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The Great NFL Heist: How Fox Paid for and Changed Football Forever


Rimbo

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An oral history of the most important deal in sports TV history, when Rupert Murdoch and Fox stole the NFL and John Madden out from under the Big Three networks, created the modern pregame show, invented a new way to see football, and launched a television empire

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc 

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Just now, Rimbo said:

Heh.

Read this a few days ago.  My favorite quote from Jimmy Johnson:

Quote

Dick Stockton, CBS play-by-play announcer: We were just stunned. Not because we said, “OK, I’m going to work for Fox.” We weren’t even thinking of that. We just said, “It’s over. It’s over.”

Verne Lundquist, CBS play-by-play announcer: I was in New Jersey getting ready to do a Dallas Cowboys–New York Jets game. We got a call probably at 3:30. Jimmy Johnson arrived in the meeting room. He looked at us and said, “Good lord, guys, what’s wrong?” Dan [Fouts] or I said, “Well, we just lost the NFL after 38 years.” There was a pause, and then Jimmy said, “It’s a tough fucking business, boys, on both sides of the ball.”

Jimmy Johnson, Dallas Cowboys head coach: They forgot about interviewing me for the game. They were out of a job. Everybody at CBS was in shock.

 

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I like this one:

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Sometime later, Fox NFL Sunday became known as the show where the hosts fought to laugh loudest at each other’s jokes. But in Year 1, there wasn’t an excess of bonhomie. Jimmy Johnson, who’d just left the NFL and knew he’d go back, still had the qualities of a coach: inward-looking, slightly touchy.

Terry Bradshaw, Fox NFL Sunday analyst: He was still coachin’ and we knew it.

Jimmy Johnson, Fox NFL Sunday analyst: I was a little bit guarded.

Long: He was a miserable son of a bitch.

 

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One of the fumiest memories I have from this was when Pat Summerall was doing the Fox broadcast with Madden and it came time to promo  Fox's Sunday night lineup.  It was almost an American institution to hear Summerall que up what was going to be going on with 60 Minutes and other long time running shows on CBS.  Pat did OK with The Simpson's , the X Files, and In Living Color, but the one that got me was House of Buggin'.  I remember Summerall saying something to the effect of  "...and be sure to check out Fox's new hit comedy show House of Buggin'" followed by a long pause then almost shouting " House of Bugging" then silence.  You could hear Madden chuckling in the background.

FWIW, I did see the House of Buggin' a few times and it was actually pretty funny.

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6 hours ago, Rimbo said:

An oral history of the most important deal in sports TV history, when Rupert Murdoch and Fox stole the NFL and John Madden out from under the Big Three networks, created the modern pregame show, invented a new way to see football, and launched a television empire

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc 

So they're the ones to blame...

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7 hours ago, Rimbo said:

An oral history of the most important deal in sports TV history, when Rupert Murdoch and Fox stole the NFL and John Madden out from under the Big Three networks, created the modern pregame show, invented a new way to see football, and launched a television empire

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/12/13/18137938/nfl-fox-deal-rupert-murdoch-1993-john-madden-terry-bradshaw-howie-long-jimmy-johnson-cbs-nbc 

I would like to see FOX grow this same concept with collegiate football in the next media contracts...

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4 hours ago, pops said:

Best thing fox ever did was put the tracer on the puck in hockey. I think it should come back. 

You also probably like the square that demarcates the strike zone and instant replay don't you?

 

 

Anyway, I thought the article was going to be about those idiotic animated football robots:

photo_1297442681222.jpg

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1 hour ago, Rimbo said:

RTFA.

Did.  I just don't even remember who was on that first Fox studio team.  The CBS team was greatness.

I'm also sick of the Odd Couple routine.  Terry and Howie did it.  Mike and Mike tried to do it.  Seemingly every local show in Houston thinks they are Gilligan and Skipper entertaining us while arguing over idiotic junior high bullshit.  No motherfuckers... talk about the gotdam game.

 

It's a great article with some fantastic insight behind the scenes, but not everything they did was necessarily better.

Edited by slorch
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5 hours ago, tbone_ said:

I bet there’s a way to do it now with better technology that isn’t awful

the tech was way advanced for its time, if you think about it.  augmented reality in mid 90s.... and all them rich kids with big screens had no issues tracking the puck but for a casual viewer using 19" CRT on broadcast it was a welcomed add

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1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

the tech was way advanced for its time, if you think about it.  augmented reality in mid 90s.... and all them rich kids with big screens had no issues tracking the puck but for a casual viewer using 19" CRT on broadcast it was a welcomed add

Tracking the puck has always been about watching the flow of the game and where the players are looking.

FTR, i don't like all of the fucking lines and horseshit they superimpose on the field today in football telecasts.  It's to the point where you can't tell if it's the yardlines on the field, or the lines for idiots who can't count to 10 on the field while they're watching... and yeah, that's a shot at LSU, too.

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1 minute ago, Bullneck said:

Didn't Murdoch make his fortune buying the rules to Aussie rules football 40 years ago and make it pay-per-view?  I think I read that about 20 years ago.

HE made his money because his dad owned a ton of papers in Australia and then he started buying up American ones..I think his first one was the San Antonio paper 

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10 hours ago, pops said:

Best thing fox ever did was put the tracer on the puck in hockey. I think it should come back. 

FoxTrax was ahead of its time and was trying to be a solution for standard definition TVs. 

They ended up repurposing the tech into the first down line in the NFL and pitch tracker for MLB

 

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/21080555/nhl-bring-back-infamous-glow-puck

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Did.  I just don't even remember who was on that first Fox studio team.  The CBS team was greatness.
I'm also sick of the Odd Couple routine.  Terry and Howie did it.  Mike and Mike tried to do it.  Seemingly every local show in Houston thinks they are Gilligan and Skipper entertaining us while arguing over idiotic junior high bullshit.  No motherfuckers... talk about the gotdam game.
 
It's a great article with some fantastic insight behind the scenes, but not everything they did was necessarily better.
You sound surly.
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8 hours ago, Zavala said:

Fox is still better than the mouse, and old people CBS. Still keep updating the robot every year too. Hilarious. 

cleatus-0.gif

In CBS's defense, they were and still are better than NBC.    Good gosh I hated watching games on NBC before the events in the article took place.   You talk about commentators who would put you to sleep unless the game was called by Dick Enberg  sidekicked with Merlin Olsen or Paul Maguire.  

The only thing NBC has going for it now is Al Micheals and Tony Dungy,   Both good guys.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

In CBS's defense, they were and still are better than NBC.    Good gosh I hated watching games on NBC before the events in the article took place.   You talk about commentators who would put you to sleep unless the game was called by Dick Enberg  sidekicked with Merlin Olsen or Paul Maguire.  

The only thing NBC has going for it now is Al Micheals and Tony Dungy,   Both good guys.


The last two seasons the Cowboys were on NBC quite a bit (it seemed) and the first time Albert Morris' name was mentioned, Al Michaels would say "Former Washington Redskin Albert Morris." For the rest of the game he would only say "Former Washington Redskin" about 1/3 of the time he mentioned Morris. A little understandable in 2016, but STILL in 2017?

A friend and I would watch and wait for it and it got so old that late in the season we wondered if Al Michael's was starting to experience a bit of dementia.

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42 minutes ago, Nueces River Rat said:

In CBS's defense, they were and still are better than NBC.    Good gosh I hated watching games on NBC before the events in the article took place.   You talk about commentators who would put you to sleep unless the game was called by Dick Enberg  sidekicked with Merlin Olsen or Paul Maguire.  

The only thing NBC has going for it now is Al Micheals and Tony Dungy,   Both good guys.

 

 

I will not have any Don Criqui or Bob Trumpy slander here. 

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Just now, Deej said:

WIth RedZone, who is still watching network broadcasts? 

Este. If there's a game on I really want to watch in the afternoon windows, I'll throw it up on a different screen, but the bulk of my focus is directed towards RedZone. Scott Hanson is the best in the business.

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3 hours ago, 'stache said:

Stahp. None of you Texans watch fucking ice hockey.

I would love to not watch any in person in Houston...

Different thread, but yes, there are some puckheads down here. 

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I remember when this all played out because I had a very small hand in it.  At the time I worked for a video & film production company that was hired by the advertising agency Fox used to design and execute the pitch to the league.  We produced an exciting, flashy video, probably 20 minutes long, going over how Fox would cover each game and the new features they would introduce to the game broadcast.  They covered every little detail in a very fast paced, high energy way.  MTV style I guess you could say.  Back then, not many folks were using those sort or tactics for that kind of proposal, so it definitely helped to make it stand out.  I was sworn to secrecy and actually paid extra for it.  Honestly, I didn't think that Fox had a chance because CBS & NBC had the contracts for so long, and I never imagined that Fox would bid so much for the rights.  At the time Fox didn't really use big Fox for sports broadcasting, so everybody assumed that they were bidding for the rights for their regional networks, which only covered certain markets.  It was a huge surprise to everyone when they dropped that bomb.

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8 hours ago, slorch said:

Did.  I just don't even remember who was on that first Fox studio team.  The CBS team was greatness.

I'm also sick of the Odd Couple routine.  Terry and Howie did it.  Mike and Mike tried to do it.  Seemingly every local show in Houston thinks they are Gilligan and Skipper entertaining us while arguing over idiotic junior high bullshit.  No motherfuckers... talk about the gotdam game.

 

It's a great article with some fantastic insight behind the scenes, but not everything they did was necessarily better.

Yeah, but you don't get called a revolutionary if you come up with something better; only if you change the way everyone else does things.

The whole shift away from nerding out on football was what they changed. They didn't invent the pregame show, they invented the modern form of it. And let's not act like JB, Bradshaw, Howie Long and Jimmy Johnson didn't know football X's and O's as well as anyone, but that wasn't the focus of the show.

Now, I agree with you that I personally would rather talk football talk, but simply by virtue of being here on this board, we are self-selected to be a very different kind of fan. I would be enthralled to sit at the table while Belichick and Saban shared notes and talked shop (as they do). But I am not the average TV football fan, and neither are you. I can hear the term "A-gap" and "quarters coverage" and not be all like, "eh?" I bought AFCA books just to make myself a more informed fan. I'm a fucking nerd.

You and I are not typical, and the reason Fox's approach was successful is that it appeals to the typical fan. Honestly, Bradshaw telling Long that if Howie ever beat him up, he'd bleed all over him? That's fucking funny, man.

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2 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I remember it was a huge deal because where I lived in south Texas Fox was only available on cable, not OTA, and the people nearly rioted knowing they would have to pay to see the Cowboys play.  Fox quickly got OTA in the area and all was okay.

There are CBS affiliates that switched to Fox over this. Brilliant move by Murdoch that made Fox a player and not forever on the outside looking in.

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