Football America is a 1996 American sports history book by Phil Barber and Ray Didinger. [1] It was later adapted into a film series that was released by the National Football League in 1996. [2] It was also the name of a follow-up series that aired on NFL Network from 2003 to 2005 on a regular basis.
The books and TV shows feature stories about various players and teams, including:
Turner Network Television, which then held partial rights to NFL games, telecast the original film in 1992. The 2003–05 series was hosted by veteran sportscaster Charley Steiner. It aired on Sunday and Monday nights, at the same time ESPN and ABC presented their prime time games.
Football America was "cancelled" by NFL Network in 2006, when the network revamped its lineup; there is now more emphasis on live programs and major projects like America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions . But the show still appears very occasionally; the show aired at the same time the Thanksgiving Day games were played in 2006.
In 2014, Football America returned as a one-hour special that aired during Fox's coverage of Super Bowl XLVIII. The revamped special focused on the NFL's "Together We Make Football" campaign. Another edition of the special aired during NBC's coverage of Super Bowl XLIX the following year.
CBS Sports is the sports broadcasting division of American television network 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.
The NFL Today is an American football television program on CBS that serves as the pre-game show for the network's National Football League (NFL) game telecasts under the NFL on CBS brand. The program features commentary on the latest news around the NFL from its hosts and studio analysts, as well as predictions for the day's games and interviews with players and coaches. Originally debuting as Pro Football Kickoff on September 17, 1961, the program airs before all NFL games broadcast by CBS, and generally runs for one hour. The program's commentators also provide commentary during game updates, the halftime reports, and the postgame show on the NFL on CBS broadcasts.
James William Nantz III is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA, and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has anchored CBS's coverage of the Masters Tournament since 1989 and been the lead play-by-play announcer on CBS's NFL coverage since 2004. He was also the lead broadcaster for the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 1990 to 2023.
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 the American Broadcasting Company (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.
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.
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.
Inside the NFL is an American weekly television sports show that focuses on the National Football League (NFL).
NBC Sunday Night Football is an American weekly television broadcast of National Football League (NFL) games on NBC and Peacock in the United States. It began airing on August 6, 2006, with the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which opened that year's preseason. NBC took over the rights to the Sunday prime time game telecasts from ESPN, which carried the broadcasts from 1987 to 2005. At the same time, ESPN began broadcasting Monday Night Football when it was dropped from sister network ABC. Previously, NBC had aired American Football League (AFL), and later American Football Conference (AFC), games from 1965 until 1997, when CBS took over those rights.
Andrea Kremer is a multi-Emmy Award-winning American television sports journalist. She previously called Thursday Night Football games for Amazon Prime Video making sports history, along with Hannah Storm, by becoming the first all-women booth to call any major men's team sport, not just football. Kremer is also Chief Correspondent for the NFL Network and previously led the network's coverage and in-depth reporting on health and safety. Her other current roles include correspondent for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel as well as co-host of We Need To Talk, the first ever all-female nationally televised weekly sports show on CBS. Until the 2011 season, she worked as a sideline reporter for NBC on the network's coverage of Sunday Night Football.
Scott Graham is an American sportscaster best known for his broadcasts of the Philadelphia Phillies, his work with NFL Films, and his studio hosting of The NFL on Westwood One. He has lived and worked near Philadelphia for most of his professional life. He was born June 10, 1965, in Belleville, New Jersey, and now lives in Voorhees Township, New Jersey. Graham graduated from Pingry School in 1983. His sportscasting résumé covers several organizations in Philadelphia and around the United States. Graham is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science.
America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions is an American annual documentary series created by NFL Films. Its 57 installments profile the 57 winning teams of the National Football League (NFL)'s annual Super Bowl championship game; each episode chronicles an individual team.
ESPN College Football is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football across ESPN properties, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNews and ESPN Radio. ESPN College Football debuted in 1982.
Ray Didinger is an American sportswriter, radio personality, sports commentator author and screenwriter. He is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame as part of the Writer's Honor Roll.
Nationally television broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games first aired on ABC from 1948 to 1951. Between 1970 and 2005, Monday Night Football aired exclusively on ABC. In 2006, ESPN took over as the exclusive rights holder to Monday Night Football, and the ABC Sports division was merged into ESPN Inc. by parent company Disney. Afterward, ABC did not broadcast any game from the NFL, whether exclusive or a simulcast from ESPN, until they simulcasted an NFL Wild Card playoff game in 2016. ABC would then return to Monday Night Football in 2020, when they aired three games as simulcasts from ESPN.
Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. When the rival American Football League (AFL) began in 1960, it signed a 5-year television contract with ABC. This became the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football, through which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs. ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras, and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games. As the AFL also had players' names stitched on their jerseys, it was easier for both TV viewers and people at the games to tell who was who.
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.
When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, all major professional and collegiate organizations responded by suspending operations indefinitely. This effect was passed down to the world of sports broadcasting, which includes live coverage of thousands of events on an annual basis through stations and network available over the air, through cable, satellite, and IPTV companies, and via streaming and over-the-top services.