''NFL on NBC'' is an
American television
Television is one of the Mass media in the United States, major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August ...
sports presentation show broadcast by
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
. It aired from October 22, 1939 to January 25, 1998. The show returned since August 6, 2006. The branding is used for the presentation of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
.
NBC had sporadically carried NFL games as early as
1939
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
, including the championship and Pro Bowl through the 1950s and early 1960s. Beginning in
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...
, NBC signed an agreement to carry the
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
(AFL)'s telecasts, which carried over with the
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
(AFC) when the
AFL merged with the NFL. NBC would continuously carry the AFL/AFC's Sunday afternoon games from 1965 through the
1997 season, after which NBC lost the AFC contract to
CBS.
NBC's current flagship NFL program, ''
NBC Sunday Night Football
''NBC Sunday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''SNF'') is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, w ...
'', began airing on NBC in
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
. Alongside Sunday Night Football, NBC airs the annual preseason
Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, the
NFL Kickoff
NFL Kickoff Game is the name given to the first game of the National Football League (NFL) NFL regular season, regular season. A single game is held, preceded by a concert and other ceremonies. This first game of the season is usually scheduled ...
game, the
primetime game on Thanksgiving Day, and one regular season game on
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
. During the
NFL Playoffs
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs is the annual single-elimination tournament held to determine the National Football League, league champion. The four-round tournament is held after the league's regular season. Since the 2020 NFL seaso ...
, NBC airs one to three Wild Card Playoff games with one guaranteed on a Sunday night, one Divisional Round Playoff game, and the
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
in rotation with
Fox,
CBS and
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
/
ABC. In
2024
The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...
, NBC aired a third Wild Card Playoff game on Peacock. From
2016
2016 was designated as:
* International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
* International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
to
2017
2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly.
Events January
* January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...
, NBC added a five-game ''
Thursday Night Football'' package to its offerings supplementing the NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving Day Thursday night games that were already part of NBC's coverage. Game coverage is usually preceded by the pregame show ''
Football Night in America''.
History
Beginnings through the 1950s
NBC's coverage of the National Football League (which has aired under numerous program titles and formats) actually goes back to the beginnings of the network's relationship with the league in
1939
This year also marks the start of the World War II, Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history.
Events
Events related to World War II have a "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 1
** Coming into effect in Nazi Ger ...
, when its New York City
flagship station
In broadcasting, a flagship (also known as a flagship station or key station) is the broadcast station which originates a television network, or a particular radio or television program that plays a key role in the branding of and consumer loyal ...
, then known as W2XBS (now
WNBC
WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City that serves as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey� ...
) aired the first televised professional football game between the
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The team plays its ...
and the now-defunct
Brooklyn Dodgers
The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays. In 1884, it became a member of the American Association as the Brooklyn Atlantics before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brook ...
football team. Even before this, in
1934
Events
January–February
* January 1 – The International Telecommunication Union, a specialist agency of the League of Nations, is established.
* January 15 – The 8.0 1934 Nepal–Bihar earthquake, Nepal–Bihar earthquake strik ...
,
NBC Radio's
Blue Network
The Blue Network (previously known as the NBC Blue Network) was the on-air name of a now defunct American Commercial broadcasting, radio network, which broadcast from 1927 through 1945.
Beginning as one of the two radio networks owned by the ...
had carried the
Detroit Lions
The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. The team plays their home game ...
' inaugural
Thanksgiving game nationwide.
By
1955, NBC became the television home to the
NFL championship game
Throughout its history, the National Football league (NFL) and other rival American football leagues have used several different formats to determine their league champions, including a period of inter-league matchups to determine a true national ...
, the precursor to the
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
, paying US$100,000 to the league for the rights. The network had taken over the broadcast rights from the
DuMont Television Network
The DuMont Television Network (also the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in ...
, which had struggled to give the league a national audience (NBC's coverage of proto-
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...
games from
the year prior was more widely available at the time) and was on the brink of failure; the NFL's associations with NBC (as well as with
CBS) proved to be a boost to the league's popularity. For the
1957 NFL championship game
The 1957 NFL Championship Game was the 25th annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), held on December 29 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit, Michigan.
The Detroit Lions (8–4), winners of the Western Conference in a playof ...
,
Van Patrick and
Ken Coleman split a half of the play-by-play duties and
Red Grange
Harold Edward "Red" Grange (June 13, 1903 – January 28, 1991), nicknamed "the Galloping Ghost" and "the Wheaton Iceman", was an American professional American football, football Halfback (American football), halfback who played for the Chicag ...
, normally on play-by-play for
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...
games on
CBS, assumed the color commentator role for this game. The
1958 NFL championship game
The 1958 NFL Championship Game was the 26th NFL championship game, played on December 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first NFL game to be decided in sudden death overtime. The Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 23� ...
, played at
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the home field of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees and New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the Yankee S ...
, between the
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983, when owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breeding and racing. It w ...
and the
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...
went into sudden death overtime. This game, since known as the "Greatest Game Ever Played", was seen by many throughout the country and is credited with increasing the popularity of professional football in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Chris Schenkel called the first half while
Chuck Thompson
Charles Lloyd Thompson (June 10, 1921 – March 6, 2005) was an American sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and the National Football League (NFL)'s History of the Baltimore Colts, Baltimore C ...
called the second half and overtime.
NBC televised the NFL championship game until
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...
. The contract for the title game was separate than the regular season contracts held by
CBS, which started televising NFL games in
1956
Events
January
* January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan after 57 years.
* January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, E ...
. Prior to
1962
The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War.
Events January
* January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...
, each team had its own individual television contract. (This was in contrast to the
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
as well as established practice in
college football
College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...
, both of which forced all of their members to participate in a collective television contract. As the legality of such a collective contract was still in question at the time, and would eventually be
declared illegal in 1984, the NFL did not pursue such a contract until Congress explicitly allowed for the NFL to do so, with conditions, in the
Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961
The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 affects Title 15 of the United States Code, Chapter 32 "Telecasting of Professional Sports Contest" (§§ 1291-1295) The act amended antitrust laws to allow, among others, sports leagues to pool the broadcast ...
.) NBC held individual team contracts with the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
and
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983, when owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breeding and racing. It w ...
in
1959
Events
January
* January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...
,
1960
It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism.
Events January
* Janu ...
and
1961
Events January
* January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union.
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...
. While the games were
blacked out in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
and
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
, they were broadcast on other NBC stations. In some cases, the game broadcast was seen on CBS in the visiting team's home region. NBC covered eleven games in 1960 and 13 games in 1961 in a "Game of the Week" format. NBC would take one week off due to its
coverage of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
. During this era, NBC broadcast pre-recorded and edited hour-long broadcasts of NFL games in the off-season under the title ''Best of Pro Football''.
During this period, NBC also held the rights to the
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (since 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's All-star, star players.
The format has changed ...
(which was also under a separate contract from the NFL's regular season games and the NFL championship game) via the Los Angeles newspapers' charities. NBC televised the Pro Bowl following the
1951
Events
January
* January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950).
* January 9 – The Government of the Uni ...
and
1952 seasons and again from the
1957
Events January
* January 1 – The Saarland joins West Germany.
* January 3 – Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
* January 5 – South African player Russell Endean becomes the first batsman to be Dismissal (cricke ...
to
1964 seasons. The
1957 game was offered to NBC, then
CBS. Both declined to carry the game.
ABC was then offered to televise and accepted, but could not gain enough clearance of
affiliates
In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...
in time to make it a profitable venture. Thus they also dropped out and the game was not televised.
1960s
At the
start
Start can refer to multiple topics:
* Takeoff, the phase of flight where an aircraft transitions from moving along the ground to flying through the air
* Starting lineup in sports
* Track and field#Starts use in race, Starts use in sport race
* S ...
of the 1960s, 10 of the NFL's 13 NFL teams (including the brand new
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...
) were aligned with
CBS, two joined forces with NBC (the aforementioned
Colts and the
Steelers) and one (the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
) rejoined its partner, the
syndicated Sports Network
Sports channels are television speciality channels (usually available exclusively through cable television, cable and Terrestrial television, terrestrial and satellite television, satellite) Broadcasting of sports events, broadcast sporting eve ...
. NBC during this time period, employed
Lindsey Nelson and
Frankie Albert as their top broadcasting crew.
In Week 1 of the 1960 season, the
Washington-Baltimore game was also seen on
NBC affiliates in
St. Louis,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
,
Dallas-Ft. Worth and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
. For the following week, NBC's affiliates in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
, Dallas-Ft. Worth and
Washington also carried
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
-Baltimore game. There was no telecast in Week 3 as
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
was televising Game 4 of the
Pirates-
Yankees World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
. Week 4 saw NBC's
Green Bay and
Milwaukee
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
affiliates joining in on the
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
-Baltimore game. For Week 5, NBC's
New York affiliate also carried the Pittsburgh-Washington game. In Week 6, NBC's Philadelphia affiliate was a part of NBC's telecast of the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...
-Steelers game. For the following week,
Chicago's NBC station picked up NBC's Green Bay-Baltimore telecast. The
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
also tuned into NBC's coverage of Baltimore-
Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
in Week 8. Meanwhile,
Channel 2 in
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
provide their own coverage locally of the Colts-Bears game, with Chuck Thompson and Bailey Goss on the call. In Week 9,
WBAL in Baltimore also carried the Cleveland-Pittsburgh game. On Cleveland's own syndicated network, the game was called by
Ken Coleman and
Jimmy Dudley. On
Thanksgiving Day
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...
, 1960, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee, Detroit and Los Angeles affiliates joined in on their
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
-Baltimore telecast. In Week 11, NBC's Pittsburgh's station was also part of the coverage of the
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
-Baltimore game. For the following week, NBC's St. Louis, San Francisco and Green Bay stations carried the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
-Pittsburgh game. In Week 13, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and Dallas/Ft. Worth affiliates all joined in for NBC's Pittsburgh-
St. Louis telecast.
On April 5, 1961, NBC was awarded a two-year contract (1961–62) for the radio and television rights to the NFL championship game, paying US$615,000 annually for the rights ($300,000 of which was to go directly into the
NFL Player Benefit Plan). On May 23, 1963, NBC was awarded exclusive network broadcast rights for the 1963 NFL championship game for $926,000. For the
1960 NFL championship game, there was an early kickoff due to NFL officials preparing for potential of sudden death overtime.
Franklin Field had no lights and sunset would normally occur around 4:35 p.m. at this time of year in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
.
NBC continued to televise 13 Sundays involving either the
Colts and
Steelers (the odd week was when NBC had the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
) in
1961
Events January
* January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union.
* January 3
** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...
. This time, Lindsay Nelson was joined by Chuck Thompson on commentary. In Week 1, NBC's
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
-Baltimore telecast was seen nationally except in NFL markets and the
CBS Los Angeles
KCBS-TV (channel 2), branded CBS Los Angeles, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast flagship station of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the n ...
network region (which featured
Bob Kelley and
Gil Stratton on commentary). The exception to this would be if teams did not play on Sunday, then the NBC affiliate could carry their games in those markets as well. So if the Colts or Steelers (in this case the Steelers) were not on NBC and they were on the road, then an ad hoc regional network would be permitted to carry the game, either using its own crew or picking up the CBS feed and crew. In Week 2, NBC's affiliates in Chicago and Los Angeles also plugged into NBC's telecast of the
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
-Baltimore game. In Week 3, the Baltimore-
Green Bay game was televised locally to Baltimore on WBAL 11. Apparently if Baltimore viewers wanted to see the World Series, they would have had to choose between
WRC 4 in
Washington or
WGAL 8 in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Lancaster ( ) is a city in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 58,039 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, eighth-most populous ci ...
. As previously mentioned, there was no NFL telecast on NBC due to coverage of Game 4 of the World Series. In Week 11, NBC's Green Bay, Milwaukee and Detroit affiliates were added to their
St. Louis-Pittsburgh telecast. For Week 13, the telecast of the Pittsburgh-
Washington game included Channel 4 in Los Angeles and Channel 11 in Baltimore. NBC's Week 14 telecast of the Pittsburgh-St. Louis included channel 4 in the Bay Area and channel 11 in Baltimore.
At the end of the 1964 season, NBC would carry the
Pro Bowl
The National Football League All-Star Game (1939–1942), Pro Bowl (1951–2022), or Pro Bowl Games (since 2023) is an annual event held by the National Football League (NFL) featuring the league's All-star, star players.
The format has changed ...
one last time as the game was still the property of the Los Angeles Newspaper Charities. CBS not only won the deal to
carry the NFL championship game starting in
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 – In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patria ...
(which had been at NBC since
1955), but it would also begin televising the Pro Bowl after the
1965 season as the NFL took control of the all-star tilt. NBC's 1965 Pro Bowl telecast was aired in color and featured
Ken Coleman and
Gordy Soltau on the call.
NBC obtains the rights to the American Football League
NBC resumed professional football telecasts on a regular basis in
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...
. On January 29, 1964, NBC signed a five-year deal with the
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
(replacing
ABC in that role), paying them US$36 million to televise its games; with this and the increased, heated battle over college prospects, both leagues negotiated a
merger
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...
agreement on June 8, 1966. Although they would not officially fully merge and adopt an interlocking schedule until
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
, two of the conditions of the agreement were that the winners of each league's championship game would meet in a contest (which would eventually become known as the Super Bowl) to determine the "world champion of football", and that there would be a common
player draft.
Curt Gowdy, who had covered the first five seasons of the American Football League with broadcast partner
Paul Christman on ABC, moved over to NBC in the fall of 1965. For the next decade, Gowdy was the lead play-by-play announcer for the network for both AFL football (AFC from 1970 onward) and
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
games; however, Gowdy also covered a wide range of sports, earning him the nickname of the "broadcaster of everything." Besides Paul Christman, Curt Gowdy's other football broadcast partners were
Kyle Rote,
Al DeRogatis,
Don Meredith,
John Brodie and
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen (; September 15, 1940 – March 11, 2010) was an American professional football player, announcer, and actor. For his entire 15-year professional football career he was a defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams in the Nationa ...
.
For the
1966 AFL season, NBC would feature about 40 games in
color
Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...
, including their three postseason telecasts.
=The introduction of the Super Bowl
=
On December 13, 1966, the rights to the Super Bowl for four years were sold to CBS and NBC for $9.5 million. The first ever
AFL-NFL World championship game
The Super Bowl is the annual league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 (with the exception of the Pro Bowl between the 1967 and 2009 se ...
was played on January 15, 1967. Because
CBS held the rights to nationally televise NFL games and NBC had the rights to broadcast AFL games, it was decided by the newly merged league to have both of them cover that first game (the only pro football game to have been carried nationally on more than one network until December 29,
2007
2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year.
Events
January
* January 1
**Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...
, with the
New England Patriots-New York Giants game, which aired on NBC, CBS and the
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
). However, NBC was forced to broadcast the game over CBS' feed and cameras (CBS received prerogative to use its feed and camera angles since the Coliseum was home to the NFL's Rams), while only CBS' cameras and technical crew were allowed to work the game, although NBC was allowed to use its own commentators. As a result, NBC's crew had little to no control over how the game was broadcast. Each network used its own announcers:
Ray Scott (doing
play-by-play
In Broadcasting of sports events, sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as a sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real time (media), real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present t ...
for the first half),
Jack Whitaker (doing play-by-play for the second half) and
Frank Gifford providing commentary on CBS; while Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman did so for NBC. NBC did have some problems with the dual telecast; the network did not return in time from a
halftime
In several team sports, matches are played in two halves. Half-time (also written halftime or half time) is the name given to the interval between the two halves of the match. Typically, after half-time, teams swap ends of the field of play in or ...
commercial break for the start of the second half. Therefore, the first
kickoff was stopped by the game's officials and was redone once NBC returned to the broadcast.
The next three AFL–NFL world championship games, later renamed the ''
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
'', were then divided by the two networks (with each network broadcasting the game exclusively): CBS broadcast Super Bowls
II and
IV while NBC covered
III. When NBC Sports broadcast Super Bowl III, sports broadcasts were produced under the oversight of the
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
division (this remained the case until 1978, long after both CBS and
ABC had spun off their sports operations into departments separate from their news divisions). Curt Gowdy handled the play-by-play duties and was joined by
color commentator
A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The person may also be referred to as a summariser (outside North America) ...
s
Al DeRogatis and
Kyle Rote in the broadcast booth. Also helping with NBC's coverage were
Jim Simpson (reporting from the sidelines) and
Pat Summerall
George Allen "Pat" Summerall (May 10, 1930 – April 16, 2013) was an American professional American football, football player and television sportscaster who worked for CBS Sports, CBS, Fox Sports (USA), Fox, and ESPN Sunday Night Football, ESP ...
(helping conduct player interviews for the pregame show, along with Rote). In an interview later conducted with
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces advertisement film, commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentary film, documentaries ...
, Gowdy called it the most memorable game he ever called because of its historical significance.
While the Orange Bowl was sold out for the game, the live telecast was not shown in Miami due to both leagues' unconditional
blackout rules at the time. This game is thought to be the earliest surviving Super Bowl game preserved on videotape in its entirety save for a portion of the
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983, when owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breeding and racing. It w ...
' fourth-quarter scoring drive.
=''The Heidi Game''
=
One of the most remembered games on NBC was a
1968
Events January–February
* January 1968, January – The I'm Backing Britain, I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously.
* January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Cze ...
game known as the ''
Heidi Game''. As its nationally televised game between the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
and
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
running late, the network discontinued coverage while the game was still playing to air the movie ''
Heidi
''Heidi'' (; ) is a work of children's fiction published between 1880 and 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as ''Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning'' () and ''Heidi: How She Used What She Learned'' ( ...
'' just moments after the Jets'
Jim Turner kicked what appeared to be the game-winning field goal with 1:05 remaining. While millions of irate fans, missing the finale, jammed NBC's phone lines, the Raiders scored two touchdowns in eight seconds during the final minute to win 43–32.
The reaction to ''The Heidi Game'' resulted in the AFL, and most other sports leagues, demanding thereafter that television networks broadcast all games to their conclusion. NFL contracts with the networks now require games to be shown in a team's market area to conclusion, regardless of the score.
To avoid a repeat incident, a 1975 NBC broadcast of ''
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'' is a 1971 American musical film, musical fantasy film directed by Mel Stuart from a screenplay by Roald Dahl, based on his 1964 novel ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory''. It stars Gene Wilder as chocol ...
'' was delayed until the completion of a
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East ...
–
Raiders game. The network installed a new phone in the control room wired to a separate exchange, becoming known as the ''Heidi Phone'', to prevent this situation from occurring in the future.
1970s
In
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
, after the NFL and AFL completed their merger, NBC signed a contract with the league to broadcast games from the
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
(AFC). After this season, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote swapped positions; resulting in DeRogatis being the #1 color commentator alongside Curt Gowdy and Rote being the #2 analyst alongside Jim Simpson.
On January 17, 1971, NBC's telecast of
Super Bowl V
Super Bowl V was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1970 Baltimore Colts season, Baltimore Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1970 Dallas Cowboys season, Dallas Cowboys ...
between the
Baltimore Colts
The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983, when owner Robert Irsay moved the franchise to Indianapolis. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breeding and racing. It w ...
and
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...
was viewed in an estimated 23,980,000 homes, the largest household audience ever for a one-day sports event. The game was called by play-by-play announcer Gowdy and color commentator Rote. Although the
Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. Played annually since 1935 Orange Bowl, January 1, 1935, it is tied with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl as the second-oldest bowl games in ...
was sold out for the event, unconditional blackout rules in the NFL prohibited the live telecast from being shown in the
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
area on
WCKT. The blackout was challenged in Miami-Dade District Court by attorney
Ellis Rubin, and although the judge denied Rubin's request since he felt he did not have the power to overrule the NFL, he agreed with Rubin's argument that the blackout rule was unnecessary for the Super Bowl.
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1971, NBC telecast the AFC Divisional Playoff between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins. The contest, the final Chiefs game ever played in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, started around 3 p.m. Central Time. The game lasted well into the evening, delaying some Christmas dinners around the country as the contest became the longest-running game in NFL history, lasting 82:40 of game time. In the second overtime period, Miami converted a field goal to win the thrilling contest, 27–24. Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis called the memorable game for NBC.
On January 14, 1973, NBC's telecast of
Super Bowl VII
Super Bowl VII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Miami Dolphins and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
between the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
and
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East ...
was watched by approximately 75 million viewers. NBC's telecast of
Super Bowl IX
Super Bowl IX was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers season, Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1974 Minnesota Vikings season, Mi ...
between the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
and
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...
had an audience of approximately 78 million viewers. The 1973 game, called by Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis, was the first Super Bowl to be televised live in the city where it was being played. Despite the league's unconditional blackout rules that normally would have prohibited the live telecast from being shown locally, the NFL allowed the game to be telecast in the Los Angeles area on
KNBC
KNBC (channel 4) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network ...
on an experimental basis when all tickets for the game were sold. The league then changed its blackout rules the following season to allow games sold out at least 72 hours in advance to be televised in the host market. No subsequent Super Bowl has ever been blacked out in the city it has been played in, since all of them have been sold out.
On December 16,
1973
Events January
* January 1 – The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 14 - The 16-0 19 ...
, NBC cameras were there to cover
O. J. Simpson
Orenthal James Simpson (July 9, 1947 – April 10, 2024), also known by his nickname "the Juice", was an American professional American football, football player, actor, and media personality who played in the National Football League (NFL) ...
as he rushed for 2,000 yards in one season. On that particular day, Simpson's
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...
would go on to beat the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
at
Shea Stadium
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium ( ), typically shortened to Shea Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York City.[Houston Oilers
The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team that played in Houston, Texas, from its founding in 1960 Houston Oilers season, 1960 to 1996 Houston Oilers season, 1996. The Houston Oilers began play as a charter member of the Ame ...](_blank ...<br></span></div>. Two days before he was assigned to call 1973's regular-season finale between the <div class=)
and
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
,
Bill Enis died from a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
at the age of 39.
Al Michaels
Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television play-by-play sportscaster for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Amazon Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television sin ...
was brought in to replace Enis in the booth with
Dave Kocourek.
1974 would mark the final season for what would be Al Michaels' first stint with NBC. That season, Michaels called six-tier games with
Mike Haffner. Also in 1974,
Don Meredith would come over to NBC from
ABC's ''
Monday Night Football
''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...
''. He would join Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis for the
playoffs
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
and
Super Bowl IX
Super Bowl IX was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers season, Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1974 Minnesota Vikings season, Mi ...
. He also worked that year's Thanksgiving game between
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
and
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
. In Week 13, he joined Jim Simpson and
John Brodie to call the
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
-
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
game.
In
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
, because of NBC's coverage of Game 2 of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
between the
Cincinnati Reds
The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. The Reds compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Divisi ...
and
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...
, NBC's 1:00 p.m. NFL telecasts were canceled. All games except for the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...
–
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
match were picked up by local stations in the markets of the visiting team. Meanwhile, at 4:00 p.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behi ...
, NBC aired a game between the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
and
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division.
Established in 1959 ...
nationally. As the 1975 World Series progressed, NBC would advertise its upcoming weekend schedule during the breaks:
As it turned out, no baseball was played that Sunday. Three days of rain in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
forced Game 6 to be postponed until the following Tuesday, October 21, followed by Game 7 the next night.
1975 was also the final season for Al DeRogatis at NBC. He would return briefly in
1988 as a fill-in color commentator during the
Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...
. The
following year, Curt Gowdy split double-duty with John Brodie and Don Meredith in Weeks 12 and 14. In Week 12, Gowdy and Brodie worked the Thanksgiving Day game (
Buffalo-
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
), while Gowdy and Meredith worked the
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
-
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
game. In Week 14, Gowdy and Brodie called the Pittsburgh-
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
game on Saturday, then the following day Gowdy and Meredith called the Cincinnati-
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
game. Don Meredith would return to ABC's ''Monday Night Football'' at the end of the season. After Meredith left NBC, John Brodie would be the top color commentator alongside Curt Gowdy in
1977
Events January
* January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group.
* January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...
and
1978
Events January
* January 1 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747 passenger jet, crashes off the coast of Bombay, killing 213.
* January 5 – Bülent Ecevit, of Republican People's Party, CHP, forms the new government of Turkey (42nd ...
. Meanwhile, after this season,
Tim Ryan, who was on the fifth-tier announcing team with
Lionel Aldridge, left NBC to join
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is the American sports programming division of Paramount Global that is responsible for sports broadcasts carried by its broadcast network CBS and streaming service Paramount+, as well as the operator of its cable channel CBS Sports N ...
.
On January 9, 1977, 81.9 million people (the largest audience ever for a sporting event at that point) watched NBC's telecast of
Super Bowl XI
Super Bowl XI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1976 Oakland Raiders season, Oakland Raiders and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1976 Minnesota Vikings season, Minnesota Vikings ...
between the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
and
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...
. Only three other television events prior to that time, all of which aired on all three commercial networks of the era (the funeral of President
John F. Kennedy, the 1969 moonwalk of
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aerospace engineering, aeronautical engineer who, in 1969, became the Apollo 11#Lunar surface operations, first person to walk on the Moon. He was al ...
and
Buzz Aldrin
Buzz Aldrin ( ; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three extravehicular activity, spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and was the Lunar Module Eag ...
, and the 1974 resignation speech of President
Richard M. Nixon), attracted more viewers than Super Bowl IX. The game was also the last broadcast that color commentator Don Meredith, who called the game with Gowdy, did for NBC, as he returned to ABC to rejoin the ''
Monday Night Football
''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...
'' crew for the
1977 season, where he had been a commentator from 1970 to 1973.
Bryant Gumbel and
Lee Leonard with analyst
John Brodie anchored NBC's pregame, halftime and postgame coverage.
On October 12, 1977, Commissioner
Pete Rozelle
Alvin Ray "Pete" Rozelle (; March 1, 1926 – December 6, 1996) was an American professional football executive. Rozelle served as the commissioner of the National Football League (NFL) for nearly thirty years, from January 1960 until his retire ...
negotiated contracts with the three television networks to televise all NFL regular season and postseason games, as well as select preseason games, for four years beginning with the
1978 season.
ABC was awarded yearly rights to 16
Monday night games, four
prime time
Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
games, the
AFC-NFC Pro Bowl, and the
Hall of Fame Games.
CBS received the rights to all
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is a conference of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each h ...
(NFC) regular season and postseason games (except those in the ABC package) and to Super Bowls
XIV and
XVI. NBC received the rights to all AFC regular-season and postseason games (again, except those in the ABC package) and to Super Bowls
XIII and
XV. Industry sources considered it the largest single television package ever negotiated.
After the
1977 season,
Jack Buck, who was the initial host for
NBC's first official studio pregame show in
1975
It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe.
Events
January
* January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...
, and on the fourth-tier announcing crew with
Jimmy Johnson in 1977, would return to CBS Sports, primarily calling games for
CBS Radio. Dick Stockton, who was on the sixth-tier team with Len Dawson, would also return to CBS Sports.
The end of the Curt Gowdy era
After the
1975 World Series, Curt Gowdy was removed from NBC's baseball telecasts, when sponsor
Chrysler
FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...
insisted on having
Joe Garagiola
Joseph Henry Garagiola Sr. (February 12, 1926 – March 23, 2016) was an American professional baseball catcher, and later a radio and television personality with a varied career.
He played nine seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the ...
(who served as a spokesman in many of the automotive manufacturer's commercials) be the lead play-by-play voice. Gowdy continued as NBC's lead NFL announcer through the
1978 season, with his final broadcast being the memorable
Super Bowl XIII
Super Bowl XIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers season, Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1978 Dallas Cowboys season, Dallas Cow ...
between the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
and
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. T ...
. With NBC now anxious to promote
Dick Enberg (who hosted NBC's pre-game and post-game coverage of Super Bowl XIII) to the lead NFL position, Gowdy moved over to
CBS to call more
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
, as well as
baseball on radio.
The teams of Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen and Curt Gowdy and John Brodie began 1978 as co-head crews. But the unofficial passing of the torch happened on Thanksgiving, when Enberg and Olsen covered the
Denver
Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
-
Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
game, while the following Sunday, Gowdy and Brodie covered the
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
-
Oakland
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
game. Len Dawson joined Dick Enberg in covering the
Houston
Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
-
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
wild card game, and Charlie Jones in the Houston-
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
divisional playoff game. Dawson did not work Week 15 due to mourning the death of his wife. Merlin Olsen would join Curt Gowdy and John Brodie for that season's AFC championship game.
NBC's January 21, 1979 telecast of
Super Bowl XIII
Super Bowl XIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers season, Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion 1978 Dallas Cowboys season, Dallas Cow ...
between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys was viewed in 35,090,000 households, by an estimated 96.6 million fans. The game – called by Curt Gowdy on play-by-play, with Merlin Olsen and John Brodie on color commentary and Dick Enberg serving as the pregame host for the broadcast with
Bryant Gumbel and
Mike Adamle as sideline reporters – was Gowdy's seventh and final Super Bowl telecast, and his last major event for NBC before moving to CBS later in 1979. Enberg had essentially succeeded Gowdy as NBC's lead NFL play-by-play announcer in the 1978 regular season, and network producers did not decide until nearly the last minute which of them would conduct play-by-play for that year's Super Bowl. NBC preceded the game with the first network broadcast of ''
Black Sunday'', a 1977 film that depicts a terrorist attack on a fictitious Super Bowl game in the Orange Bowl between Pittsburgh and Dallas (and which utilized footage shot during Super Bowl X). The pregame festivities featured the
Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (sometimes initialized as DCC, and officially nicknamed "America's Sweethearts") are the National Football League Cheerleading, National Football League cheerleading squad representing the Dallas Cowboys team. The ...
and several military bands.
The Colgate Thirteen performed the national anthem. The
coin toss ceremony featured
Pro Football Hall of Fame
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is the hall of fame for professional football (gridiron), professional American football, located in Canton, Ohio. Opened on September 7, 1963, the Hall of Fame enshrines exceptional figures in the sport of profes ...
r and longtime
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...
owner/head coach
George Halas
George Stanley Halas Sr. (February 2, 1895 – October 31, 1983), nicknamed "Papa Bear", was an American professional football end, coach, and executive. He was the founder and owner of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL), ...
. The national radio broadcast of Super Bowl XIII was carried by the
CBS Radio Network, with
Jack Buck and
Hank Stram calling the action. Locally on radio,
Verne Lundquist and
Brad Sham called the game for the Cowboys on
KRLD in
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
, while
Jack Fleming and
Myron Cope called it for the Steelers on
WTAE in Pittsburgh. A technical glitch led to Fleming and Cope's commentary going out over NBC's television broadcast in place of the network's own audio during the coin toss ceremony.
After his call of Super Bowl XIII, Curt Gowdy was "traded" by NBC to CBS for
Don Criqui; Gowdy would call games with
Hank Stram for two seasons at CBS.
1980s
NBC made history in the 1980s with an
announcerless telecast, which was a one-shot experiment credited to
Don Ohlmeyer, between the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
and
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
in
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
on December 20,
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union, grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning Sys ...
,
as well as a single-announcer telecast, coverage of the
Canadian Football League
The Canadian Football League (CFL; , LCF) is a Professional gridiron football, professional Canadian football league in Canada. It comprises nine teams divided into two divisions, with four teams in the East Division (CFL), East Division and f ...
during the
1982
Events
January
* January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00).
* January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...
players' strike (the first week of broadcasts featured the ''NFL on NBC'' broadcast teams, before a series of blowout games on the network and the resulting low
ratings resulted in NBC cutting back and eventually canceling its CFL coverage), and even the first female play-by-play football announcer,
Gayle Sierens (which in its own way set the mold for female sportscasters of today).
Bob Trumpy filled in for Merlin Olsen alongside Dick Enberg during the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
-
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The team plays its ...
regular season game in Week 12 of the
1980 season.
Television ratings in 1980 were the second-best in NFL history, trailing only the combined ratings of the
1976 season. All three networks posted gains, and NBC's 15.0 rating was its best ever. NFL broadcasts on CBS and ABC had their best ratings since 1977, with 15.3 and 20.8 ratings, respectively. In
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...
, ABC and CBS set all-time rating highs. ABC finished with a 21.7 rating and CBS with a 17.5 rating. NBC however, was down slightly to 13.9; this was, at the time, the nadir of the
Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as '' ...
era, when ratings for the network were down across the board.
On November 15, 1981, the
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
game against the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
sold out in time for the
TV blackout to be lifted. But
KRON (NBC in the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...
) had to air the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
' road game against the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
. They ultimately showed the Browns-49ers game on
tape delay that night.
On January 2, 1982, NBC was on hand for a
divisional playoff game between the
San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team in the National Football League (NFL). The Chargers played in San Diego, California from 1961 until 2016, before relocating back to the Greater Los Angeles area, where the franch ...
and
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
that would go down as the "
Epic in Miami". The game, won by the Chargers in overtime, 41–38, is one of the most famous in National Football League lore because of the conditions on the field, the performances of players on both teams, and the numerous records that were set.
Don Criqui and
John Brodie called the action and
Bryant Gumbel served as the anchor, one of his final assignments for NBC Sports as he began co-hosting ''
Today'' two days after the game. The following week, NBC covered the AFC championship game between the Chargers and
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
. While the "Epic in Miami" was played in the heat and humidity of
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
, the Chargers found themselves dealing with nearly the exact opposite conditions in the "
Freezer Bowl
In National Football League (NFL) lore, the Freezer Bowl was the 1981 AFC Championship Game between the San Diego Chargers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was played on January 10, 1982, at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, and televised ...
" in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
.
In 1982, the NFL signed a five-year contract with the three television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) to televise all NFL regular season and postseason games starting with the
1982 season. During the 1982 season, Dick Enberg teamed with John Brodie to call the Week 1 game between the
Los Angeles Raiders and the
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
, and then with Len Dawson for the Week 2 game between the Raiders and
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The Falcons were founded o ...
.
NBC's national
Nielsen rating
Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the #Nielsen TV ...
of 48.6 for
Super Bowl XVII
Super Bowl XVII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Miami Dolphins and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
was the second-highest for a Super Bowl broadcast, trailing only the 49.1 garnered by
Super Bowl XVI
Super Bowl XVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Cincinnati Bengals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
on CBS the year before. Following the game, NBC aired the premiere episode of ''
The A-Team
''The A-Team'' is an American Action television, action television series that ran on NBC from January 23, 1983, to March 8, 1987, about a fictional team of former United States Army Special Forces who work as mercenaries while on the run from ...
'', beginning the tradition of the game's host network airing
programming after the game.
On August 3, 1983, NBC broadcast the first televised NFL game from
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
with the
St. Louis Cardinals and
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. Founded in 1960 as ...
playing at
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium, currently branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE Limited, EE for sponsorship reasons, is an association football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Sta ...
. NBC would regularly televise pre-season exhibition games outside of the United States from
1986-
1994
The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations.
In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...
.
1983
1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call.
Events January
* January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...
was also
Bob Costas' last season in the booth (by this time, he was on the fourth-tier team with Bob Trumpy) before being promoted as the new host (replacing
Len Berman) of
''NFL '84''.
In the
1984 season, the October 18 game between the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
at
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
and the
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...
at
Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The club entered the NFL a ...
were both on at the same time as Game 5 of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
(also on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
) between the
San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Division. ...
and the
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. One of the AL's eight chart ...
. The Steelers won that day. It was the only loss the 49ers suffered in the 1984 season. Meanwhile, almost of the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
games that year were called by
Marv Albert
Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig; June 12, 1941) is an American former sportscaster. Honored for his work by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he was commonly referred to as "the voice of basketball". From 1967 to 2004, he was also know ...
and John Brodie also worked with Phil Stone (for the Steelers-
Oilers game in Week 14), and
Marty Glickman
Martin Irving Glickman (August 14, 1917 – January 3, 2001) was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
Glickman ...
(for the Bills-Jets in Week 15) in 1984, and
Jay Randolph (for the Steelers-
Raiders game in Week 16).
For the 1985 season, NBC used Graham De Wilde's composition "Send Them Victorious" for their official theme music for the NFL. On January 26, 1986, the
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They are one of two remaining ...
defeated the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...
46–10 in
Super Bowl XX at the
Louisiana Superdome
Caesars Superdome (originally Louisiana Superdome and formerly Mercedes-Benz Superdome), commonly known as the Superdome, is a domed multi-purpose stadium in the Southern United States, southern United States, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. ...
. The NBC telecast replaced the
final episode of ''
M*A*S*H'' as the most-viewed television program in history, with an audience of 127 million viewers, according to ACNielsen figures. In addition to drawing a 48.3 rating and a 70% share in the United States, Super Bowl XX was televised to 59 foreign countries and beamed via satellite to the ''
QE2''. An estimated 300 million
Chinese viewers watched a tape delayed broadcast of the game in March. NBC Radio figures indicated an audience of 10 million for the game.
Bob Griese would work the
1985 AFC championship game as a field reporter, and would serve as a third commentator alongside Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen for Super Bowl XX. Following the
1986 season, Griese would move to ABC as a
college football
College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...
analyst. In Week 15 of that season, Charlie Jones,
Jimmy Cefalo, and Griese (who normally worked with Marv Albert in 1986) called the
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
-
Los Angeles Rams
The Los Angeles Rams are a professional American football team based in the Greater Los Angeles, Greater Los Angeles area. The Rams compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West ...
game.
As previously mentioned, during the 1987 season, through a short stint with NBC Sports,
Gayle Sierens became the first woman to do
play-by-play
In Broadcasting of sports events, sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as a sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real time (media), real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present t ...
for an NFL regular season football game when she called the December 27 game between the
Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The club entered the NFL a ...
and the
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division.
Established in 1959 ...
. Sierens' broadcast partner on that day was
Dave Rowe. She was originally to be a regular play-by-play announcer for the season, but a contract dispute with
WFLA in
Tampa, Florida
Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...
prevented her from continuing in that role beyond her lone game.
One year later
"One Year Later" is a 2006 comic book storyline running through the books published by DC Comics. As the title suggests, it involves a narrative jump exactly one year into the future of the DC Universe following the events of the "Infinite Crisi ...
, Sierens would join
Len Berman and
Paul Maguire on NBC's
''NFL Live!'' program while regular panelists
Bob Costas,
Ahmad Rashad
Ahmad Rashad ( ; born Robert Earl Moore; November 19, 1949) is an American sportscaster and former professional football wide receiver. He was the fourth overall selection of the 1972 NFL draft, taken by the St. Louis Cardinals. He was known ...
and
Gayle Gardner were in
Seoul
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
for the
Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...
.
NBC's 1989 telecast of
Super Bowl XXIII between the
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
and
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
was watched by an estimated 110,780,000 viewers, according to
ACNielsen, making it the sixth most-watched program in television history. The game was Merlin Olsen's final Super Bowl broadcast, as he was demoted the following season to make room for Bill Walsh. The game featured a special segment by
Frank Deford profiling recently deceased
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
owner
Art Rooney
Arthur Joseph Rooney Sr. (January 27, 1901 – August 25, 1988), often referred to as "the Chief", was an American professional American football, football executive. He was the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, an American football fr ...
. This was also the first NFL game that NBC covered with their new "Quantel Cypher" graphics system, which was introduced during their coverage of the
1988 Seoul Olympics
The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were repres ...
(the network had used
Chyron for their graphics prior to Super Bowl XXIII). With the win, the 49ers became the first team to win Super Bowls televised on three different networks (the other two being
Super Bowl XVI
Super Bowl XVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Cincinnati Bengals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
on CBS and
Super Bowl XIX on ABC). Since then, the
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East ...
(in
1992
1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General.
* January 6
** The Republ ...
), the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...
(in
1997
Events January
* January 1 – The Emergency Alert System is introduced in the United States.
* January 11 – Turkey threatens Cyprus on account of a deal to buy Russian S-300 missiles, prompting the Cypriot Missile Crisis.
* January 1 ...
), the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
(in
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
) the
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...
(in
2008
2008 was designated as:
*International Year of Languages
*International Year of Planet Earth
*International Year of the Potato
*International Year of Sanitation
The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...
) the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...
(in
2015
2015 was designated by the United Nations as:
* International Year of Light
* International Year of Soil __TOC__
Events
January
* January 1 – Lithuania officially adopts the euro as its currency, replacing the litas, and becomes ...
) and the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
(in
2016
2016 was designated as:
* International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
* International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
) have accomplished this same feat. This was the last outdoor Super Bowl to start earlier than 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, as it started just after 5:00 p.m.
Starting in
1989
1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...
, NBC commissioned musician (and then-''
Entertainment Tonight
''Entertainment Tonight'' (or simply ''ET'') is an American Broadcast syndication, first-run syndicated news broadcasting news magazine, newsmagazine program that is distributed by CBS Media Ventures throughout the United States and owned by Par ...
'' co-host)
John Tesh, who would later compose "
Roundball Rock" for the forthcoming ''
NBA on NBC
Television broadcasts of the National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by NBC Sports has aired on American broadcast network NBC under the ''NBA on NBC'' branding throughout three incarnations in its history.
The NBA was first telev ...
'' broadcasts to compose a new theme, called "Gridiron Dreams" which was used on the network's NFL telecasts until 1991. The versions used on the pre-game show are different from the version supplied on Tesh's albums. For the 1992 season,
John Colby composed a theme only used that year through the
1992 AFC championship game in which the
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...
beat the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
29–10.
Week 7's telecast of the
Patriots-
49ers game (called by Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh) was moved from
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
's
Candlestick Park
Candlestick Park was an outdoor stadium located in the Bayview-Hunters Point, Hunters Point area of San Francisco, California, United States. It was originally the home of Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giants, who played there from 1960 S ...
to
Stanford Stadium in
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
following the
Loma Prieta earthquake
On October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. PST, the Loma Prieta earthquake occurred at the Central Coast of California. The shock was centered in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in Santa Cruz County, approximately 10 mi (16 km) ...
in the
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...
on October 17. Following the 1989 season, after being demoted to the #2 team alongside Charlie Jones, Merlin Olsen would move over to CBS. Olsen's final telecast for NBC was the
divisional playoff game between the
Bills and
Browns. Meanwhile,
Lyle Alzado
Lyle Martin Alzado (April 3, 1949 – May 14, 1992) was an American professional American football, football player who was a defensive end of the National Football League (NFL), famous for his intense and intimidating style of play.
Alzado pla ...
, who was on the eighth-tier team alongside
Fred Roggin, would leave NBC after the 1989 season in order to attempt a comeback as a player. Alzado however did work Week 4's
Chargers-
Cardinals game alongside Jay Randolph.
The announcerless and single-announcer games
Don Ohlmeyer, then
executive producer
Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
of
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
's telecasts of
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
(NFL) games, began considering doing a telecast without announcers early in
the 1980 season. He had several reasons. First, he had long believed that the announcers were overly chatty and did not let the game speak for itself when they needed to. Second, NBC, while it primarily covered the games of the NFL's
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
(AFC) teams, generally in smaller
markets, was earning
ratings almost as good as those of rival
CBS, who at the time was broadcasting games involving teams from the
National Football Conference
The National Football Conference (NFC) is a conference of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference (AFC), each h ...
(NFC). A game without announcers might well attract enough viewers to put NBC past CBS.
In October of that year reports began to circulate that Ohlmeyer was considering the idea. He confirmed it but said he would only actually do it for a game that had no
playoff
The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
implications. The last week of the season gave him the chance, with a contest scheduled for Saturday, when it would be shown nationally, between the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
and the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
.
Reaction was mixed, ranging from "good-natured humor to applause to some surprising anger," as
Bryant Gumbel would later put it on air shortly before the telecast started. "My first reaction was of incredible nerve, nervousness,"
Dick Enberg, one of the NBC announcers, recalled to
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
30 years later. "We all gathered together, hoping that Ohlmeyer was dead wrong ... What if this crazy idea really worked?" Dolphins'
defensive end
Defensive end (DE) is a defensive position in the sport of gridiron football.
This position has designated the players at each end of the defensive line, but changes in formation (American football), formations over the years have substantially ...
Bob Baumhower was also apprehensive about what viewers might overhear among the players. "I hope we're all extra careful," he said. "There's a lot of extra talking going on out there that people don't realize."
Ohlmeyer and the NBC broadcast crew prepared to compensate for the lack of announcers in several ways. NBC promoted the game by telling viewers they would, in lieu of announcers, have the experience of actually being in the stadium, so the network placed more microphones, and more sensitive microphones, around the field than it otherwise would have. However, the NFL refused to relax one of its restrictions and allow microphones to be placed on the players themselves, which unfortunately meant that it was impossible for viewers to make out signals called by the quarterbacks.
The network increased its use of on-camera graphics during the game to regularly convey
down and distance, score, and statistical information, to the point that more were than had ever been used in any previous NFL telecast. The monochromatic yellow line that was superimposed on the field to indicate the distance needed for a first-down was then the most advanced technology available; however, speaking later from a 21st-century perspective, Ohlmeyer said seems like "
troglodyte communication". The technology of the time would have allowed for a continuous
score bug and a running clock, both of which would have eliminated the need to constantly provide that information, but it did not occur to the crew to deploy it that way.
NBC asked Bob Kaufman, the Orange Bowl's
public address
A public address system (or PA system) is an electronic system comprising microphones, amplifiers, loudspeakers, and related equipment. It increases the apparent volume (loudness) of a human voice, musical instrument, or other acoustic sound sou ...
announcer, to make more frequent announcements of information than usual, and to include more information in those announcements than stadium announcers typically did. Accordingly, he noted aloud during the game that referees were calling for a first-down measurement, and Kaufman gave the length of game time that a
drive had taken. Television audiences were able to hear this.
Bryant Gumbel introduced the game prior to the
kickoff as "a telecast that figures to be different." He was then shown walking into the stadium to watch the game. At frequent intervals, usually every other commercial break, he addressed the camera and gave the audience the score and brief updates as to what had happened and what was happening at that point. His presence was augmented by excerpts from prerecorded interviews with coaches and players, including the Dolphins'
Don Shula
Donald Francis Shula ( ; January 4, 1930 – May 4, 2020) was an American professional American football, football player, coach and executive who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) from 1963 to 1995. He played seven s ...
and
Duriel Harris.
The
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
/
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
game from December 12,
1981
Events January
* January 1
** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union.
** Palau becomes a self-governing territory.
* January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...
was handled by Dick Enberg working solo without usual broadcast partner
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen (; September 15, 1940 – March 11, 2010) was an American professional football player, announcer, and actor. For his entire 15-year professional football career he was a defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams in the Nationa ...
. To fill the gap, interviews from both teams would be used where Olsen's commentary would have been fitting.
1982 NFL strike/CFL coverage
At the start of the
1982 season, Dick Enberg teamed with John Brodie to call the Week 1 game between the
Los Angeles Raiders-
San Francisco 49ers
The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
, and then with Len Dawson for the Week 2 game between the Raiders and
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The Falcons were founded o ...
.
As previously mentioned, NBC (with the exception of its northernmost
affiliates
In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or al ...
that were located close to the Canadian border) broadcast games in the
CFL for three weeks during the 1982 NFL
players' strike The first week of broadcasts featured the ''NFL on NBC'' broadcast teams, before a series of blowout games on the network and the resulting low
ratings resulted in NBC cutting back and eventually cancelling its CFL coverage. (At the time,
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
held the U.S. broadcast rights, who sublicensed them to NBC during the strike; rights reverted to ESPN after the experiment failed.) The announcers who called the games for NBC are in parentheses.
*September 26
**
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
46 @
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
14 (
Don Criqui and
John Brodie)
**
Calgary
Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...
17 @
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...
36 (
Dick Enberg and
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen (; September 15, 1940 – March 11, 2010) was an American professional football player, announcer, and actor. For his entire 15-year professional football career he was a defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams in the Nationa ...
)
*October 3
**Calgary 8 @ Saskatchewan 53 (Don Criqui, John Brodie, and
Bob Trumpy)
**
Winnipeg
Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...
@ Edmonton (
Charlie Jones and
Len Dawson)
*October 10
**British Columbia 1 @ Edmonton 30 (Charlie Jones,
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen (; September 15, 1940 – March 11, 2010) was an American professional football player, announcer, and actor. For his entire 15-year professional football career he was a defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams in the Nationa ...
, and
Mike Haffner)
There were
blackouts of the CFL games. The blackouts weren't exactly because of not selling out the
stadiums
A stadium (: stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage completely or partially surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit ...
, but for being
too close to Canada. For instance NBC's
affiliate in
Syracuse did not get these games. Their TV listings showed these CFL games on
CKWS 11 (
CBC CBC may refer to:
Media
* Cadena Baja California or Grupo Cadena, a radio and television broadcaster in Mexico
* Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's radio and television public broadcaster
** CBC Television
** CBC Radio One
** CBC Music
** ...
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...
), while NBC (
WSTM 3) listed "NFL Football
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
at
Buffalo (if strike settled) or movie" for Sunday, October 3.
A game between featuring the Edmonton Eskimos at the Winnipeg Blue Bombers was tentatively scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behi ...
on Sunday October 17, even making newspaper TV listings. At the last moment NBC cancelled the broadcast. The network was worried that the game would run over its allotted time and conflict with Game 5 of the
1982 World Series, which was supposed to begin at 4:30. NBC did not resume CFL broadcasts afterwards. As previously mentioned, the games it showed had mostly been blowouts and the network even ended its October 3, 1982 broadcast "
Heidi Game" style before the game ended in order to not delay
prime time
Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
programming.
On January 8, 1983, NBC began their coverage of the
NFL playoffs
The National Football League (NFL) playoffs is the annual single-elimination tournament held to determine the National Football League, league champion. The four-round tournament is held after the league's regular season. Since the 2020 NFL seaso ...
. As a consequence to the strike, which shortened the regular season from a 16-game schedule to only 9 games, a special 16-team playoff format (which was dubbed the "
Super Bowl Tournament") was instituted. Geographical divisional standings were ignored and instead, the top eight teams from each conference were seeded 1–8 based on their regular season records. Ultimately, this resulted in the early round playoff games being regionally televised for the first and to date, only time.
Don Criqui and
John Brodie called the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
-
Los Angeles Raiders game while
Bob Costas,
Bob Trumpy, and
Bob Griese called the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...
-
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
game, both at 4 p.m.
Eastern Time
The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, and the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico.
* Eastern Standard Time (EST) is five hours behi ...
. The next day, NBC televised the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
-
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
(with
Charlie Jones and
Len Dawson on the call) and
San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team in the National Football League (NFL). The Chargers played in San Diego, California from 1961 until 2016, before relocating back to the Greater Los Angeles area, where the franch ...
-
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
games (with
Dick Enberg and
Merlin Olsen
Merlin Jay Olsen (; September 15, 1940 – March 11, 2010) was an American professional football player, announcer, and actor. For his entire 15-year professional football career he was a defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams in the Nationa ...
on the call) at 12:30 p.m. ET.
NBC Radio joins the fray
On March 6, 1985,
NBC Radio and the NFL entered into a two-year agreement granting
NBC the radio rights to a 37-game package for the
1985
The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations.
Events January
* January 1
** The Internet's Domain Name System is created.
** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...
and
1986 seasons. The package included 27 regular season games and 10 postseason games. Also in 1985, the NFL showed a ratings increase on all three networks for the season, with viewership gains of 4% on NBC, 10% on CBS, and 16% on ABC. The 1984 season saw a new theme utilized throughout both the pregame show and game-opening sequence, which would be utilized for the remainder of the decade. Another music selection was used for the "Great Moments" segment, a segment of clips from older games on NBC that was unique in that instead of the NFL Films footage, NBC used their own footage and audio. This segment would be featured at the beginning of the pregame show for much of the latter part of the 1980s.
During 1985 and the season that followed, NBC's #2 team television broadcasters Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy were the lead broadcast team on NBC Radio.
In January 1987, NBC Radio's broadcast of
Super Bowl XXI
Super Bowl XXI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver Broncos and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
between the
New York Giants
The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East division. The ...
and
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
was heard by a record 10.1 million people. Also in 1987, at the NFL's annual meeting in
Maui, Hawaii
Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...
on March 15, the NFL announced the signing of new three-year television contracts with ABC, CBS, and NBC for the
1987
Events January
* January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency.
* January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade.
* January 3 – Afghan leader ...
to
1989 seasons.
1988 Summer Olympic conflicts
During September of the
1988 season, NBC brought in some legendary broadcasters to fill-in for their regular play-by-play men. This was because, much of their key personnel (namely,
Dick Enberg,
Marv Albert
Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig; June 12, 1941) is an American former sportscaster. Honored for his work by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he was commonly referred to as "the voice of basketball". From 1967 to 2004, he was also know ...
,
Don Criqui,
Charlie Jones,
Tom Hammond as well as ''
NFL Live!'' commentators
Bob Costas,
Ahmad Rashad
Ahmad Rashad ( ; born Robert Earl Moore; November 19, 1949) is an American sportscaster and former professional football wide receiver. He was the fourth overall selection of the 1972 NFL draft, taken by the St. Louis Cardinals. He was known ...
, and
Gayle Gardner) were away in
Seoul, South Korea
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
for
NBC's coverage of the
Summer Olympic Games
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...
.
Albert was calling
boxing
Boxing is a combat sport and martial art. Taking place in a boxing ring, it involves two people – usually wearing protective equipment, such as boxing glove, protective gloves, hand wraps, and mouthguards – throwing Punch (combat), punch ...
during the Olympics alongside
Ferdie Pacheco, and then spent the three weeks after that covering the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
. Meanwhile, Criqui and Bob Trumpy called
swimming
Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, such as saltwater or freshwater environments, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Swimmers achieve locomotion by coordinating limb and body movements to achieve hydrody ...
(alongside
Candy Costie-Burke for the
synchronized events and
John Naber) and called
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
(alongside
Chris Marlowe) respectively. Jones called
track and field
Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...
(alongside
Frank Shorter and
Dwight Stones) and Jimmy Cefalo served as the daytime host. Costas and Gardner were NBC's late night hosts. Enberg served as host for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and called
men's basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
(alongside
Al McGuire) and
gymnastics
Gymnastics is a group of sport that includes physical exercises requiring Balance (ability), balance, Strength training, strength, Flexibility (anatomy), flexibility, agility, Motor coordination, coordination, artistry and endurance. The movem ...
(alongside
Mary Lou Retton
Mary Lou Retton (born January 24, 1968) is an American retired gymnast. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she won a gold medal in the individual all-around competition, as well as two silver medals and two bronze medals.
Retton's per ...
and
Bart Conner).
Jay Randolph called
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
during the Olympics alongside
Jim Kaat.
In the meantime, filling-in were names such as
Curt Gowdy,
Ray Scott,
Chuck Thompson
Charles Lloyd Thompson (June 10, 1921 – March 6, 2005) was an American sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball's Baltimore Orioles and the National Football League (NFL)'s History of the Baltimore Colts, Baltimore C ...
,
Marty Glickman
Martin Irving Glickman (August 14, 1917 – January 3, 2001) was an American radio announcer who was famous for his broadcasts of the New York Knicks basketball games and the football games of the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
Glickman ...
,
Merle Harmon
Merle Reid Harmon (June 21, 1926 – April 15, 2009) was an American sportscaster who was the play-by-play voice for five Major League Baseball teams, two teams in the American Football League and the World Football League's broadcast syndicatio ...
and
Al DeRogatis. Bob Costas' predecessor,
Len Berman, filled-in for him at the anchor's desk while
Gayle Sierens (who
a year earlier, made history by becoming the first female play-by-play announcer in NFL history) was also added to the studio team.
In Week 2, Chuck Thompson called the
Dolphins
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...
-
Bills game alongside Jimmy Cefalo, who was normally paired with Charlie Jones. Meanwhile, Curt Gowdy called Week 2's
Steelers-
Redskins game with Merlin Olsen, who normally worked with Dick Enberg. Al DeRogatis called Week 2's
Jets-
Browns game alongside
Mel Proctor
Mel Proctor (born 1946) is an American television sportscaster, actor, and author.
Biography
A Denver, Colorado native, Proctor has called play-by-play for the Texas Rangers (baseball), Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Sa ...
, Ray Scott called the
Raiders-
Oilers game with
Joe Namath
Joseph William Namath (; ; born May 31, 1943), nicknamed "Broadway Joe", is an American former professional American football, football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seaso ...
(who normally worked with Proctor), and Merle Harmon called that week's
Chargers-
Broncos game alongside
Paul Hornung.
For Week 3, Thompson worked with Namath on the Broncos-
Chiefs game, Gowdy and Al DeRogatis called the Oilers-Jets game, and Scott and Olsen called the
Seahawks-Chargers game. The following week, Joe Namath called the
Dolphins
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...
-
Colts game alongside Merle Harmon. Meanwhile, the team of Gowdy and DeRogatis called the Jets-
Lions game and Scott and Olsen called the Chargers-Chiefs game. For Week 5, Gowdy and Olsen called the Bills-
Bears
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout most o ...
game, Scott and Namath called the Broncos-Chargers game, and Merle Harmon and DeRogatis called the Chiefs-Jets game. Finally for Week 6, Gowdy called the Patriots-
Packers game (in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
) alongside
Jerry Kramer.
Other announcers who worked for NBC during the Olympic period include Kevin Slaten and
Dave Lapham, who worked as a team on the
Bengals-
Eagles
Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...
game from Week 2. In Week 5, Slaten was paired with Jerry Kramer on the Seahawks-
Falcons game. The prior week, Kramer called the Patriots-Oilers game alongside Mel Proctor.
Also during the 1988 season,
Jon Morris had nine analyst assignments in the 16 weeks of the season, and was paired with seven different play-by-play men. He only worked with Tom Hammond and
Sam Nover twice each. Morris worked with Hammond on the
Oilers-
Colts game in Week 1 and the
Patriots-
Bills game in Week 8. Meanwhile, Morris worked with Nover on the
Chiefs-
Seahawks game in Week 2 and the
Steelers-
Browns game in Week 12.
1990s
On March 12, 1990, at the NFL's annual meeting in
Orlando, Florida
Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...
, the league new ratified four-year television agreements for the
1990
Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...
to
1993 seasons involving ABC, CBS, NBC,
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
and
TNT. The contracts totaled US$3.6 billion, the largest package in television history. This contract saw each network having rights to one Super Bowl telecast as part of the package. The fourth Super Bowl (
XXVIII) was up for a separate sealed bid. NBC won the bid, and since they were last in the rotation for Super Bowl coverage in the regular contract, ended up with two straight Super Bowls (although they were originally scheduled to broadcast
Super Bowl XXVI
Super Bowl XXVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Washington Redskins and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Buffalo Bills to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion f ...
; CBS instead televised the game as part of a swap with the network). CBS is the only other network to televise two Super Bowls (Super Bowl I and II) in a row. NBC, which had held XXVII (according to the original rotation, NBC would have had XXVI and CBS XXVII, but the NFL allowed the networks to switch the two games in order to allow CBS a significant lead-in to its coverage of the
1992 Winter Olympics
The 1992 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVI Olympic Winter Games () and commonly known as Albertville '92 (Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Arbèrtvile '92''), were a winter multi-sport event held from 8 to 23 February 1992 in and aroun ...
), was the only network to bid on XXVIII. Previously, the league alternated the Super Bowl broadcast among its broadcast network partners, except for Super Bowl I; CBS broadcast Super Bowl II, then the league rotated the broadcast between CBS and NBC until 1985 when ABC entered the rotation when that network broadcast
Super Bowl XIX.
The live Sunday matches of the
1991 Ryder Cup held in late September on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
were scheduled to end by mid-afternoon in order to allow NBC to cover regional NFL games at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh did not call any games during Weeks 9-12 of the
1991 NFL season due to being assigned to covering
Notre Dame home games on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
(this being the network's first season as the home of Fighting Irish home games). Walsh would leave NBC after this season to return to coaching at
Stanford
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
. Walsh's spot as NBC's number #1 color commentator would be subsequently filled by Bob Trumpy. Meanwhile,
Bill Parcells
Duane Charles "Bill" Parcells ( ; born August 22, 1941) is an American former football coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) for 19 seasons. He came to prominence as the head coach of the New York Giants from 19 ...
was originally hired by NBC after leaving the New York Giants as a panelist for ''NFL Live!''. However, he would be assigned early in the 1991 season as a substitute for Paul Maguire while Maguire recovered from a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
. Maguire would make his return in Week 6, calling the
Jets-
Browns game alongside Marv Albert. Bill Parcells left NBC the 1992 season to take the
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...
head coaching job. At this point, Parcells as assigned to work with Marv Albert full-time while Paul Maguire worked with Don Criqui.
For Week 1 of the 1991 season, Marv Albert substituted as host of ''NFL Live!''. Regular host Bob Costas along with O. J. Simpson, play-by-play broadcaster
Tom Hammond and analyst
Todd Christensen were assigned to cover the
world track and field championships in
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. For the 1993 season,
Jim Lampley would replace Bob Costas as host of ''NFL Live!''. During the 1993 season, there was an open option for the #6 and #7 broadcast teams which included Bob Costas,
Dan Hicks,
Drew Goodman, and
Jim Donovan at play-by-play, and
Joe Gibbs,
Dan Hampton, and
Mike Ditka
Michael Keller Ditka ( ; born Michael Dyczko; October 18, 1939) is an American former professional American football, football player, coach, and television commentator. During his playing career, he was UPI NFL-NFC Rookie of the Year, UPI NFL R ...
at analyst. Costas called the
Steelers-
Broncos game in Week 12 alongside Gibbs while Gibbs' normal partner, Dan Hicks was paired with Dan Hampton for the
Colts-
Bills game. Hicks and Hampton would also call the following week's game between the
Raiders and
Bengals. O. J. Simpson would be a sideline reporter for several announcing crews during the 1993 season, including
Super Bowl XXVIII alongside Todd Christensen. Simpson would be gone following the season due to the fall-out from his
murder case.
While with ''NFL on NBC'', Drew Goodman was slated to join Todd Christensen as the #4 announcing team in
1994
The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations.
In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...
, then in the next two years, he was slated to join the #7 team, to be paired in
1995
1995 was designated as:
* United Nations Year for Tolerance
* World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War
This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...
with
Tunch Ilkin then with Bob Golic in
1996
1996 was designated as:
* International Year for the Eradication of Poverty
Events January
* January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...
. However, Jim Lampley moved from the studio host to play-by-play in 1994, with
Greg Gumbel taking over as the studio host, so Goodman was not placed into the lineup after all.
Fox replaces CBS as NBC's broadcasting partner
On December 18, 1993, the NFL announced new four-year television agreements involving ABC, ESPN, TNT and NFL newcomer
Fox, which took over the NFC package from CBS. The NFL completed its new television agreements on December 20, with the announcement that NBC would retain the rights to the AFC package.
Joe Gibbs would join Mike Ditka at ''NFL Live!'' the
following season, while Ahmad Rashad would return as co-host with Greg Gumbel. After the 1993 season, Bob Costas' role on ''The NFL on NBC'' would be reduced to presenting feature stories and interviews. Costas would however, call play-by-play on the Week 15 game between the
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
and
Washington Redskins
The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC East, East ...
alongside Mike Ditka. And as previously mentioned, Costas called the Steelers-Broncos game in Week 12 alongside Joe Gibbs.
On November 27, 1994, during a game between the
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...
and
New York Jets
The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...
, NBC would be on hand for what would become known as the "
Clock Play". This was when Dolphins
quarterback
The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...
Dan Marino
Daniel Constantine Marino Jr. ( ; born September 15, 1961) is an American former professional American football, football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons with the Miami Dolphins. He played college f ...
ran a
trick play, pretending to stop the game clock but instead threw a
pass that scored the game-winning
touchdown
A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Scoring a touchdown grants the team that scored it 6 points. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchd ...
, ultimately giving Miami the 28–24 victory.
Starting in
1995
1995 was designated as:
* United Nations Year for Tolerance
* World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War
This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...
, NBC unveiled a new theme by veteran composer
Randy Edelman
Randy Edelman (born June 10, 1947) is an American musician, Record producer, producer, and composer and Conducting, conductor for Film score, film and television. He began his career as a member of Broadway theatre, Broadway's pit orchestras; he ...
, which was used for both its pregame show (now simply titled ''The NFL on NBC'') and game telecasts. This theme would be used until
Super Bowl XXXII in 1997 between the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
and
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...
. NBC lost AFC television rights after 1997 to CBS which currently has them today. The NFL would not return to NBC until
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
for ''
Sunday Night Football''. NBC still uses the 1995 to 1997 era theme, but only for online streams of ''Sunday Night Football'' online (dubbed "NBC Sunday Night Football Extra") if the feed is accessed prior to the start of the game.
During the 1995 season, the duo of Don Criqui and
Beasley Reece called almost all of the
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida. The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. The team ...
games airing on NBC. In Week 4,
Phil Simms and Paul Maguire (who by this point, were a part of the #1 announcing team alongside Dick Enberg) joined Tom Hammond at
Notre Dame to call the game played against
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
on September 23. In Week 13 of the 1995 season, Dick Enberg called the Thanksgiving Day game between
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...
and
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
with regular partners Phil Simms and Paul Maguire, and on that Sunday, Marv Albert called the
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
-
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
game with Paul Maguire. This prompted other play-by-play announcers to move up (Dan Hicks and
Cris Collinsworth
Anthony Cris Collinsworth (born January 27, 1959) is an American former professional football player and sports broadcaster who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons (1981–1988) with the Cincinnati Bengal ...
, Tom Hammond and Bob Trumpy, and Don Criqui and
Bob Golic). Therefore, Dan Hicks called Week 13's
Bengals-Jaguars game with Tunch Ilkin, Tom Hammond called the
Patriots-
Bills game with Cris Collinsworth, Don Criqui called the
Broncos-
Oilers game with Bob Golic, and Bob Trumpy called the
Dolphins
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal in the cetacean clade Odontoceti (toothed whale). Dolphins belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontopori ...
-
Colts game with
Jim Lampley.
On December 17, 1995, NBC was on hand for the final home game for the
Cleveland Browns
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team is named after ...
before their
relocation to
Baltimore
Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
. The game was called by Charlie Jones and
Randy Cross with
Jim Gray on the sidelines. The game itself between the Browns and
Cincinnati Bengals
The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The team plays its h ...
was
blacked out on television locally, but NBC did broadcast extensive pregame coverage from
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
with Bob Costas and Mike Ditka.
Experimenting with three-man booths
Following Week 3 of the
1997 season, Marv Albert was fired by NBC because of
sexual assault charges pressed against him. Albert, also the lead voice of ''
NBA on NBC
Television broadcasts of the National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by NBC Sports has aired on American broadcast network NBC under the ''NBA on NBC'' branding throughout three incarnations in its history.
The NBA was first telev ...
'' at the time, was replaced in both venues. Albert's final NFL broadcast for NBC was the
Ravens
Ravens may refer to:
* Raven, a species of the genus ''Corvus'' of passerine birds
Sports
* Anderson Ravens, the intercollegiate athletic program of Anderson University in Indiana
* Baltimore Ravens, a professional American football franchise
* B ...
-
Giants
A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore.
Giant(s) or The Giant(s) may also refer to:
Mythology and religion
*Giants (Greek mythology)
* Jötunn, a Germanic term often translated as 'g ...
game alongside Randy Cross and Len Berman. Tom Hammond would eventually move up to the #2 team, while Dan Hicks would primarily call games with Hammond's old partner,
Jim Kelly. Three-man booths were near-prevalent in the aftermath of Marv Albert's firing.
Outside of NBC's #1 team of Dick Enberg, Phil Simms, and Paul Maguire, NBC used the teams of Charlie Jones, Bob Trumpy, and
Jim Mora (
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...
-
Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
in Week 3 and
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
-
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
in Week 7), Jones, Trumpy, and Randy Cross (
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...
-
Miami
Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
in Week 6), Tom Hammond, Cross, and Jim Kelly (
Buffalo-New England in Week 7), Dan Hicks, Trumpy, and Kelly (
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
-Cincinnati in Week 8), Hicks, Paul Maguire, and Kelly (Miami-Buffalo in Week 10), Hicks, Kelly, and
James Lofton (Kansas City-
Jacksonville
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
in Week 11), Jones, Trumpy, and Cross (New York Jets-Miami in Week 11),
Joel Meyers, Maguire, and Kelly (Jacksonville-Buffalo in Week 16, and Don Criqui, Mora, and Cross (Indianapolis-
Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
in Week 17).
Revisiting the "Immaculate Reception"
In 1998, during halftime of the
AFC championship game
The AFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the American Football Conference (AFC) and one of the two semifinal NFL playoffs, playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football lea ...
, NBC showed a replay of the "
Immaculate Reception" from its original broadcast of the
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
AFC divisional playoff game between
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
and
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team based in Oakland, California, from its founding in 1960 to 1981, and again from 1995 to 2019 before Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas, relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan ...
. The replay presented a different angle than the
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces advertisement film, commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentary film, documentaries ...
clip that is most often shown. According to a writer for the ''
New York Daily News
The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'', "NBC's replay showed the ball clearly hit one and only one man
Oakland DB
Jack Tatum
John David Tatum (November 18, 1948 – July 27, 2010) was an American professional American football, football Safety (gridiron football position), safety who played 10 seasons from 1971 through 1980 with the Oakland Raiders and the Houston Oi ...
."
Curt Gowdy, while doing the live television play-by-play of the game in 1972, called it as having been deflected by Tatum, and reiterated that during the video replay.
NBC loses the rights to CBS
NBC's rebound in overall ratings in both the 1980s and 1990s (after years of being in the bottom of the ratings cellar) was attributed in part to its continuing coverage of the NFL. But with television contract re-negotiations in early 1998 ushering in the era of multibillion-dollar broadcasting agreements, an era of pro football broadcasting would soon come to an unceremonious conclusion.
As previously mentioned, CBS, stung by Fox's surprise bid
four years earlier, aggressively pursued NFL broadcast rights when the contract came up for renegotiation in 1997. CBS agreed to pay US$4 billion over eight years ($500 million per season) to take over NBC's AFC broadcast rights, which CBS still holds to this day. NBC reportedly bid up to $340 million to retain the AFC rights but wouldn't go higher. NBC later indicated a desire to bid for ''
Monday Night Football
''Monday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''MNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from 1970 NFL season, 1970 t ...
'' rights in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...
, but eventually gave up (NBC reportedly set a hard limit of $500 million in their bidding attempt), allowing ABC to retain the rights. NBC Sports president
Dick Ebersol soon argued that in contrast to CBS, NBC wouldn't pursue any property that would likely cost them at least $150 million a year.
NBC's consecutive 33-year run as a football broadcaster came to an end with
Super Bowl XXXII, played on January 25, 1998, between the
Denver Broncos
The Denver Broncos are a professional American football team based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC West, West division. The team is headquartered in E ...
and the
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...
. The Broncos won 31–24 to snap the AFC's 13-year losing streak in the Super Bowl (since then, the AFC has won 15 additional Super Bowls to the NFC's ten as of the end of the 2022 NFL season). Following the game, NBC aired a special one-hour episode of ''
3rd Rock from the Sun
''3rd Rock from the Sun'' is an American television sitcom created by Bonnie and Terry Turner, which originally aired from January 9, 1996, to May 22, 2001, on NBC. The show is about four Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrials who are on an e ...
'', which opened live at the game site with Greg Gumbel playing himself before he was "attacked" by show star
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow ( ; born , 1945) is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his John Lithgow filmography, diverse work on stage and screen. He has rece ...
as his Dick Solomon character, warning about the invasion of alien females that was part of the episode's plotline.
While at CBS, Randy Cross would become the #2 analyst,
Sam Wyche
Samuel David Wyche (; January 5, 1945 – January 2, 2020) was an American professional football quarterback and coach. He was a quarterback and head coach for the Cincinnati Bengals and a quarterbacks coach for the San Francisco 49ers. As hea ...
would leave the pregame show to become the #3 analyst, and Don Criqui and Beasley Reece would reunite for the
1998 season. Dick Enberg would stay with NBC for another two years before joining CBS in
2000
2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year.
Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...
, where he would be the #2 announcer until
2005
2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
. Cris Collinsworth joined ''
Fox NFL Sunday
''Fox NFL Sunday'' is an American sports television program broadcast on the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox television network. The show debuted on September 4, 1994, and serves as the pre-game show for the network's National Football League (NFL ...
'' and then would team up with
Joe Buck and
Troy Aikman on the #1 team from
2002
The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...
-
2004
2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and Its Abolition (by UNESCO).
Events January
* January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...
.
Given the challenge of making its coverage of the AFC different from that of NBC, CBS passed over longtime NBC veterans Charlie Jones and Bob Trumpy in favor of newcomers such as
Ian Eagle and
Steve Tasker
Steven Jay Tasker (born April 10, 1962) is an American sports reporter and former professional football wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL). He spent the majority of his career with the Buffalo Bills but began his career with th ...
. According to CBS Sports
executive producer
Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...
Terry Ewert, "We wanted to forge our own way and go in a different direction. We wanted to make decisions on a new way of looking at things." In one stark difference from NBC, CBS used a
score and clock graphic for its NFL games that was constant during the game broadcasts outside of break tosses, a la the ''
FoxBox''. CBS' contribution was dubbed the ''
EyeBox''.
2000s
After NBC lost its NFL rights to CBS at the end of the
1997 season, it in the process, marked the beginning of a slow decline for its sports division, culminating in the unproductive
2004–05 prime time season (despite heavy lineup promotion during the
2004 Summer Olympics
The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece.
The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...
), when NBC carried no major sporting championships during prime time (NBC had already lost
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
(MLB) broadcasting rights in
2000
2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year.
Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...
and
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...
(NBA) rights in
2002
The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...
; NBC had acquired
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
(NHL) rights in 2004, but that league was involved in a
lockout that cancelled the
season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperat ...
). The other major sport on NBC was
the NASCAR Winston/Nextel Cup Series.
NBC's attempts to replace the NFL with other professional football, including the
XFL in 2001 and the
Arena Football League (AFL) coverage from
2003
2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater.
In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War.
Demographic ...
to
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
, proved to be very unsuccessful. Like CBS before it, NBC would later decide that not having NFL rights did too much damage to its overall ratings to justify foregoing the high rights fees required.
In
2005
2005 was designated as the International Year for Sport and Physical Education and the International Year of Microcredit. The beginning of 2005 also marked the end of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Internationa ...
, NBC re-entered the NFL picture during negotiations for television contracts. NBC was able to take advantage of a league desire to be able to switch the schedule so non-competitive games would not air in the league's marquee timeslot. Since this would require a move to Sunday night in order for this to happen, and since ABC decided to relinquish their rights to ''Monday Night Football'', NBC was able to bid on the ''Sunday Night Football'' package and won the rights after ESPN (corporate sibling to ABC and which had previously held those rights) elected to take over the ''Monday Night Football'' rights from ABC. NBC resumed airing NFL football on August 6,
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
, with coverage of the annual
AFC-NFC Hall of Fame Game.
NBC's rights package is nearly identical to the previous ABC package; in addition to the Hall of Fame Game, the contract gave NBC the rights to one additional preseason game, the
National Football League Kickoff game
NFL Kickoff Game is the name given to the first game of the National Football League (NFL) NFL regular season, regular season. A single game is held, preceded by a concert and other ceremonies. This first game of the season is usually scheduled ...
, and two Saturday playoff games. NBC also received the rights to two Super Bowls in its bidding,
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
and
Super Bowl XLVI
Super Bowl XLVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
as well as the Pro Bowls in each of those two years. ABC did not have the right to be flexible with their ''Monday Night Football'' schedule and picked matchups based on a team's record in the previous season (as NBC does), which often led to teams with losing records playing each other on Monday night later in the season. The moves were intended to break NBC out of its ratings slump; however, this did not happen right away, and although ''NBC Sunday Night Football'' is the network's top-rated program and places in the top 30 among all broadcast network programs, it had no effect on the rest of the network's schedule for several years.
Al Michaels
Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television play-by-play sportscaster for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Amazon Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television sin ...
, the longtime voice of ''Monday Night Football'' and other events for ABC, moved to NBC to become the play-by-play announcer for ''Sunday Night Football''. Michaels was originally slated to continue calling ''Monday Night Football'' for ESPN, but a trade was worked out between NBC and
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...
, the parent company of ABC and ESPN. In the trade, Michaels was able to join NBC in exchange for Disney acquiring from NBC's corporate sibling
Universal Pictures
Universal City Studios LLC, doing business as Universal Pictures (also known as Universal Studios or simply Universal), is an American filmmaking, film production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered at the 10 Universal Ci ...
, among other things, the rights to the cartoon character
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit, Oswald Rabbit, and Ozzie) is an animated series, animated cartoon character created in 1927 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short film ...
, which was created at Universal by
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney ( ; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer, voice actor, and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Golden age of American animation, American animation industry, he introduced several develop ...
and
Ub Iwerks
Ubbe Ert "Ub" Iwerks ( ; March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, Invention, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and f ...
before the founding of Disney's studio (and then given to
Walter Lantz, whose most famous creation would be
Woody Woodpecker
Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon character that appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz Productions, Walter Lantz Studio and Universal Animation Studios, Universal Animation Studio and distributed by Universal Pictures sinc ...
).
Except in
2007
2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year.
Events
January
* January 1
**Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...
(where the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game was televised by
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
as part of the ''
Thursday Night Football'' package; NBC had intended to televise the
China Bowl game in
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
, which was postponed and ultimately cancelled), and in all
Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...
years (due to
NBC's telecasts of the Games; the games in these years have typically been assigned to either NFL Network, or
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
under the current iteration of ''MNF''), the Hall of Fame Game has aired on NBC since 2006.
John Madden (who had last worked with Al Michaels on ''Monday Night Football'' for ABC) was one of the first people hired by NBC, chosen to continue as a color analyst.
Cris Collinsworth
Anthony Cris Collinsworth (born January 27, 1959) is an American former professional football player and sports broadcaster who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons (1981–1988) with the Cincinnati Bengal ...
substituted for Madden when he was unavailable. For example, during Week 7 of the
2008 season (that week's game was involved the
Seattle Seahawks
The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The club entered the NFL a ...
playing against the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (colloquially known as the Bucs) are a professional American football team based in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC S ...
), Madden was given an off-week to alleviate a hectic coast-to-coast bus travel schedule which would have taken him from
Jacksonville
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
to
San Diego
San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
to Tampa Bay in three weeks.
NBC broadcasts its first Super Bowl in 11 years
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
was NBC's first Super Bowl broadcast since Super Bowl XXXII. The five-hour pre-game show was preceded by a two-hour special edition of ''
Today'' hosted by the regular weekday team live from Tampa and the
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces advertisement film, commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentary film, documentaries ...
– produced ''Road to the Super Bowl''.
Matt Millen
Matthew George Millen (born March 12, 1958) is an American former professional football player and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Millen played as a linebacker for 12 years for the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders, San Franci ...
was part of the coverage as a studio analyst. The ''Today'' contribution included portions of a taped interview with
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
and pictures of troops viewing the proceedings in
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
. His calling of the game made John Madden (in his final game broadcast) the first person to have announced a Super Bowl for each of the four major U.S. television networks, having called five Super Bowls for CBS, three for
Fox, and two for ABC prior to joining NBC in 2006; Al Michaels also became the second person (after
Pat Summerall
George Allen "Pat" Summerall (May 10, 1930 – April 16, 2013) was an American professional American football, football player and television sportscaster who worked for CBS Sports, CBS, Fox Sports (USA), Fox, and ESPN Sunday Night Football, ESP ...
on
CBS and
Fox) to be the lead Super Bowl play-by-play announcer for two different major U.S. networks (ABC and NBC). The Super Bowl was one of two major professional sports championship series
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
broadcast in 2009, as it would also broadcast the
Stanley Cup Finals
The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, ) is the annual championship series of the National Hockey League (NHL). The winner is awarded the Stanley Cup, North America's oldest professional spo ...
. Both championship series involved teams from Pittsburgh winning championships
(the
Penguins
Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...
would win the Stanley Cup that year).
The NFL has a strict policy prohibiting networks to run ads during the Super Bowl from the gambling industry, and has rejected ads from the
Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. It had been reported that if the television program ''
Las Vegas
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
'' was airing when NBC televised
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
in 2009, they likely would not have been allowed to promote the series during the entire broadcast. As ''Las Vegas'' ended during the
2007–2008 television season, this was no longer an issue for NBC.
With an average U.S. audience of 98.7 million viewers, Super Bowl XLIII was the most-watched Super Bowl in history, and at that point the second-most-watched U.S. television program of any kind (trailing only the
final episode of ''
M*A*S*H'' in 1983; both would be broken by
Super Bowl XLIV
Super Bowl XLIV was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champions New Orleans Saints and the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Indianapolis Colts to decide the National Football League (NFL) c ...
the following year). However, the Nielsen rating of 42.1, was lower than the 43.3 rating for Super Bowl XLII the previous year.
Wild Card Weekend coverage
Tom Hammond was initially NBC's secondary play-by-play announcer, calling one of NBC's two games on
Wild Card Weekend. Cris Collinsworth called wild card games alongside Hammond until
2008
2008 was designated as:
*International Year of Languages
*International Year of Planet Earth
*International Year of the Potato
*International Year of Sanitation
The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...
, and took over on a permanent basis for the
2009 season when Madden announced his retirement from broadcasting on April 16, 2009. Prior to this, he served as a studio analyst for NBC's pregame show, ''
Football Night in America''. For the
2009 season,
Joe Theismann and
Joe Gibbs took Collinsworth's place in the booth for the first game of Wild Card Weekend.
Andrea Kremer meanwhile, was the sideline reporter. The announcement of Joe Gibbs as one of the color commentators for the
Wild Card Saturday playoff games marked Gibbs' return to NBC's NFL coverage; where following his first retirement from the
Redskins, he served as an occasional commentator on regional coverage during the
1993 NFL season before becoming a
panelist on ''NFL Live!''/''NFL on NBC'' between the
1994 season until NBC lost their rights to cover the NFL after Super Bowl XXXII.
Beginning with the
2010 season, NBC elected to use the Notre Dame football broadcast team as its #2
Wild Card Weekend broadcast team, calling the early game, as
Mike Mayock
Michael Francis Mayock Sr. (born August 14, 1958) is an American former professional football executive and player in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a safety with the New York Giants. After his playing career, he was a draft ...
and
Alex Flanagan joined Tom Hammond. Dan Hicks filled in for Al Michaels on the
2012
2012 was designated as:
*International Year of Cooperatives
*International Year of Sustainable Energy for All
Events January
*January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins.
* January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...
preseason
In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of S ...
match-up between the
Indianapolis Colts
The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. Since the 2008 India ...
and the
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. Founded in 1933 P ...
. Al Michaels took some time off during that game after anchoring
NBC's daytime coverage of the
Summer Olympics
The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, then part of the King ...
in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. Hicks also replaced Tom Hammond on the
Notre Dame broadcast team at this point.
The
2013 season marked the last time that NBC would broadcast a
wild card playoff doubleheader for the foreseeable future. For
2014
The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...
, Monday Night Football, ESPN aired one 2014–15 NFL playoffs#Wild Card Playoffs, wild card playoff game, and from 2015 NFL season, 2015 onward,
ABC would simulcast ESPN's presentation of the 2015–16 NFL playoffs#Wild Card Playoffs, wild card playoff game. NBC would meanwhile, only air one wild card playoff game and one divisional playoff game.
2010s
On December 14, 2011, the NFL, along with Fox, NBC and CBS, announced the league's rights deal with all three networks was extended to the end of the 2022 season. The three network rights deal includes the continued rotation of the Super Bowl yearly among the three, meant NBC would air Super Bowls Super Bowl XLIX, XLIX (2015), Super Bowl LII, LII (2018), and Super Bowl LVI, LVI (2022). The new rights deal also includes NBC receiving the primetime game of the Thanksgiving tripleheader previously carried by NFL Network, along with a divisional playoff game and one wild card game rather than the full Wild Card Saturday package.
NBC's broadcast of
Super Bowl XLVI
Super Bowl XLVI was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New York Giants and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...
at the end of the 2011 NFL season, 2011 season became the most-watched program in the history of Television in the United States, United States television, with 111.3 million US viewers, according to Nielsen Holdings, Nielsen. The game was the first Super Bowl telecast to be Streaming media, streamed live online legally in the United States, both to computers (via NFL.com and NBCSports.com) and mobile devices (via Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile Application software, app). The game marked Al Michaels' eighth time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls Super Bowl XXII, XXII, Super Bowl XXV, XXV, Super Bowl XXIX, XXIX, Super Bowl XXXIV, XXXIV, Super Bowl XXXVII, XXXVII and Super Bowl XL, XL for ABC, and
Super Bowl XLIII
Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...
for NBC).
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
's television broadcast of the 2012 New England Patriots season, Patriots-2012 New York Jets season, Jets game on NFL on Thanksgiving Day, November 22,
2012
2012 was designated as:
*International Year of Cooperatives
*International Year of Sustainable Energy for All
Events January
*January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins.
* January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...
, immediately following the now notorious "Butt Fumble" play,
color commentator
A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main (play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The person may also be referred to as a summariser (outside North America) ...
Cris Collinsworth
Anthony Cris Collinsworth (born January 27, 1959) is an American former professional football player and sports broadcaster who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for eight seasons (1981–1988) with the Cincinnati Bengal ...
said that "Vince Wilfork just threw Brandon Moore (guard), Brandon Moore into Mark Sanchez,"
a view simultaneously echoed on the New England Patriots Radio Network, Patriots radio call by color analyst Scott Zolak. Moore disagreed with Collinsworth: "when somebody slides into the back of you, you're going to fall. That happens a lot in general. You don't know what's going on (behind you)."
Responding to Moore, Collinsworth qualified his description in a phone interview with
ESPN
ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
, saying that Wilfork could see the play develop, so "instead of trying to go around Moore, he pushed him back into the play and made the whole thing happen."
A ''
New York Daily News
The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' columnist sided with Moore, stating that "A second look at the play shows Moore holding his own against Wilfork and moving, if anything, mostly forward."
NBC, which carried Thanksgiving afternoon games through 1997, did not issue an MVP award during that time. NBC began broadcasting the NFL on Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving prime time game in 2012 (as part of its ''Sunday Night Football'' package), at which point the MVP award was added. The award is currently called the Sunday Night Football on Thanksgiving Night Player of the Game, and is typically awarded to multiple players on the winning team. From 2012 to 2015, the NBC award was referred to as the "Madden Thanksgiving Player-of-the-Game", honoring John Madden (who announced NBC Sunday Night Football, NBC games from 2006 to 2008).
''Sunday Night Football'' ranked the most-watched program in the United States during the 2011–12 season. This feat was repeated during the 2013–14 season; in that case, NBC finished the season as the #1 network among adults aged 18–49 for the first time since 2004 and #2 in total viewership (behind longtime leader CBS).
NBC's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIX at the end of the 2014 NFL season, 2014 season became the most-watched program in the history of
American television
Television is one of the Mass media in the United States, major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August ...
, with 114.4 million US viewers, according to Nielsen Company, Nielsen (since surpassed by Fox's broadcast of Super Bowl LVII in 2023). The game was the fourth overall telecast to be Streaming media, streamed live online legally in the U.S. both to computers (via NFL.com and NBCSports.com) for the second time and mobile devices (via Verizon (wireless service), Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile Application software, app). The game marked Al Michaels ninth time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls Super Bowl XXII, XXII, Super Bowl XXV, XXV, Super Bowl XXIX, XXIX, Super Bowl XXXIV, XXXIV, Super Bowl XXXVII, XXXVII and Super Bowl XL, XL for ABC and Super Bowl XLIII, XLIII and Super Bowl XLVI, XLVI for NBC).
NBC's coverage of Super Bowl LII between the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles season, Philadelphia Eagles and 2017 New England Patriots, New England Patriots at the end of the 2017 NFL season, 2017 season highlighted a play that would become known as the "Philly Special". On the play, Philadelphia
quarterback
The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...
Nick Foles moved up to behind his Lineman (gridiron football), offensive line and the ball was directly Snap (gridiron football), snapped to running back Corey Clement. Clement went on to pitch the ball to Trey Burton, who passed the ball to a wide open Foles to score a
touchdown
A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Scoring a touchdown grants the team that scored it 6 points. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchd ...
; Foles thereby became the first player in
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
history to both throw and catch a touchdown. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson's decision to attempt to score a touchdown rather than attempt a field goal on the play helped put the Eagles in a better position to defeat the 2017 New England Patriots season, New England Patriots, which they subsequently did, 41–33. The victory was the Eagles' first championship in 57 years. Many analysts have since called the play one of the gutsiest play-calls in Super Bowl history. Before the play was called, Cris Collinsworth expressed his shock on-air that the Eagles would go for it, as he said, "This is an unbelievable call ... This is like going for an onside kick. This could decide the game."
In the 2018–19 NFL playoffs#NFC: Philadelphia Eagles 16, Chicago Bears 15, 2018 NFC Wild Card game between the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles season, Eagles and 2018 Chicago Bears season, Chicago Bears, Chicago kicker Cody Parkey missed a 43-yard field goal attempt. The ball would hit the left upright, then bounce off the crossbar and fell to the end zone, no-good. Ultimately, the sixth-seeded Eagles won the game over the third-seeded Bears, 16–15 to advance to the divisional playoff round.
The term "Double Doink" took hold due to Cris Collinsworth, who said on the
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
broadcast while he watched the replay, "The Bears' season's gonna end on a double doink." While Collinsworth is credited with coining the phrase "Double Doink." when asked about it the following day, he said, "I don’t think I invented the word; I think
John Madden said doink first. But it was this double dinky thing — the ball bounced off one and then the other."
On December 25, 2019,
NFL Films
NFL Productions, LLC, doing business as NFL Films, is the film and television production company of the National Football League. It produces advertisement film, commercials, television programs, feature films, and documentary film, documentaries ...
allowed two Western New York CBS affiliates owned by Nexstar Media Group, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo's WIVB-TV and Rochester, New York, Rochester's WROC-TV, to rerun the 1990–91 NFL playoffs, 1990 AFC Championship Game, AFC championship game as a Christmas special, in which the 1990 Buffalo Bills season, Buffalo Bills defeated the then-1990 Los Angeles Raiders season, Los Angeles Raiders, 51–3. The telecast aired in its original standard-definition television, standard definition format, though with
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Media Group, a division of NBCUniversal, which is itself a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's various operations r ...
updates regarding the Gulf War, Persian Gulf War and most references to NBC Sports outside natural game action edited out.
Thursday night games
On February 1, 2016, the NFL announced that NBC had won a partial share of ''
Thursday Night Football'' rights for the 2016 season; as a result, five additional Thursday night games (in addition the kickoff and Thanksgiving contests) in the later part of the season had been added to NBC's schedule. NBC Sports was also responsible for producing five games that was exclusive to
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
.
After the 2017 season, NBC insisted on a reduced rights fee in order to continue carrying ''Thursday Night Football'', which the NFL rejected;
Fox was then awarded the rights to ''Thursday Night Football'' for the remainder of the time left on the league's broadcast contracts. NBC continued to carry the kickoff and Thanksgiving night games on Thursdays.
NBC often mixed their commentator groupings for 2016. Under league contract, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth called all of the games in the ''
Thursday Night Football'' package that aired on NBC along with most Sunday nights. In general, Michele Tafoya served as sideline reporter for Sunday games and Heather Cox for Thursday games, with both sharing duties through the playoffs. Mike Tirico called play-by-play for secondary games in Weeks 15 and 16, and filled in for Michaels for ''SNF'' assignments in Weeks 11 and 12. The NFL waived its contract requirement for the 2017 NFL season, 2017 season, allowing Mike Tirico to call all games on Thursdays, while Al Michaels remained on Sundays.
2020s
Super Bowl LV was televised by
CBS. Although NBC Sunday Night Football, NBC was to air this game under the current rotation, they traded with CBS for Super Bowl LVI, which falls during the 2022 Winter Olympics and is the first to be scheduled during an ongoing Olympic Games (this also upholds the untold Gentlemen's agreement, gentleman's agreement between the NFL's broadcasters to not Counterprogramming (television), counterprogram the Super Bowl,
as NBC also holds the U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympics). CBS, to an extent, also benefited from holding rights to the Super Bowl in the same year that it held rights to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, NCAA Final Four (which is cycled with WarnerMedia Entertainment channels on a two-year cycle, and CBS had also broadcast in the same year as its Super Bowl LIII, previous Super Bowl).
With the NFL expanding its Wild Card round to six games in the 2020 NFL season, 2020 season, broadcast rights to the new games were sold to
CBS and NBC Sunday Night Football, NBC, at approximately $70 million each. Both networks announced plans to simulcast their games on other outlets owned by their parent companies, with NBC planning to simulcast its game on its recently launched streaming service
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
, and on its Spanish-language broadcast network Telemundo.
The 2020 schedule was released on May 7. The Kickoff game was on September 10, which featured the Super Bowl LIV Champion 2020 Kansas City Chiefs season, Kansas City Chiefs hosting the 2020 Houston Texans season, Houston Texans. The Thanksgiving Night game was supposed to feature the 2020 Baltimore Ravens season, Baltimore Ravens against the 2020 Pittsburgh Steelers season, Pittsburgh Steelers; the ninth time that the Thanksgiving game would have been part of the ''SNF'' package shown on NBC. A COVID-19 outbreak on the Baltimore Ravens forced the postponement of the game to the following Sunday afternoon, which was then postponed to the following Tuesday night, and then finally to Wednesday afternoon. It was shown on NBC as scheduled, but KWQC-TV - the NBC affiliate for the Quad Cities of Iowa and Illinois - opted not to show the game. Before this occasion, the last Wednesday night game played in the NFL was also a special edition of primetime on NBC - the 2012 Kickoff game between the 2012 Dallas Cowboys season, Dallas Cowboys and 2012 New York Giants season, New York Giants that was scheduled as such to avoid a conflict with Barack Obama's renomination speech at 2012 Democratic National Convention, that year's Democratic National Convention.
Mike Tirico substituted for Al Michaels on a select number of games in 2020, that started with the September 27 game between the 2020 Green Bay Packers season, Green Bay Packers and the 2020 New Orleans Saints season, New Orleans Saints. Tirico was initially slated to call the Thanksgiving game in 2020, but was assigned instead to call the Week 12 ''SNF'' game between the Packers and the 2020 Chicago Bears season, Chicago Bears with Tony Dungy and Kathryn Tappen. Tirico was eventually given the assignment to call the rescheduled Ravens–Steelers game with Collinsworth after it was postponed from Sunday afternoon to Wednesday night. Tirico was also slated to call one of NBC's two wild card playoff games in January.
The aforementioned Packers–Saints game took place while the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals (rescheduled from its normal late May–early June schedule) were ongoing; As NBC was also the NHL on NBC, rightsholder to National Hockey League (NHL) games in the United States, the league opted to play Games 4 and 5 (September 25–26) of the finals on consecutive nights to avoid conflict with ''SNF''. In addition, the 2020 NBA Finals were also moved from June to October due to the pandemic. ''SNF'' games were played on the same night as NBA Finals in consecutive weeks, on October 4 (2020 Philadelphia Eagles season, Philadelphia Eagles vs. 2020 San Francisco 49ers season, San Francisco 49ers) the same day as Game 3, and on October 11 (2020 Minnesota Vikings season, Minnesota Vikings vs. 2020 Seattle Seahawks season, Seattle Seahawks) on the same day as Game 6 (the eventual last game of the series).
On March 18, 2021, the NFL, along with Fox, NBC, CBS and ESPN/ABC announced the league's rights deal with all four networks was extended through the 2033 season. The four network rights deal includes the rotation of the Super Bowl yearly among the four, meaning NBC will air three Super Bowls: Super Bowl LX, LX (2026), LXIV (2030) and LXVIII (2034), all in Winter Olympic years.
NBC's coverage of Super Bowl LVI between the 2021 Cincinnati Bengals season, Cincinnati Bengals and the 2021 Los Angeles Rams season, Los Angeles Rams at the end of the 2021 NFL season was the 20th Super Bowl to air on NBC. The game was overall, the eleventh Super Bowl telecast to be legally Streaming media, streamed live online in the United States both to computers (via NFL.com,
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
, and NBCSports.com, in addition to NBC and Telemundo's apps for local streaming) for the fourth time and mobile devices via Verizon (wireless service), Verizon Wireless's NFL Mobile app. The game also marked Al Michaels' eleventh time conducting play-by-play for a Super Bowl (Michaels had previously done play-by-play for Super Bowls Super Bowl XXII, XXII, Super Bowl XXV, XXV, Super Bowl XXIX, XXIX, Super Bowl XXXIV, XXXIV, Super Bowl XXXVIII, XXXVII, Super Bowl XL, XL for
ABC and four more including Super Bowl XLIII, XLIII, Super Bowl XLVI, XLVI, Super Bowl XLIX, XLIX and Super Bowl LII, LII for NBC). It was also the first Super Bowl carried by Telemundo over-the-air with a primary Spanish language broadcast.
Michaels, who would ultimately return to ''Thursday Night Football'' (this time on Amazon's Amazon Prime Video, Prime Video), would be permanently replaced in the ''Sunday Night Football'' broadcast booth by Mike Tirico from the 2022 NFL season onward.
Beginning in the 2023 NFL season, NBC produces a single regular season game per year exclusively airing on
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
, however those games will still air in the participating markets on their local NBC stations. NBC also produced a playoff game which aired on Peacock in the 2023–24 postseason on a separate one-year deal.
Pregame/studio programs
As of the 2022 NFL season, 2022 season, ''Football Night in America'' is hosted by Maria Taylor (sportscaster), Maria Taylor, who anchor the series from Studio 1 at NBC Sports Headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. Tony Dungy, Jason Garrett, Chris Simms, and Matthew Berry are studio analysts. Jac Collinsworth is the on-site emcee alongside analyst Rodney Harrison. Mike Florio serves as an NFL insider from his home studio. ''FNIA'' was broadcast from Studio 8G (and then from Studio 8H) from the GE (now Comcast) Building at NBC Studios (New York City), 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City from 2006 to 2013, before production of the program was relocated to Stamford in September 2014, joining all of NBC Sports' other operations and NBCSN.
As of 2024,
Peacock
Peafowl is a common name for two bird species of the genus '' Pavo'' and one species of the closely related genus '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae (the pheasants and their allies). Male peafowl are referred t ...
, NBC's streaming service, airs additional NFL studio programs. These include weekday shows ProFootballTalk, ''PFT Live'' with Mike Florio and ''Fantasy Football Happy Hour'' with Matthew Berry, and the Sunday morning show ''Fantasy Football Pregame'' with Matthew Berry, Michael Smith (sports reporter), Michael Smith, Jay Croucher, and Lawrence Jackson.
On-air staff
Commentators
See also
*NFL on American television, National Football League on television
*List of AFL championship game broadcasters
*List of NFL Championship Game broadcasters, List of NFL championship game broadcasters
*List of Super Bowl broadcasters
*''
NBC Sunday Night Football
''NBC Sunday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''SNF'') is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock (streaming service), Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, w ...
''
*''
Football Night in America''
*''NFL on NBC Radio''
*NFL on NBC music
*
American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
*
Heidi Game
* The Drive (American football), The Drive
* Epic in Miami, The Epic in Miami
*
Freezer Bowl
In National Football League (NFL) lore, the Freezer Bowl was the 1981 AFC Championship Game between the San Diego Chargers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The game was played on January 10, 1982, at Cincinnati's Riverfront Stadium, and televised ...
* Red Right 88
* Holy Roller (American football), Holy Roller
* The Fumble
* The Comeback (American football), The Comeback
*
Immaculate Reception
References
External links
*
Sunday Night Football*
100 GREAT NFL-NBC MOMENTS
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National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...
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CBS), years=
1955–
1963
Events January
* January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cove ...
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American Football League
The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, AFL–NFL merger, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Foot ...
broadcaster, years=
1965
Events January–February
* January 14 – The First Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years.
* January 20
** Lyndon B. Johnson is Second inauguration of Lynd ...
–1969 American Football League season, 1969, after=AFL–NFL merger
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The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest level of professional American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
broadcaster, years=
1970
Events
January
* January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC.
* January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...
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ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
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Sunday Night Football'' broadcaster, years=
2006
2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
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2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
January
* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
–present, after=incumbent
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2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.
Events
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* January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute.
* January 12 – A stampede during t ...
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NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
, title=NFL ''
Thursday Night Football'' broadcaster
(with
CBS and
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
), years=
2016
2016 was designated as:
* International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly.
* International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...
–
2017
2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly.
Events January
* January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...
, after=
Fox and
NFL Network
NFL Network (occasionally abbreviated on-air as NFLN) is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Football League NTP and is part of NFL Media, which also includes NFL.com, NFL Films, NFL Mobile, NFL Now and N ...
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{{NBC Sports
{{NFL on NBC
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NFL broadcasts, NBC
American Football League
Canadian Football League on television
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