TheNBC television network's in-studio pre-game coverage for theirNational Football Leaguegame telecasts has been presented under various titles and formats throughout NBC's NFL coverage history.
NBC's first official NFL pre-game show wasGrandStand,[1][2] a program that doubled as a competing sportsanthology series toABC's Wide World of Sports during the off-season (GrandStand also served as the pre-game show forNBC'sMajor League Baseball Game of the Week during the1976 season).GrandStand premiered in1975[3] with hostsJack Buck andBryant Gumbel (who joined Buck sometime later in the season). Prior to 1975, NBC aired thepolitical talk showMeet the Press in the NFL pre-game show's timeslot (12:30 p.m.Eastern) againstThe NFL Today, the pre-game show ofCBS since1967.
In1976, Jack Buck leftGrandStand in order to return to the booth as aplay-by-play announcer, remaining with NBC. He was replaced as co-host byLee Leonard.
Leonard (who would later become a co-host ofESPN'sSportsCenter) left the program in1977, and was replaced byMike Adamle and Regina Haskins[4] as Gumbel's co-hosts. For the post-game show,GrandStand kept theSperry NFL Report, although later incarnations of the post-game would be retitled theBudweiser NFL Report.
In1977, NBC dropped theGrandStand moniker in favor ofNFL, which the title being paired with a year number that corresponded to the then-current NFL season (such asNFL '77 andNFL '78).[5] Beginning withNFL '80, NBC would pioneer the use of in-game highlight packages[6] ("Let's go to New York for anNFL '80 update") NBC would use this particular method of titling their pregame show until the1987 season.
Bryant Gumbel hosted theNFL on NBC pregame show through the1981 season, when he left NBC Sports to become co-anchor of NBC's morning programToday. In his final two seasons onThe NFL on NBC, Gumbel served as the sole host for the pre-game show. Gumbel was subsequently replaced byLen Berman,[7] who was joined by Adamle,Pete Axthelm (who left following the1985 season) andAhmad Rashad.
For Berman'ssecond season (and what turned out to be his final full season) as host,Bill Macatee (who left following the1984 season) andDave Marash (who left following the1983 season) replaced Adamle and Rashad. Rashad would return to the pre-game show in 1984 and continue onward through the1988 season.
In October 1984, NBC was also covering theWorld Series between theDetroit Tigers andSan Diego Padres. Even though Game 5 was on a Sunday afternoon (Game 5 was at 4:30 p.m. ET),Bob Costas (who anchoredNBC's World Series coverage with Len Berman) was still inNew York City to hostNFL '84. At the end of the pre-game show, Costas left the New York studio to travel toDetroit to cover that night's baseball game atTiger Stadium. In the meantime, Macatee filled-in for Costas, providing updates and halftime highlights. Costas later interviewed the Tigers in theirlocker room that night.
In1985, NBC moved its Sunday pre-game show to 12:30 p.m.Eastern Time no matter what time that market got a game.CBS followed suit in1986. Previously, NBC and CBS would air their pre-game shows at 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time for markets that were only receiving games with 2:00 or 4:00 p.m. Eastern start times.
From the mid-to-late 1980s, NBC would to open its NFL pre-game show with a feature called "Great Games, Great Moments," which rebroadcast an original clip (from an NBC telecast, as opposed toNFL Films) of a play from a classic NFL game originally televised on the network. The instrumental music that NBC used for the "Great Games, Great Moments" clip was "Constant Energy"[8] by Craig Palmer. During the 1986 season, NBC experimented with using astudio audience for itsNFL '86 telecasts; this would be dropped after that season.Paul Maguire served as an analyst from 1986 to 1987, alongside Costas and Rashad.[9]
In1987, the network's pre-game show was retitledNFL Live! (a title that would later be used by ESPN for the NFL analysis program previously titledNFL 2Night – although without theexclamation point – in2003, six years after NBC lost the broadcast rights to the league'sAmerican Football Conference to CBS).Gayle Gardner would join the team as an analyst in1988, alongside Costas and Rashad. Also in 1988, Costas' predecessor, Len Berman[10] temporarily returned as the program's host as Costas was covering that year'sSummer Olympics inSeoul forNBC.Gayle Sierens, who made history as the first female play-by-play announcer in NFL history one year earlier, would join Berman while Costas, Rashad and Gardner were in Seoul. Paul Maguire also briefly returned toNFL Live! (he had earlier left the program to become a color commentator for NBC) during the Olympics period.
For the1989 season,O. J. Simpson became an analyst forNFL Live! alongside Costas;[11] Simpson remained on the program until the end of the1993 season. (Simpson was arrested on two counts ofmurder on June 17, 1994, and remained incarcerated until his acquittal on October 3, 1995.) That year, the program introduced theJohn Tesh-composed theme "Gridiron Dreams".[12] In1990,Will McDonough[13] moved over fromCBS'The NFL Today to joinNFL Live! He would leave the program after the 1993 season to serve as a sideline reporter and host of the program's "News and Notes" segment. In1991,Bill Parcells (who left after just one season for a role as an in-booth analyst for NBC) joined the team.
For Week 1 of the 1991 season,Marv Albert substituted as host ofNFL Live!. Regular host Bob Costas along with O. J. Simpson, play-by-play broadcasterTom Hammond and analystTodd Christensen were assigned to cover theworld track and field championships inTokyo,Japan.
Bob Costas held the main hosting position through the1992 season, but would continue his involvement withThe NFL on NBC, albeit in a more limited role such as delivering pre-taped, one-on-one interviews.[14]Jim Lampley[15] replaced Costas as the host ofNFL Live! in 1993, before leaving the program in favor of becoming a play-by-play announcer for NBC's NFL telecasts.
Mike Ditka[16] also joinedNFL Live! as a regular commentator that year. For the 1993 season, "Gridiron Dreams" was replaced as the program's theme music by a composition composed byJohn Colby.[17]
From1994 to1997, formerNFL Today hostGreg Gumbel served as the program's host, alongside Ahmad Rashad. Meanwhile, a revamped version of John Colby's theme music was used solely for that season. That year,Joe Gibbs joinedNFL Live! as an analyst, staying on through the 1997 season. In 1994 and1995, NBC ran an hour-long edition of the pre-game show before Week 1.[18] Ditka left the program after the1996 season.
During NBC's last three years as the broadcast television home of theAmerican Football Conference (from the1995 to 1997 seasons), the pregame show was simply titledThe NFL on NBC.[19] The theme music[20] byRandy Edelman was used for both the pregame show and the network's game coverage.
In1995,Joe Montana joined the program as an analyst, but left after just one season. Montana was subsequently replaced byCris Collinsworth, who stayed on through the1997 season. As previously mentioned, Mike Ditka left NBC following the1996 season to become the head coach of theNew Orleans Saints and was replaced bySam Wyche.
After NBC won the rights to theSunday Night Football package fromESPN, effective with the2006 season,[21] NBC launched the 80-minute pre-gameFootball Night in America, the only prime time pre-game show on a major broadcast network. The program was initially hosted by Bob Costas.
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