CBS Sports Spectacular | |
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Also known as |
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Genre | Sports anthology program |
Presented by | See host section |
Opening theme | See theme music section |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 58 |
Production | |
Production location | Varies depending on the event |
Camera setup | Multi-camera |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Production company | CBS Sports |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | January 3, 1960 – present |
CBS Sports Spectacular is a sports anthology television program produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The series began on January 3, 1960, as The CBS Sports Spectacular, and has been known under many different names, including CBS Sports Saturday, [1] CBS Sports Sunday, Eye on Sports [2] and The CBS Sports Show. [3] The program continues to air on an irregular basis on weekend afternoons, especially during the late spring and summer months. Normally it airs pre-recorded "time-buy" sports events produced by outside companies, such as supercross or skiing competitions, or sponsored documentaries.
Hosts of the program have included John "Bud" Palmer, Jack Whitaker, Brent Musburger, [4] Pat Summerall, Jim Kelly, [5] Dick Stockton, [6] Tim Brant, [7] John Tesh, Jim Nantz, Greg Gumbel, Pat O'Brien, Andrea Joyce, and Michele Tafoya.
Under its current format, the program does not have a regular host.
The earliest surviving telecast may be of the Twin 100 qualifying races before the second Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in 1960. NASCAR has a kinescope of it. In 1994, CBS had a new series of boxing bouts on Saturday or Sundays under the Eye on Sports [8] banner. Tim Ryan (blow-by-blow) and Gil Clancy (color) were the commentators during this period. [9] CBS continued airing boxing on a somewhat regular basis until 1998, by which time they had the NFL (after acquiring the American Football Conference package from NBC) and college football back on their slate. As of early 2020, the series airs mainly on the CBS Sports Network.
Currently[ when? ], the most frequent sports that have been featured are the PBR Bull Riding series, the Lucas Oil Off-Road Racing Series and Major League Fishing. Other events include the Deer Valley Celebrity Skifest, the Arete Awards for Courage in Sports, Year in Review shows and various documentaries. In 2018, it carried the first and only edition of the Gamers' Choice Awards.
By 2008, this was a partial list of the events that were featured:
An original composition by Edd Kalehoff featuring scat vocals was used as the theme for The CBS Sports Spectacular beginning in 1970. [11] From 1976 to 1978, the Electric Light Orchestra's "Fire on High" was used as the theme for the program (when it was known as The CBS Sports Special). In 1979, the program switched to an "in-house" version of American composer Aaron Copland's symphonic instrumental "Fanfare for the Common Man", which was used until 1980. The CBS version of "Fanfare" – clocking in at 1 minute and eight seconds – was styled after the 9 minute, 40 second version recorded by UK progressive rock group Emerson, Lake & Palmer on its 1977 LP, Works Volume 1 .
For CBS' Super Bowl XVI coverage at the end of the 1981 NFL season, CBS' theme music would eventually become the theme for CBS Sports Saturday/Sunday. The music itself could be considered a hybrid of the theme used at the time for The NFL Today and their original college basketball theme.
Paul Leo Maguire is an American former professional football player and television sportscaster. He played as a punter and linebacker in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL).
CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television broadcaster CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studios 43 and 44 of the CBS Broadcast Center on W 57th Street.
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Brent Woody Musburger is an American sportscaster, currently the lead broadcaster and managing editor at Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN).
The NFL on CBS is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The network has aired NFL game telecasts since 1956. From 2014 to 2017, CBS also broadcast Thursday Night Football games during the first half of the NFL season, through a production partnership with NFL Network.
ESPN on ABC is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by ABC in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, in 2006, ABC's sports division was merged into ESPN Inc., which is the parent subsidiary of the cable sports network ESPN that is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, in partnership with Hearst Communications.
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated national sports cable channels. Formerly operating as "a service of NBC News", it broadcasts a diverse array of sports events, including the Premier League, the IndyCar Series, NASCAR, the National Football League (NFL), the NBA, Notre Dame football, Big Ten football and basketball, the Olympic Games, professional golf, the Tour de France, Thoroughbred racing, and the WNBA among others. Other programming from outside producers – such as coverage of the Ironman Triathlon – is also presented on the network through NBC Sports. With Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011, its own cable sports networks were aligned with NBC Sports into a part of the division known as the NBC Sports Group.
Richard Edward Stokvis, known professionally as Dick Stockton, is an American retired sportscaster. Stockton began his career in Philadelphia, then moved to Pittsburgh, where he worked as the sports director for KDKA-TV. In Boston, he called Celtics games for WBZ-TV and Red Sox games for WSBK-TV before transitioning to national broadcasting, which included calling the 1975 World Series for NBC and later, the NBA Finals for CBS. In a career that spanned over five decades, Stockton worked for several different networks, most prominently CBS Sports, Fox Sports, and Turner Sports.
The NFL on Fox is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by Fox NFL Kickoff and Fox NFL Sunday and is followed on weeks when the network airs a Doubleheader by The OT. The latter two shows feature the same studio hosts and analysts for both programs, who also contribute to the former. In weeks when Fox airs a doubleheader, the late broadcast airs under the brand America's Game of the Week.
Fox NFL Sunday is an American sports television program broadcast on the 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) game telecasts under the NFL on Fox brand. An audio simulcast of the program airs on sister radio network Fox Sports Radio, which is distributed by Premiere Radio Networks. As of 2014, the program has won four Emmy Awards.
The NFL on NBC is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network and the Peacock streaming service in the United States.
Major League Baseball on CBS is the branding used for broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States.
ABC's Wide World of Sports is an American sports anthology television program that aired on ABC from April 29, 1961, to 1997, primarily on Saturday afternoons. Hosted by Jim McKay, with a succession of co-hosts beginning in 1987, the title continued to be used for general sports programs on the network until 2006. In 2007, Wide World of Sports was named by Time on its list of the 100 best television programs of all time.
The NFL on Westwood One Sports is the branding for Cumulus Broadcasting subsidiary Westwood One's radio coverage of the National Football League. These games are distributed throughout the United States and Canada. The broadcasts were previously branded with the CBS Radio and Dial Global marques; CBS Radio was the original Westwood One's parent company and Dial Global purchased the company in 2011. Dial Global has since reverted its name to Westwood One after merging with Cumulus Media Networks.
College Football on CBS Sports is the blanket title used for broadcasts of college football games that are produced by CBS Sports, for CBS and CBS Sports Network.
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During the early 1960s, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle envisioned the possibility of playing at least one game weekly during prime time that could be viewed by a greater television audience. An early bid by the league in 1964 to play on Friday nights was soundly defeated, with critics charging that such telecasts would damage the attendance at high school football games. Undaunted, Rozelle decided to experiment with the concept of playing on Monday night, scheduling the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions for a game on September 28, 1964. While the game was not televised, it drew a sellout crowd of 59,203 spectators to Tiger Stadium, the largest crowd ever to watch a professional football game in Detroit up to that point.
NBC made history in the 1980s with an announcerless telecast, which was a one-shot experiment credited to Don Ohlmeyer, between the Jets and Dolphins in Miami on December 20, 1980), as well as a single-announcer telecast, coverage of the Canadian Football League during the 1982 players' strike, and even the first female play-by-play football announcer, Gayle Sierens.
On March 12, 1990, at the NFL's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the league new ratified four-year television agreements for the 1990 to 1993 seasons involving ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN 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. CBS is the only other network to televise two Super Bowls in a row. NBC, which had held XXVII, 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.
It was CBS Sports Spectacular until 1981, when Terry O'Neil took over as executive producer and changed it to Sports Saturday and Sports Sunday and made it more of a breaking news program. In the late 1970s, Eddie Einhorn ran it with Dick Stockton as host, and it could be very interesting—they often did it as a travelogue built around the events in one location, which meant Stockton almost outdid Jim McKay in the Frequent Flier department. But they had a lot of trash sports, too, and that's what O'Neil tried to get rid of.[ dead link ]
Brent also hosted "CBS Sports Saturday/Sunday," the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, the National Basketball Association Finals, the Masters Tournament and the Pan American Games
He worked at CBS from 1978–94, calling NFL games and hosting "CBS Sports Spectacular" until 1980
He served as host of "CBS Sports Saturday," "Winter-Fest," the "NCAA Tournament Selection Show" and the Emmy Award-winning Tour de France coverage, again demonstrating his versatility in play-by-play, expert analysis, reporting and studio hosting