might have been nice for local NBC affiliate KSL-Ch. 5 if at least one Blaze game were on the network.

Ah, well. Maybe the local team will make the playoffs . . .

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com