A Myth About Prime-Time Football Exploded!

[Joseph_Gallant]

With "Monday Night Football" ending a 36-year run on broadcast television (all on ABC), much of the hype surrounding tonight's (December 26th) game between New England and the New York Jets centers around the fact that the NFL did not have a weekly prime-time telecast until "MNF" came on the scene in 1970.

Wrong!!!

According to Brooks and Marsh, DuMont actually broadcast the first weekly series of NFL prime-time games in 1953, seventeen years before ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge and NFL comissioner Pete Rozelle "invented" prime-time NFL broadcasts. Games weren't on Mondays; they were seen on Saturday nights.

Brooks and Marsh wrote that DuMont again had a Saturday-night NFL series in 1954.

Given that (1) the NFL in the mid-1950's was nowhere near as popular as it became a few years later, and (2) with the limited reach of DuMont compared to other networks, I suspect DuMont's Saturday-night NFL games in 1953 and 1954 didn't get "cleared" in a number of cities, the games didn't attract much of an audience.

Strong competition from CBS' Jackie Gleason, ABC's Saturday-night fights, and NBC's "Your Hit Parade" (plus NBC's "Show Of Shows" during 1953) didn't help either. "Saturday Night Football" may have been DuMont's most popular show during the 1953 and 1954 seasons, but I would be stunned if any game managed to do better than a 5 share nationally.

Additionally, there were a couple of prime-time NFL (this included the American Football League, which although having merged with the NFL, still maintained a "separate" identity) telecasts on CBS and NBC (one game per year per network) during 1968 and 1969.

 

[bpatrick]

> With "Monday Night Football" ending a 36-year run on
> broadcast television (all on ABC), much of the hype
> surrounding tonight's (December 26th) game between New
> England and the New York Jets centers around the fact that
> the NFL did not have a weekly prime-time telecast until
> "MNF" came on the scene in 1970.
>
> Wrong!!!
>
> According to Brooks and Marsh, DuMont actually broadcast the
> first weekly series of NFL prime-time games in 1953,
> seventeen years before ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge and
> NFL comissioner Pete Rozelle "invented" prime-time NFL
> broadcasts. Games weren't on Mondays; they were seen on
> Saturday nights.
>
> Brooks and Marsh wrote that DuMont again had a
> Saturday-night NFL series in 1954.
>
> Given that (1) the NFL in the mid-1950's was nowhere near as
> popular as it became a few years later, and (2) with the
> limited reach of DuMont compared to other networks, I
> suspect DuMont's Saturday-night NFL games in 1953 and 1954
> didn't get "cleared" in a number of cities, the games didn't
> attract much of an audience.
>
> Strong competition from CBS' Jackie Gleason, ABC's
> Saturday-night fights, and NBC's "Your Hit Parade" (plus
> NBC's "Show Of Shows" during 1953) didn't help either.
> "Saturday Night Football" may have been DuMont's most
> popular show during the 1953 and 1954 seasons, but I would
> be stunned if any game managed to do better than a 5 share
> nationally.
>
> Additionally, there were a couple of prime-time NFL (this
> included the American Football League, which although having
> merged with the NFL, still maintained a "separate" identity)
> telecasts on CBS and NBC (one game per year per network)
> during 1968 and 1969.
>
Brooks and Marsh also point out that ABC had a series of
games on Saturday nights from August to October 1959,
meaning that many of the games were preseason games. They
were taped earlier in the evening and aired in their
entirety starting at 11 PM (ET). Chuck Thompson, voice of
the Baltimore Colts, and Howard Cosell announced.

 

[timmyb]

> Brooks and Marsh also point out that ABC had a series of
> games on Saturday nights from August to October 1959,
> meaning that many of the games were preseason games. They
> were taped earlier in the evening and aired in their
> entirety starting at 11 PM (ET). Chuck Thompson, voice of
> the Baltimore Colts, and Howard Cosell announced.
>
yes. abc had five or six saturday night exhibition games televised - most likely on tape delay - with thompson and cosell calling.

this extended into the first two weeks of the 1959 regular season on saturday, 9/26/59 with the giants at the l.a. coliseum to face the rams. kickoff is listed as 11:15 pm edt, so i would guess this was a live telecast. then 10/3/59, the bears are in baltimore to face the colts. kickoff here is listed as 8:30 pm eastern, so i would assume this one was coast to coast on tape delay.

chuck thompson, normally the tv voice of the colts for cbs in 1959, probably did the call for both of these regular season games for abc as well. the colts were at home for the first two games of the season. the colts cbs network did not televise colts home games at all, so there would be no interference with his cbs duties (lest you think it strange for thompson to work for cbs and abc simultaneously, in this same year (1959) red grange worked as an analyst for nbc's college football with lindsey nelson, then on sundays be the tv play by play voice of the chicago bears for cbs with george connor!). cosell, was normally at this time, more or less free-lancing and did duties for abc radio.

there was - i think - one prime-time game per year on cbs from 1966 thru 1969.

tb

 

[DrBear]

> there was - i think - one prime-time game per year on cbs
> from 1966 thru 1969.
>
CBS carried a Green Bay Packers game at night in 1966 and 1967.

In 1966, the Packers played the Baltimore Colts in Milwaukee on Saturday night on the season's first weekend; it was a rematch of the teams' sudden-death Western Conference playoff game from the year before.

The next year, the Packers played a Monday night game in St. Louis in midseason; the Packers won as Travis Williams returned a kickoff for a touchdown (he had four KO returns for TDs that season).