NFL on CBS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The NFL on CBS is the brand name of the CBS television network's coverage of the National Football League's American Football Conference games, produced by CBS Sports.

[edit] Market coverage

See also: List of CBS affiliates

As with Fox's coverage, the network's stations are divided into different groups based on the most popular or closest team to that market or, if that doesn't apply, based on the allure of a particular game. Each football game is rated as an "A", "B", or "C" game, with "A" games likely being televised nationally and "C" games only in the two teams' home television markets. Significantly more behind-the-scenes resources are dedicated to "A" game coverage.

[edit] History

CBS' coverage began in the 1956 NFL season, before the 1970 AFL-NFL Merger. Prior to 1968, CBS had an assigned crew for each NFL team. From 1970 until the end of the 1993 season, when Fox won CBS' contract, CBS aired the NFL's National Football Conference games. Since 1975, game coverage has been preceded by pre-game show The NFL Today.

[edit] 1960s

In 1962, the NFL followed the American Football League's (AFL) suit with its own revenue sharing plan after CBS agreed to telecast all regular season games for an annual fee of $4.65 million. CBS' fee later increased to $14.1 million per year in 1964, and $18.8 million per year in 1966.

On September 17, 1961, CBS Sports broadcasted the first remote 15-minute pre-game show, the first of its kind on network sports television. Pro Football Kickoff originated from NFL stadiums around the country with a comprehensive look at all the day's games.

On November 25, 1965 (Thanksgiving Day), CBS featured the first-ever color broadcast of an NFL game.

The first ever AFL-NFL World Championship Game 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 to have both of them cover that first game. The next three AFL-NFL World Championship Games, later renamed the Super Bowl, were then divided by the two networks: CBS televised Super Bowls II and IV while NBC covered III.

[edit] 1970s

See also: AFL-NFL Merger

When the AFL and the NFL officially merged in 1970, the combined league divided its teams into the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). It was then decided that CBS would televise all NFC teams (including playoff games) while NBC all AFC teams. For interconference games, CBS would broadcast them if the visiting team was from the NFC and NBC would carry them when the visitors were from the AFC. The two networks also divided up the Super Bowl on a yearly rotation.

During the October 13, 1973, New Orleans Saints-Cincinnati Bengals game, the broadcasting duo of play-by-play announcer Don Criqui and color commentator Irv Cross was supplemented by the contributions of the first woman ever on a NFL telecast, Jane Chastain. While providing limited commentary, Chastain was used on an irregular basis over the rest of the season.

On January 15, 1978, the Dallas Cowboys defeated the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII in front of the largest audience ever to watch a sporting event. CBS scored a 47.2/67 national household rating/share, the highest-rated Super Bowl to date.

[edit] The NFL Today Debuts

Main article: The NFL Today

In 1975, The NFL Today debuted with journalist Brent Musburger and former NFL player Irv Cross, and with former Miss America Phyllis George as one of the reporters. Jimmy Snyder, nicknamed The Greek, joined in 1976. Snyder was dismissed by CBS Sports at the end of the 1987 season, one day after making comments about racial differences among NFL players on Martin Luther King Day in 1988. Phyllis George was replaced by the 1970 Miss Ohio Jayne Kennedy from the 1978 to the 1979 NFL season. George would return in 1980 and stay on through the 1983 season. It should be noted that in 1983, Phyllis George went on maternity leave from The NFL Today. She was replaced by Charlsie Cantey. 1979 was the first year the Sports Emmy Awards were awarded to sportscasts, among them was The NFL Today.

[edit] 1980s

Going into the 1981 NFL season, CBS Sports executives decided that John Madden was going to be their star NFL color commentator. But they had trouble figuring out who was going to be his play-by-play partner. So in September (for the first four games of the season), they paired Vin Scully with Madden while Pat Summerall was busy covering the U.S. Open tournament for CBS. For the next four games of the season in October, they paired Summerall with Madden while Scully called Major League Baseball's National League Championship Series and World Series for CBS Radio. After the eighth week of the NFL season, CBS Sports executives decided that the laconic, baritone-voiced Summerall's style was more in tuned with the lively, verbose Madden than the elegant, poetic Scully. As a consolation prize, CBS Sports gave Scully the "B" team assignment and the right to call the NFC Championship Game on CBS Television with Hank Stram. Meanwhile, Pat Summerall called that game on CBS Radio with Jack Buck while John Madden prepared to do the Super Bowl with Summerall in Pontiac, Michigan. Vin Scully, reportedly wasn't happy about the demotion as well as in his eyes, having his intelligence be insulted. As a result, Scully bolted to NBC (where he started a memorable seven year run as their lead Major League Baseball announcer) as soon as his contract with CBS was up.

On January 24, 1982, CBS Sports broadcasted the highest rated (49.1/73) Super Bowl of all time as the San Francisco 49ers, led by quarterback Joe Montana, defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 26-21. Summerall and Madden called their first Super Bowl together as they go on to be one of the most popular NFL announce teams ever. During the Super Bowl XVI telecast, the telestrator made its major network debut. CBS introduced it as the "CBS Chalkboard" during their sports coverage. Madden utilized the device effectively to diagram football plays on the viewers' television screens. The telestrator is generally credited with popularizing the use of telestration during sports commentary.

In 1982, the NFL allowed CBS to rebroadcast Super Bowl XVI during the first Sunday of strike. CBS also rebroadcast the their most recent Super Bowl (XXI) telecast for the 1987 strike.

In April 1985, shortly after calling a NCAA Regional Final and just before he was supposed to work the 15th hole at the Masters, play-by-play announcer Frank Glieber died of a heart attack. Tom Brookshier, who previously served as Summerall's color commentator prior to Madden, replaced Glieber in the NFL on CBS broadcast booth.

Beginning in 1987, CBS started broadcasting NFL games in stereo.

[edit] 1990s

On September 9, 1990, The NFL Today kicked off with an all-new talent lineup comprised of Greg Gumbel, Terry Bradshaw, Pat O'Brien, and Lesley Visser. Gumbel and Bradshaw replaced Brent Musburger, who was fired by CBS on April Fools Day 1990, and Irv Cross, who was demoted to the position of game analyst. At Super Bowl XXVI (January 26, 1992), Visser became the first female sportscaster to preside over the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation ceremony.

During the 1991 season, Pat Summerall was hospitalised after vomiting on a plane during a flight after a game, and was out for a considerable amount of time. While Verne Lundquist replaced Summerall on games with Madden, Jack Buck (who was at CBS during the time as the network's lead Major League Baseball announcer) was added as a regular NFL broadcaster to fill-in.

In September 1993, The NFL Today celebrated its 19th season as a 30-minute pre-game show. It and held the distinction of being the highest-rated program in its time slot for 18 years, longer than any other program on television.

[edit] CBS Loses the NFL to Fox (1994-1997)

See also: NFL on FOX

CBS did not broadcast any NFL games during the seasons from 1994 to 1997, but won AFC rights, taking over from NBC, in the 1998 season.

In December 1993, CBS (which had been home to NFL games for 38 years) lost their rights to then fledging Fox Network. Fox offered a then-record $1.58 billion to the NFL over four years for the rights, significantly more than the $290 million per year CBS was willing to pay. Fox was only seven years old and had no sports division, but it began building its own coverage by hiring many former CBS personalities such as Pat Summerall, John Madden, James Brown, Terry Bradshaw, and Dick Stockton.

Fox's NFL rights ownership made the network a major player in American television by giving it many new viewers (and affiliates) and a platform to advertise its other shows. In the meantime, CBS lost several affiliates, and ratings for its other programming languished.

CBS apparently underestimated the value of its rights with respect to its advertising revenues and to its promotionial opportunities for other network programming. The vast resources of Fox founder Rupert Murdoch allowed that network to grow quickly, primarily to the detriment of CBS. Also, CBS Sports suffered from the fact that in light of their money bleeding, $1 billion deal with Major League Baseball (1990-1993), they suddenly entered a cost cutting mode.

For more details on this topic, see Major League Baseball on CBS#1990-1993 version.

In spring 1994, Fox's parent News Corporation struck an alliance with New World Communications, by now a key ownership group with several VHF CBS affiliates in NFC markets, and wary of a CBS without football. Nearly all of New World's stations converted en masse to Fox beginning that fall.

CBS televised its last game as the rights holder of the National Football Conference (formerly NFL) package on January 23, 1994 when the Dallas Cowboys defeated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game, 38-21.

[edit] The NFL returns

The NFL on CBS logo from 1998-2005.

In November 1996, Sean McManus was named President of CBS Sports. McManus would then lead CBS' efforts in reacquiring broadcast rights to the NFL. On January 12, 1998, CBS agreed to air American Football Conference games, paying $4 billion over eight years ($500 million per season).

After acquiring the new package, CBS Sports then named former NFL Today host Greg Gumbel (who after CBS lost the NFL to Fox, worked at NBC Sports from 1994 to 1998), as their lead play-by-play announcer. Phil Simms (who at the time, was at NBC forming the lead announcing team with himself, Dick Enberg and Paul Maguire) was hired as the lead color commentator. On September 6, 1998, after 1,687 days since the last broadcast of The NFL Today, host Jim Nantz welcomed back viewers to CBS for its coverage of the National Football League.

On November 8, 1998, the first NFL game to be broadcast in HDTV was televised on CBS. That game took place at Giants Stadium between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills. It was also the first time two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks started against each other in the NFL (Vinny Testaverde for the Jets and Doug Flutie for the Bills).

[edit] 2000s

On January 28, 2001, CBS Sports, Core Digital, and Princeton Video Image introduce state-of-the-art, three dimensional replay technology called "EyeVision" for its coverage of Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa. In CBS Sports' first Super Bowl broadcast since 1992, it draws 131.2 million viewers for the Baltimore Ravens win over the New York Giants. Super Bowl XXXV was thus the most watched television program of the year.

The NFL playoffs, 2001-02 marked the first time that the league scheduled prime time playoff games for the first two rounds in an attempt to attract more television viewers. Saturday wild card and divisional playoff games were moved from 12:30 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. North American Eastern Standard Time (EST) to 4:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., respectively. Thus, the league abandoned its practice of scheduling colder, northern playoff games for daylight hours only; any stadium, regardless of evening January temperatures, could host prime time playoff games.

In 2004, Jim Nantz and Greg Gumbel swapped roles. Nantz took Gumbel's place as the lead play-by-play announcer while Gumbel took Nantz's spot as the host of The NFL Today.

The next group of broadcast contracts, which began with the 2006-2007 season, resulted in a sizeable increase in total rights fees. Both Fox and CBS have renewed their Sunday afternoon broadcast packages through 2011, in both cases with modest increases.

On February 6, 2006, CBS Sports announced the hiring of James Brown, who moved from studio host of FOX NFL Sunday to the host of the The NFL Today. Greg Gumbel moved back to play-by-play, teaming with Dan Dierdorf.

In a bold move, CBS has decided to not use sideline reports for the 2006 season. CBS did state that they would use Solomon Wilcots and Steve Tasker as sideline reporters for Super Bowl XLI.

[edit] HDTV coverage

As of 2006, CBS is airing only three of its NFL games in high-definition each week, the same number of games it has aired for the past few seasons. The other networks with rights to broadcast NFL games, FOX, NBC, and ESPN, broadcast all of their games in high definition. Some fans have accused the network of being "cheap."^[1]

CBS Sports Executive Vice President Tony Petitti claims the network will probably air all of its NFL games in high definition by 2008 or 2009. When asked about the move, Petitti commented that CBS was focused on building a new studio for The NFL Today pre-game show. However, another CBS executive had previously indicated^[2] that, because CBS was an "early adopter" with its first HD game in 1998, it is already "at capacity" and would have to replace newly-bought equipment in its network center with even more expensive equipment.

Also, CBS claims it has put emphasis on its national coverage of college football's SEC. Some of these games are done in HD, theoretically reducing the number of HD trucks CBS can use for the NFL.

[edit] Television polices

For more details on this topic, see NFL_on_television#Sunday_regional_coverage.

For the past few decades, the NFL has always let CBS be the "singleheader" network during the week it televises the Men's U.S. Open Tennis final at 4:05 p.m. ET around the country (CBS has said that it cannot justify putting the Men's U.S. Open Final on Sunday night in terms of ratings; the women's final, broadcast on a Saturday night, often outrates the men's final by a considerable margin, except when at least one American plays in the men's final).

[edit] Contract history

Since 1982

Period	AFC Package	NFC Package	Monday Night Football	Sunday Night Football	Total Amount
1982-86	NBC	CBS	ABC	None	$420 million/yr
1987-89	NBC	CBS	ABC	ESPN (2nd half)	$473 million/yr
1990-93	NBC	CBS	ABC	TNT (1st half) ESPN (2nd half)	$900 million/yr
1994-97	NBC	FOX ($395 million/yr)	ABC	TNT (1st half) ESPN (2nd half)	$1.1 billion/yr
1998-2005	CBS ($500 million/yr)	FOX ($550 million/yr)	ABC ($550 million/yr)	ESPN ($600 million/yr)	$2.2 billion/yr
2006-2011*	CBS ($622.5 million/yr)	FOX ($712.5 million/yr)	ESPN ($1.1 billion/yr)	NBC ($650 million/yr)	$3.1 billion/yr

NBC's contract runs through 2012, and ESPN's contract runs through 2014

[edit] Music

The song used since the beginning of the 2003 season was composed by Los Angeles electronic music group E.S. Posthumus and is called Posthumus Zone.

[edit] Important games

Recent important games covered by CBS include Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004, and the long-awaited rematch played under heavy snowfall between the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots in the 2004-season AFC divisional round of the playoffs on January 16, 2005.

[edit] 1960s

NFL Championship Game, 1967 (The Ice Bowl)
NFL Championship Game, 1969
Super Bowl I
Super Bowl II

[edit] 1970s

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] 2000s

[edit] See also

[edit] Current commentator pairings (as of 2006)

Listed in descending order of prominence, in the format play-by-play / color commentary:

Jim Nantz / Phil Simms (producer Lance Barrow, director Michael Arnold)
Greg Gumbel / Dan Dierdorf
Dick Enberg / Randy Cross
Kevin Harlan / Rich Gannon
Gus Johnson / Steve Tasker
Ian Eagle / Solomon Wilcots
Bill Macatee or Don Criqui or Craig Bolerjack / Rich Baldinger or Steve Beuerlein
Don Criqui / Steve Beuerlein

Note: Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots will serve as sideline reporters for Super Bowl XLI only.

[edit] Alphabetical list of past and present commentators

Main article: List of NFL on CBS announcers

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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NFL on CBS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Market coverage

[edit] History

[edit] 1960s

[edit] 1970s

[edit] The NFL Today Debuts

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] CBS Loses the NFL to Fox (1994-1997)

[edit] The NFL returns

[edit] 2000s

[edit] HDTV coverage

[edit] Television polices

[edit] Contract history

[edit] Music

[edit] Important games

[edit] 1960s

[edit] 1970s

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] 2000s

[edit] See also

[edit] Current commentator pairings (as of 2006)

[edit] Alphabetical list of past and present commentators

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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