NFL on NBC

• 1. Introduction

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  NFL on NBC holds a distinction few broadcasting franchises can claim: it is the longest-running American television show. On the 22nd of October 1939, a New York City station then known as W2XBS pointed its cameras at a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers football team, and professional football entered the living room for the first time. That broadcast was a beginning that almost no one recognized as historic. What followed was more than half a century of Sunday afternoons, championship games, overtime thrillers, and a handful of moments so consequential that they changed the rules of professional sports broadcasting forever. How did a patchwork of individual team deals and separate championship contracts grow into one of the most valuable franchises in television history? And why, after 33 consecutive years on the air, did NBC walk away from pro football only to return nearly a decade later?

• 2. Early Deals and Championship Broadcasts

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  In 1934, five years before that first televised game, NBC Radio's Blue Network had already carried the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving game to a national audience. Television was a different matter. NBC's early relationship with the NFL was piecemeal: each of the league's teams held its own individual television contract, a practice the NFL maintained until Congress explicitly permitted a collective arrangement through the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

  By 1955, NBC had become the television home of the NFL championship game, paying the league US$100,000 for the rights. The network had taken over from the DuMont Television Network, which had struggled to deliver the NFL a nationwide audience. On the 5th of April 1961, NBC was awarded a two-year contract for radio and television rights to the championship game at US$615,000 annually, with $300,000 of that going directly into the NFL Player Benefit Plan.

  The 1958 championship game, played at Yankee Stadium between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants, went into sudden death overtime and became known as the "Greatest Game Ever Played." Chris Schenkel called the first half, Chuck Thompson the second half and overtime. The game is widely credited with expanding the popularity of professional football in the late 1950s and early 1960s. NBC televised the NFL championship through 1963, after which CBS took over the title game contract starting in 1964.

• 3. The AFL Deal and the First Super Bowl

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  On the 29th of January 1964, NBC signed a five-year deal with the American Football League, paying US$36 million to carry AFL games and replacing ABC in that role. The arrival of Curt Gowdy set the tone for the next decade. Gowdy had covered the first five AFL seasons on ABC alongside broadcast partner Paul Christman; he moved to NBC in the fall of 1965 and became the lead play-by-play voice for both AFL football and Major League Baseball games, earning him the nickname "broadcaster of everything."

  On the 13th of December 1966, CBS and NBC together paid $9.5 million for four years of Super Bowl rights. When the first AFL-NFL World Championship game was played on the 15th of January 1967, both networks covered it simultaneously. NBC, however, was forced to broadcast over CBS's feed because the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was home to the NFL's Rams and CBS held prerogative over its cameras. NBC was allowed its own commentators: Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman. A notable mishap occurred at halftime, when NBC failed to return in time from a commercial break for the second-half kickoff; officials stopped the kick and repeated it once NBC rejoined the broadcast.

  The next three AFL-NFL title games were divided: CBS broadcast Super Bowls II and IV while NBC covered Super Bowl III. In an interview later conducted with NFL Films, Gowdy called Super Bowl III the most memorable game he ever called because of its historical significance. Notably, the live telecast was not shown in Miami due to both leagues' unconditional blackout rules at the time, even though the Orange Bowl was sold out for the game. Super Bowl III is also thought to be the earliest surviving Super Bowl preserved on videotape in its entirety, save for a portion of the Baltimore Colts' fourth-quarter scoring drive.

• 4. The Heidi Game

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  In 1968, NBC became the subject of one of broadcasting history's most famous errors. A nationally televised game between the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets was running late when the network cut away with 1:05 remaining to air the film Heidi. Jets kicker Jim Turner had just kicked what appeared to be the game-winning field goal. Millions of viewers never saw what happened next: the Raiders scored two touchdowns in eight seconds during the final minute to win 43-32.

  Fans jammed NBC's phone lines in fury. The fallout was lasting. The AFL and most other sports leagues demanded that television networks broadcast all games to their conclusion. NFL contracts with networks now require games to be shown in a team's market area through completion, regardless of score. The episode was significant enough that NBC installed a dedicated phone in its control room wired to a separate exchange, which became known as the Heidi Phone, to prevent a repeat. Seven years later, when a 1975 NBC broadcast of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was scheduled, the network delayed it until after a Washington Redskins-Raiders game had finished.

• 5. Landmark Games and Ratings Peaks

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  On Christmas Day, the 25th of December 1971, NBC telecast an AFC Divisional Playoff between the Kansas City Chiefs and Miami Dolphins that became the longest-running game in NFL history, lasting 82 minutes and 40 seconds of game time. The contest, the final Chiefs game ever played at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, started around 3 p.m. Central Time and delayed Christmas dinners across the country. Miami won in the second overtime period, 27-24, on a field goal.

  On the 17th of January 1971, NBC's telecast of Super Bowl V was viewed in an estimated 23,980,000 homes, the largest household audience ever for a single-day sports event at that time. On the 9th of January 1977-81.9 million people watched NBC's Super Bowl XI telecast between the Oakland Raiders and Minnesota Vikings. That figure made it the largest audience ever for a sporting event to that point; only four television events had attracted more viewers than Super Bowl IX, all of which aired simultaneously on all three commercial networks.

  the 26th of January 1986 brought Super Bowl XX, when the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots 46-10 at the Louisiana Superdome. NBC's telecast drew an audience of 127 million viewers according to ACNielsen figures, replacing the final episode of MAS*H as the most-viewed television program in history. The broadcast pulled a 48.3 rating and a 70 percent share in the United States and was televised to 59 foreign countries, including a tape-delayed broadcast to an estimated 300 million Chinese viewers in March. On the 16th of December 1973, NBC cameras were there when O.J. Simpson rushed for 2,000 yards in a single season, a milestone achieved at Shea Stadium as his Buffalo Bills beat the New York Jets.

• 6. Broadcast Experiments and Firsts

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  Don Ohlmeyer, executive producer of NBC's NFL telecasts in the early 1980s, believed the network's announcers were overly chatty and that a game without commentary might pull viewers away from CBS. He tested that theory on the 20th of December 1980, with a Saturday game between the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins, broadcasting it without any play-by-play or color commentary. Reaction was described by Bryant Gumbel as ranging from "good-natured humor to applause to some surprising anger." Dick Enberg later recalled his reaction as "incredible nerve, nervousness."

  To compensate for the silence, NBC placed more and more sensitive microphones around the field, increased the use of on-screen graphics to convey down, distance, score, and statistics, and had the Orange Bowl's public address announcer Bob Kaufman make more frequent and detailed announcements than usual. Gumbel introduced the broadcast as "a telecast that figures to be different" and provided updates at intervals from inside the stadium. However, the NFL refused to allow microphones on the players themselves, so viewers could not make out quarterback signals.

  During the 1987 season, Gayle Sierens became the first woman to do play-by-play for an NFL regular season game on network television when she called the December 27 game between the Seattle Seahawks and Kansas City Chiefs. Her broadcast partner was Dave Rowe. Sierens had originally been planned as a regular play-by-play announcer for the season, but a contract dispute with her Tampa station WFLA prevented her from taking on additional games beyond that one. On the 3rd of August 1983, NBC broadcast the first televised NFL game from London, with the St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Vikings playing at Wembley Stadium.

• 7. The AFC Contract and NBC's Departure

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  After the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, NBC settled into a defined role: carrier of the American Football Conference. That arrangement lasted without interruption from 1965 through the 1997 season, a span of 33 continuous years. The commercial stakes grew dramatically over that period. On the 12th of March 1990, the NFL ratified four-year television agreements totaling US$3.6 billion, described at the time as the largest package in television history.

  When the contract came up for renegotiation in 1997, CBS moved aggressively to reclaim the AFC rights it had lost to Fox four years earlier on the NFC side. CBS agreed to pay US$4 billion over eight years, or $500 million per season, to take the AFC away from NBC. NBC reportedly bid up to $340 million but would not go higher. NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol argued publicly that NBC would not pursue any property likely to cost at least $150 million a year.

  NBC's final broadcast came on the 25th of January 1998, with Super Bowl XXXII between the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers in San Diego. Denver won 31-24, snapping the AFC's 13-year losing streak in the Super Bowl. Greg Gumbel signed off on air: "Well, and so the end of the 1997 NFL season and for NBC Sports, Super Bowl XXXII is the end of our 32 years covering AFL, NFL action. NBC's been there from the start, from Joe Namath all the way to John Elway, from Curt Gowdy to those of us who had the honor of calling this game tonight." Following the game, NBC aired a special episode of 3rd Rock from the Sun, which opened live at the game site with Gumbel appearing as himself.

• 8. Return and Sunday Night Football

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  NFL on NBC returned on the 6th of August 2006, more than eight years after the AFC contract ended. The centerpiece of the revived package is NBC Sunday Night Football, which became the network's current flagship NFL program. Alongside it, NBC carries the annual preseason Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, the NFL Kickoff game, a primetime Thanksgiving Day game, and one regular season game on the streaming service Peacock.

  During the NFL Playoffs, NBC airs one to three Wild Card Playoff games with one guaranteed on Sunday night, one Divisional Round Playoff game, and the Super Bowl in rotation with Fox, CBS, and ESPN/ABC. In 2024, NBC aired a third Wild Card Playoff game on Peacock. From 2016 to 2017, the network added a five-game Thursday Night Football package to supplement the Kickoff and Thanksgiving Thursday night games already in its lineup.

  Game coverage is typically preceded by the pregame show Football Night in America. The Randy Edelman theme that NBC commissioned for the 1995-1997 era still appears in the streaming version of Sunday Night Football, known as NBC Sunday Night Football Extra, when the online feed is accessed before the game begins.