NBC Sunday Night Football
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| NBC Sunday Night Football | |
|---|---|
| Image:Sunday night football.jpg | |
| Format | Sports |
| Starring | John Madden Al Michaels Andrea Kremer Bob Costas Keith Olbermann Cris Collinsworth |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Production | |
| Running time | 180 minutes+ until the conclusion of the game |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV), 1080i (HDTV) |
| Original run | August 6, 2006 – present |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
NBC Sunday Night Football is a weekly television broadcast of Sunday evening National Football League games on NBC that began airing on Sunday, August 6, 2006 with the pre-season opening Hall of Fame Game. Al Michaels serves as the play-by-play announcer, with John Madden as the color commentator, and Andrea Kremer serving as the sole sideline reporter. Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff, the lead producer and director respectively, carry over their duties from ABC's telecasts of Monday Night Football.
In addition to broadcasting Sunday night primetime games, NBC's NFL package has also aired the annual Kickoff game on Thursday night in 2006 and 2007, as well as special Monday editions (2006's Christmas Day Eagles-Cowboys game).
ESPN, which aired Sunday games from the 1987 through 2005 NFL seasons, took over Monday Night Football from sister network ABC; ESPN aired a doubleheader broadcast on September 11, 2006 and on September 10, 2007.
Contents |
[edit] Studio show
- For more details on this topic, see Football Night in America.
The studio show Football Night in America, featuring Bob Costas, Cris Collinsworth,Keith Olbermann, Tiki Barber, Jerome Bettis, and Peter King precedes the broadcast each week, featuring a recap of the other Sunday NFL contests. Kremer, Madden, and Michaels also contribute to the studio show from the game site.
[edit] Additional games
NBC's contract also includes the opening Thursday-night NFL Kickoff Game and two opening games of the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The network will also air two Super Bowl games during the six years of the deal, following the 2008 (Super Bowl XLIII) and 2011 (Super Bowl XLVI) seasons, and two Pro Bowl games the week following their Super Bowl telecasts as part of a new contractual policy in which the network with the Super Bowl will air the Pro Bowl.
In addition, NBC becomes the home of the aforementioned annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which begins the NFL's preseason. However, the 2007 game aired on NFL Network because the NFL had planned to stage the China Bowl just a few days later, to be televised by NBC as a tie-in to its coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in that country. The China Bowl has since been postponed until 2009. The HOF game is expected to return to NBC in the 2008 preseason.
[edit] Scheduling
- For more details on each game's results and statistics, see NBC Sunday Night Football results (2006-present).
The first regular-season game to be shown by NBC under this contract, Miami at Pittsburgh, aired September 7, 2006, followed by the first Sunday-night game—Indianapolis at the New York Giants—on September 10, 2006. The actual first game of the run—the 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between Oakland and Philadelphia—was televised on August 6, 2006.
NBC Sunday Night Football is the beneficiary of the league's new flexible-scheduling system. For the final seven weeks of the season (seven of the final eight weeks during the 2006 season because of Christmas weekend), the NFL has the flexibility in selecting games to air on Sunday night, stating that fans will be able to vote for what game they would like to see on the Sunday primetime slot. During those affected weeks, no game is initially scheduled for NBC—instead, the schedule slot for the NBC game is listed as "To be announced", and one Sunday afternoon game will be moved to the primetime slot. The NFL did earmark specific games for Sunday Night Football in Weeks 10-15 and 17 when the official schedule came out in April 2006.[1] CBS and FOX could each protect four of its games during Weeks 10-15 and also each protect one of its games for Week 17; however, these two networks had to decide which games to protect in early October 2006, after Week 4 of the NFL season.[1]
In the 2006 season, there was no game played on the first Sunday night which overlapped with the World Series (October 22 in the 2006 season), along with Christmas Eve night; NBC broadcast that week's game (Eagles at Cowboys) on Christmas afternoon instead. However, the broadcast of Football Night in America continued at its regular time on both occasions each Sunday, with a half-hour version of the program airing before the Christmas game and the two "Wild Card Saturday" games.
In 2007, there was no broadcast on NBC for Sunday, October 28 due to game 4 of the 2007 World Series. Also, a tentative full-season schedule was unveiled, including games in the last seven weeks of the season. Those games could be replaced under flexible scheduling if the need arised. Three of the games in the last seven weeks were eventually replaced with more compelling matches. The same rules under which CBS and FOX protect games for their own packages still apply.
[edit] 2007 schedule
| Overtime Result |
[edit] Similarity to ABC
Eighty percent of NBC's Sunday Night Football crew comes from ABC/ESPN, including Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff (producer and director, respectively), as ESPN moved most of its Sunday Night production crew to Monday Night Football. Michaels, Madden and Kremer also come to NBC directly from ABC/ESPN, and Football Night in America's Sterling Sharpe was a member of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown in recent years (calling several Sunday night games for the network in 2005).[2] NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol on using ABC/ESPN talent:
| “ | I was not interested in the quote, unquote vanity of starting anew. . . There's not a lot of room for experimentation.[2] | ” |
Also, NBC has the starters introduce themselves, much as ABC did in the last few years of its run, and the short postgame show (so affiliates can get to their late newscasts) follows a similar format to ABC's.
Michaels and Madden will end each telecast in the 2007 NFL season by selecting an MVP for that night's game to receive the Horse Trailer award (with a photo of each recipient being affixed to the side of a production truck, also known as a "horse trailer"). This concept originated on ABC's MNF, although in the 2006 season, it was altered to the Rock Star of the Game, with the player's photo mounted on a rooftop display at NBC's headquarters, the GE Building (aka "30 Rock") in New York.
[edit] Theme music
Academy Award winner John Williams composed the instrumental theme music[3] for Sunday Night Football. Singer Pink sang the theme song for the broadcast[4]in 2006, a reworking of the Joan Jett song "I Hate Myself For Loving You" retitled "Waiting All Day For Sunday Night".[5][6] Several alternative versions were used throughout the season, substituting different lyrics when appropriate, e.g. "Waiting All Year For Opening Night."
On the selection of Pink, NFL on NBC producer Fred Gaudelli had this to say:
| “ | A football fan knows the anticipation of waiting all day for the big game. When you hear this song on Sunday nights you'll know the big game is about to kick off. ... We chose Pink as the signature voice because she is a tremendous talent with a crossover appeal that makes her relevant to all segments of our audience.[5] | ” |
Starting in the 2007 season, country singer Faith Hill has replaced Pink as the singer of the opening theme, which still resembles the Joan Jett song.[7]
[edit] Show opening
The song is at the centerpiece of the opening montage, which has also changed in 2007. For the first season, Pink appeared to sing from the top of a skyscraper as a helicopter zoomed down on a city skyline and the field, the results of computer-generated imagery. A television monitor, which resembles NBC's monitor at Times Square, showed game preview footage and opening credits.
In 2007, Faith Hill sings on a stage while some of the key players in the game and announcers Michaels and Madden arrive in limousines and walk on a red carpet as they head to a simulated theater. Also, some of the lyrics have been changed slightly and the musical arrangement tilts toward country more than rock, to reflect the change in singers. The marquee outside the theater shows the logo of Sprint, which paid a product placement fee, and one of the "bystanders" records the red carpet scene on a Sprint camera phone.
In both cases, Williams' music then plays in the background over the official welcome.
[edit] Graphics
NBC's Sunday Night Football graphics, logos and scoreboard were designed by Troika Design Group, along with the city skyline graphics used in the introductions to both Football Night in America and the game itself.[8] NBC's game telecasts use the same type of bottomline scoreboard that Monday Night Football used in the 2005 NFL season (and was subsequently used by ABC Sports until its demise in August 2006). The bottomline was also used on NBC's own Notre Dame college football and annual coverage of the Bayou Classic game, and the package's look and font has also transitioned to other NBC Sports broadcasts such as the network's NHL coverage, Poker After Dark (which airs in the late overnight hours Monday-Saturday), figure skating specials, and video reports on NBCSports.com. All NBC Sports presentations now use the package, with the network's golf coverage using it beginning in early February 2007 with their coverage of the FBR Open, though it has been slightly modified for golf coverage due to readability concerns.
USA Network, a "sister" cable network, also uses the graphics to cover the U.S. Open tennis tournament.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lev, Michael. "NFL flexible schedule needs more flexibility", Orange County Register, November 9, 2006.
- ^ a b Barron, David. "Grading NBC in prime time", Houston Chronicle, 2006-09-18. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
- ^ http://broadcastingcable.com/contents/video/SNF_Theme.mp3
- ^ From Hank to . . . Pink?: NFL Sunday Night Adds Unneeded Girl Power
- ^ a b "'Sunday Night Football' Thinks Pink", Zap2it.com, 2006-08-30. Retrieved on 2006-09-19.
- ^ Multi-platinum pop singer Pink performs "NBC Sunday Night Football" opening music. NBC (2006-08-30). Retrieved on 2006-11-01.
- ^ "Faith Hill to sing Sunday Night Football theme", The Associated Press, 2007-08-30.
- ^ Troika Design Group Creates New Identity and Packaging for "NBC Sunday Night Football"
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- NBC Sunday Night Football – official website
- New NBC talking heads have history across NFL telecasts
- NBC a much happier NFL TV Partner -- Sports Business News October 27, 2006
- NBC Sunday Night Football theme song by Pink
| Preceded by ESPN | NFL Sunday Night Football broadcaster 2006 - Present | Succeeded by Incumbent |
NBC Sports television programs | |
|---|---|
| American Football: | The AFL on NBC · NFL on television · Football Night in America · NBC Sunday Night Football · NFL on NBC |
| Anthology programs: | Gillette Cavalcade of Sports · Sportsworld |
| Auto Racing: | NASCAR on NBC |
| Baseball: | The Baseball Network · Major League Baseball Game of the Week · Major League Baseball on NBC · Major League Baseball: An Inside Look |
| Basketball: | NBA on NBC · NBA Showtime |
| Hockey: | NHL on NBC |
| Horse Racing: | Thoroughbred Racing on NBC |
| See Also: United States sports broadcasting lists | |
