List of Pittsburgh Steelers figures in broadcasting

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The Steelers franchise has a rich history of producing well-known sportscasters over the years: the most famous of whom was Myron Cope , who served as a Steelers radio color commentator for 35 seasons (1970-2004).

Additionally, several former players for the Pittsburgh Steelers picked up the broadcast microphone:

See also

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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.

Recently, the NFL's TV broadcasters have suffered annual financial losses because advertising revenue is unable to keep up with the rising costs of broadcast rights.

Until the broadcast contract ended in 2013, the terrestrial television networks CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion to broadcast NFL games. From 2014 to 2022, the same networks will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).

References

  1. "NBC Bumps Up Irish Coverage, Will Do Live Pregame Show from Notre Dame Stadium". ShermanReport.com.
  2. "Heinz Field Transforms Into "Gotham Stadium"". KDKA-TV. August 6, 2011. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
  3. Former Steelers Charlie Batch and Chris Hoke join KDKA-TV broadcasts Archived 2016-11-18 at the Wayback Machine Steelers.com (May 5, 2015)
  4. Former Steelers Charlie Batch and Chris Hoke join KDKA-TV broadcasts Archived 2016-11-18 at the Wayback Machine Steelers.com (May 5, 2015)