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1983 NFL Season Opener

H

harrisburgpatv

Guest
Seeing listings in an old TV Guide has me wondering. Nowadays the NFL makes a big deal out of a season opener but this one seems to have almost snuck in under the radar...

Saturday, September 3, 1983 - 6pm (EST), 3pm California time, the NFL season opener was the Eagles @ 49ers. WCAU-10 and WHP-21 broadcast the game, but CBS still had their usual Saturday lineup broadcast. I'm going to assume this was simply a regional telecast based on the fact that two other stations didn't telecast the game and had the regular Saturday night CBS lineup.

How often did these early (as in before Sunday) season openers happen?
 
Maybe it wasn't the season opener--just a pre-season game.

09/03/83 was two days before Labor Day. Wouldn't that have been
a bit early for the season opener?
 
This Eagles-49'ers game was the first one of the regular season - Philadelphia winning 22-17. Back then, the NFL opened on Labor Day weekend. I recall in 1984, the Cleveland Browns' first game was on Labor Day. Televised coverage for such games was apparently limited to the cities of the two teams.
 
The (baseball) Giants had a day game on Monday (Labor Day) and they needed more time to convert Candlestick from football back to baseball. The game was seen in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and San Francisco. It was a CBS telecast with Dick Stockton and Wayne Walker announcing.
 
Cincinnati Kid said:
This Eagles-49'ers game was the first one of the regular season - Philadelphia winning 22-17. Back then, the NFL opened on Labor Day weekend. I recall in 1984, the Cleveland Browns' first game was on Labor Day. Televised coverage for such games was apparently limited to the cities of the two teams.
Click to expand...

That is funny. Today, the NFL would never let the first regular season game go unnoticed. In fact, they would insist on a pregame big-name concert, in addition to a 2-hour pregame show.
 
searadiofreak said:
That is funny. Today, the NFL would never let the first regular season game go unnoticed. In fact, they would insist on a pregame big-name concert, in addition to a 2-hour pregame show.
Click to expand...

That's what's funny to me too....This 1983 opener kind of snuck in under the radar...Not to mention it was a SATURDAY AFTERNOON start at 3pm (pacific time), taking on college football...

Saturday games with the NFL usually just happened at the end of the season and the first few rounds of the playoffs...
 
searadiofreak said:
Cincinnati Kid said:
This Eagles-49'ers game was the first one of the regular season - Philadelphia winning 22-17. Back then, the NFL opened on Labor Day weekend. I recall in 1984, the Cleveland Browns' first game was on Labor Day. Televised coverage for such games was apparently limited to the cities of the two teams.
Click to expand...

That is funny. Today, the NFL would never let the first regular season game go unnoticed. In fact, they would insist on a pregame big-name concert, in addition to a 2-hour pregame show.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it be on a Thursday night now?
 
radioman148 said:
Wouldn't it be on a Thursday night now?
Click to expand...

Yep....The NFL started the tradition in 2003 and has been doing it ever since. I believe the first game was NY Jets and Redskins because the NFL wanted to honor 2 of the 9/11 cities. Nowadays the tradition is that the Super Bowl champs get the honor of hosting the first game.
 
Candlestick Park had an unusually busy weekend, hosting a Beach Boys concert on Sunday of Labor Day weekend, with the baseball Giants returning home for a Labor Day afternoon game. So, the football game was moved to an unusual Saturday start, so that the grounds crew had time to get the field converted/configured for each event.
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
Maybe it wasn't the season opener--just a pre-season game.

09/03/83 was two days before Labor Day. Wouldn't that have been
a bit early for the season opener?
Click to expand...

Plus the NFL has had a hands-off agreement with the NCAA and Saturday football since about
1960. Some Congressman stipulated that in the bill that gave the league an anti-trust exemption
which permitted them to cut a single-network broadcast deal. You don't see NFL games on Saturdays
until after the college football season has ended.
 
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