The last two weeks, I have done network NFL TV opens. Two weeks ago, it was ABC Monday Night Football and last week, it was the NFL on NBC’s turn.
This week, we look at the network that has had the longest affiliation with the National Football League, CBS.
And we’re lucky that we can go back to 1970 and look at various opens for its game coverage and the NFL Today which has had several incarnations over the years. So let’s start with the game open for the 1970 NFC Divisional playoff game between Dallas and Detroit. The theme music for the open was called “Confidence”. The CBS team for the game was the late Frank Gleiber and Frank Gifford.
This is CBS Sports pregame coverage of Super Bowl VI which pitted the Cowboys and Miami Dolphins. Jack Whitaker was the host. Notice NBC’s Charlie Jones doing a commercial for Black & Decker tools and then a montage of Super Bowl predictions from across the country. Dick Stockton was in Boston and Jack Buck was asking the questions in St. Louis. Great stuff.
Here’s the NFL Today intro from the 1975 NFC Championship Game between the Cowboys and Minnesota Vikings at the old Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, MN. Notice there’s a three person cast, not the crowded four or five men sets that are featured on CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC.
And the following game for CBS was Super Bowl X between Dallas and Pittsburgh (interesting that the Cowboys are involved in many of these games). This is the intro from January 1976.
Ah, here’s an intro from 1978. Jayne Kennedy becomes part of the NFL Today replacing Phyllis George who had left.
Let’s move to 1979 and the NFC Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Here’s the intro to the NFL Today at the Big Sombrero with Brent Musberger, Jayne Kennedy, Irv Cross and a host of others.
This is the 1982 open for the NFL on CBS.
By 1983, Phyllis returned to the NFL Today and CBS Sports tried to show that it was a new decade with a whole new opening.
Let’s move to 1987 and CBS’ intro to the 1987 NFC Championship Game between the Minnesota Vikings and the Washington Redskins. I really liked this theme.
In 1990, CBS owner Larry “The Fish” Tisch tried to prop up CBS’ primetime lineup and he bought a lot of sports properties including Major League Baseball. Here’s a promo of what CBS Sports called “The Dream Season”, but unfortunately for CBS, every major event it covered ended up being a blowout or a four game sweep.
Here’s the open for Super Bowl XXIV between San Francisco and Denver. CBS again changed the music for the NFL. This wasn’t as good as the previous theme.
It was a sad day for CBS when it lost the NFL in 1993 to Fox. Its final game of doing NFC games was the 1994 NFC Championship between the Cowboys and San Francisco at Texas Stadium. Here’s the last 4:17 of the NFL on CBS until 1998. NFL Today co-hosts Greg Gumbel and Terry Bradshaw (only a two man crew for this version) toss it to Pat Summerall and John Madden.
In 1998, CBS joyfully returned to the NFL by wresting the AFC package from NBC. From 1998-2002, it used the theme that had also been part of the NFC package for the last two years (1992-1993).
Since then, CBS has managed to keep the NFL through one additional TV negotiation with the league. The network has changed its music once. Here’s the current theme.
There you have it. I’ve enjoyed researching those for you.
