Joseph William Namath, nicknamed "Broadway Joe", is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons. He spent the majority of his career with the New York Jets. Namath played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, where he won the national championship as a senior, and was selected by the Jets first overall in the 1965 AFL draft.
Winston Cordell Hill was an American professional football offensive tackle who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL), primarily with the New York Jets. He played college football for the Texas Southern Tigers.
Suzy Kolber is an American football sideline reporter, co-producer, and a former ESPN sports anchor and reporter. She was one of the original anchors of ESPN2 when it launched in 1993. Three years later, she left ESPN2 to join Fox Sports, but returned to ESPN in late 1999. In 2023, she and several other ESPN employees were terminated by the network in what was described as a cost-cutting measure.
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.
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator provides a real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present tense. Radio was the first medium for sports broadcasts, where the radio commentators had to describe the action in detail because the listeners could not see it for themselves. In the case of televised sports coverage, commentators are presented as a voiceover, with images of the contest shown on viewers' screens and sounds of the action and spectators heard in the background. Television commentators are rarely shown on screen during an event, though some networks choose to feature their announcers on camera either before or after the contest or briefly during breaks in the action.
ESPN Sunday Night Football was the ESPN cable network's weekly television broadcasts of Sunday evening National Football League (NFL) games. The first ESPN Sunday night broadcast occurred on November 8, 1987, while the last one aired on January 1, 2006.
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.
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.
Michael Francis Mayock Sr. is an American former professional football executive and player in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a safety with the New York Giants. After his playing career, he was a draft analyst for the NFL Network, and a game analyst for NBC's coverage of Notre Dame football. He served as the general manager of the Las Vegas Raiders from 2019 to 2021.
Thursday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time.
National 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.
The 2005 Pittsburgh Steelers season was the franchise's 73rd season as a professional sports franchise and as a member of the National Football League (NFL). It was the 6th season under the leadership of general manager Kevin Colbert and the 14th under head coach Bill Cowher. The Steelers failed to improve upon their 15–1 record from 2004 and in 2005, the Steelers struggled. At one point, they were 7–5 and in danger of missing the playoffs but rose to defeat the Chicago Bears on December 11 and started a four-game win streak to finish the season at 11–5.
The 1998 Pittsburgh Steelers season was the franchise's 66th season as a professional sports franchise and as a member of the National Football League (NFL).
The 2001 Pittsburgh Steelers season was the franchise's 69th season as a professional sports franchise and as a member of the National Football League (NFL). After finishing the previous three seasons a combined 22–26, the Steelers returned to the top seed in the AFC, rolling to a 13–3 record in their first playoff berth and AFC Central title since 1997 and playing at Heinz Field. The Steelers went 7–1 in their new home stadium, with the only loss coming to the defending Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.
The 1989 season was the San Francisco 49ers' 40th in the National Football League (NFL), their 44th overall and their 1st season under head coach George Seifert. After going 14–2 in the regular season, the 49ers completed the season with one of the most dominant playoff runs of all time, outscoring opponents 126–26, earning their fourth Super Bowl victory and their second consecutive, where they defeated the Broncos, 55–10. They finished with the best record in the NFL for the first time since 1987. Their two losses were by a combined 5 points. The 49ers became the 2nd team in NFL history to win 4 Super Bowls, the first being the Steelers.
The 2001 season was the Baltimore Ravens' sixth season in the National Football League (NFL) and the third under head coach Brian Billick.
The following article details the history of Monday Night Football, the weekly broadcast of National Football League games on U.S. television.
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.
