The NFL Today
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- The NFL Today is also the name of the radio show that corresponds with the television show.
The NFL Today is a TV show that precedes the American football program The NFL on CBS on CBS Sports. The program usually airs at noon (ET) on Sundays of the National Football League regular season. The hosts and studio analysts on the program comment on the latest NFL events and make their game predictions.
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[edit] Broadcast history
[edit] Dawn of the pregame format (1961-1974)
On September 17, 1961, CBS Sports broadcast the first remote 15-minute pre-game show, the first of its kind on network sports television. Pro Football Kickoff (with host Johnny Lujack) originated from NFL stadiums around the country with a comprehensive look at all the day's games.
During the 1964 NFL season, Frank Gifford began hosting NFL Report, which later that season, would be called The NFL Today. This version of The NFL Today[1] was a 15-minute, regional sports program that presented interviews with National Football League players and coaches, and news and features about the NFL.
In 1967, The NFL Today expanded to a 30-minute format preceding game coverage.
On September 20, 1970, The NFL Today signed industry-pioneering women: Marjorie Margolies, who produced and reported features and actress Carole Howey, who also reported. Margolies would win election to the U.S. House from Pennsylvania in 1992 as Marjorie Margolies-Mezsvinsky.
In 1973, The NFL Today began originating from CBS' New York studios. It now included reports from stadiums around the country.
In 1974, CBS abandoned the pre-recorded show The NFL Today, (which in itself, was hosted first, by Frank Gifford from 1966-1970 and Jack Whitaker and Pat Summerall from 1971-1973) and its quickie wrap-up show, Pro Football Report for a live, wrap-around style show entitled The NFL on CBS. It would start one-half hour before kickoff of either the singleheader or doubleheader telecast (12:30, 1:30 or 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
On September 15, 1974, The NFL Today, debuted new three-segment format: highlights of the day's games and commentary, special features shot during the week, and a third segment covering the day's sports news, including scores and highlights at halftime. The hosts were Jack Whitaker (brought into the studio after quite a few years at play-by-play) and Lee Leonard. The show broke ground in a number of ways: Being live, showing half-time highlights of other CBS games, and then wrapping up as a post-game show. CBS no longer called its stadium studios or its pre-game set CBS Control, but the CBS Sports Center. There would also no longer be a third member of an on-air crew stationed at CBS Control providing scores, halftime info and - time permitting - post-game interviews.
[edit] Musburger and Cross (1975-1989)
The NFL Today title was reinstated in 1975, a year in which it won 13 Emmy Awards, 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.
By this time, the show began the complex process of producing three separate live pregame, halftime and postgame programs for 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. games. Also for the first time, signature musical pieces are produced for NFL coverage.
1979 was the first year the Sports Emmy Awards were awarded to sports broadcasts; among the recipients was The NFL Today.
Phyllis George was replaced by Miss Ohio USA 1978 Jayne Kennedy from the 1978 to the 1979 NFL season and left the program after the 1983 season. Jimmy 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, Jr. Day in 1988.
[edit] Gumbel and Bradshaw (1990-1993)
Brent Musburger and Irv Cross left after the 1989 NFL season, as their contracts with CBS Sports were not renewed. They were replaced by Greg Gumbel (former WFAN morning host and brother to Bryant Gumbel), famous former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw and longtime sportswriter Lesley Visser[2], bringing a female reporter back to The NFL Today for the first time since Phyllis George went on maternity leave during the 1983 season.
After the 1993 season, CBS Sports' contract with the NFL to transmit NFC games ended, and the NFC rights were passed to Fox Sports. The NFL Today had a four-year break along with The NFL on CBS from the 1994 to the 1997 NFL seasons. Gumbel went over to NBC Sports, Bradshaw to FOX NFL Sunday and Visser to Monday Night Football on ABC. Gumbel and Visser would eventually return to CBS.
[edit] CBS reacquires rights (1998-present)
In 1998, NBC Sports' AFC contract expired, and CBS Sports took over the rights to telecast its games. Since then, The NFL Today has not caught up with the TV ratings of FOX NFL Sunday, now its same-time competitor. However, it beat FOX in 2005 and with recent additions from FOX, it is favored to win in 2006. (NBC replaced ABC as the network for prime time games, with the debut of Sunday Night Football.)
In November 2004, the NFL signed 6-year contracts with CBS Sports ($622.5 million per year) and FOX ($712.5 million per year) to continue broadcasting their respective AFC and NFC games from the 2006 to the 2011 seasons.
[edit] Regular segments
The show includes segments like the CarQuest Chalk Talk, in which commentators and program guests discuss team strategies, and Outside the Huddle with computer-animated PUNT TV pregame host Thurston Long, who makes fun of people around the NFL. He is electronically rendered by animators of Scripted Improv Media, Synergistix Media, and of Viacom (VIA), the publicly traded company that owns CBS itself, and with the help of animators and animation software of face2face, a joint venture of Lucent Technologies and other investors [3]. On June 15, 2005, Viacom announced the spin-off its CBS division, which marked the end of Outside the Huddle.
The commentators of The NFL Today also comment on The NFL on CBS on game updates, on the Sprint Halftime Report and on the Subway Postgame Show.
At the start of that same 2003 regular season, CBS Sports introduced the new theme song Posthumus Zone for The NFL Today and for The NFL on CBS. The song was made by Los Angeles electronica group E.S. Posthumus, which is called that way because it composes songs that have dead ancient cities as a motif.
In 2006, E.S. Posthumus released their second CD, Rise to Glory, with the Posthumus Zone on it and with a remix of the Posthumus Zone called Rise to Glory. The song Rise to Glory was also featured on The NFL Today and on The NFL on CBS during the 2005 NFL season.
[edit] Studio sets
Nowadays, the program usually runs on Sunday at noon, Eastern Time, and lasts one hour. The outdoor studio[4], which was used during the fall, was set up on Sunday mornings at a plaza in front of the reflecting glass structure of the Apple Store in the General Motors Building, at 767 5th Avenue and 59th Street (see the [5] at Google Maps), next to the southeast corner of Central Park. The winter studio is Studio 43 of the CBS Broadcast Center, [6]. However, starting in 2005, and continuing in 2006 and 2007, The NFL Today was broadcast from Studio 43 all year round.
[edit] Under Jim Nantz
Greg Gumbel came back from NBC Sports to work as the lead play-by-play announcer for The NFL on CBS. Jim Nantz became the studio host. Incidentally, during the 1993 season, Jim Nantz filled-in for his predecessor, Greg Gumbel while Gumbel was away covering the American League Championship Series for CBS.
In the meantime there have been eleven studio analysts on the program. Perhaps the showiest of them all was Deion Sanders. Sanders caught the viewer's eye with his squeaky trash talk and his frequently used flashy apparel: white sports sneakers, black tuxedo, black gloves and big black hat. His favorite vocative to address interviewees was "my man."
Sanders did not get along with Boomer Esiason, who sat to his left, so on Sunday, December 28, 2003, his 2004 New Year resolution was to "love [his] neighbor" [7], but he left to put on a 2004 Baltimore Ravens jersey with his age (37) on its back.
Studio host Jim Nantz and Deion Sanders had their last NFL Today program before Super Bowl XXXVIII on The Super Bowl Today. Greg Gumbel narrated his last NFL on CBS play, Adam Vinatieri's field goal that broke the tie between the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers.
[edit] Under Greg Gumbel (the second time)
In August 2004, CBS Sports director Sean McManus announced that Nantz and Gumbel would switch roles, and hired Shannon Sharpe to replace Sanders and comment on The NFL Today with Dan Marino and with Esiason.
[edit] Under James Brown
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.
[edit] The Super Bowl Today
The Super Bowl Today[8][9] is a triennual telecast of the NFL Today broadcast on Super Bowl Sunday, generally from the site of the game. The 2006-07 telecast was in Miami, Florida. The Super Bowl Today is only broadcast during years when CBS has rights to televise the Super Bowl.
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For more details on this topic, see List of Super Bowl broadcasters.
[edit] Table of studio hosts and analysts
[edit] See also
- The NFL on television
- AFC
- The NFL on CBS
- FOX NFL Sunday
- The NFL on NBC Pregame Show
- List of programs broadcast by CBS
[edit] References
- ^ Similar to today's NFL TODAY show, which has a segment during the last 10 minutes of the show called "First to the Field" featuring the current NFL ON CBS broadcast teams commenting on news and players surrounding their respective games, 1964's program originated live and on videotape at the playing fields where the games were being played and from special television studios at each stadium. The show was broadcast regionally to the same area carrying the game that followed.
- ^ September 9, 1990: THE NFL TODAY kicks off with a new talent lineup of Greg Gumbel, Terry Bradshaw, Pat O'Brien and Lesley Visser. The show also boasts a new state-of-the-art set that includes a 360-degree, two-story, largely mobile set; 174 televisions, separate program islands for various studio segments, neon lights, staircase, 24 motion message panels and two 43-inch television screens
- ^ CBS Sports Press Releases - CBSSports.com
- ^ September 2000: THE NFL TODAY studio show moves from the CBS Broadcast Center to a new indoor-outdoor studio located in the GM Building on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
- ^ http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=767+5th+Avenue,+New+York,+NY map
- ^ http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=524+West+57th+Street,+New+York,+NY west of Central Park
- ^ CBS Sports - CBS.SportsLine.com
- ^ January 18, 1976: CBS broadcasts Super Bowl X with a new 90-minute pre-game - SUPER BOWL SUNDAY SPECIAL.
- ^ January 22, 1984: For the first time, THE SUPER BOWL TODAY devotes two hours to pre-game coverage, with 11 broadcasters, 13 feature and remote producers and four directors.
- NFL Today - CBS SportsLine.com
- Schedules - CBS SportsLine.com
- The NFL Today weekly transcripts 2004: Wk 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|17|Wild Card
- http://www.esposthumus.com/images/posthumuszone.mp3
- Jump The Shark - The NFL Today
- The NFL Today marks 40th year
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