30 years ago, when you wanted to watch the NFL, you tuned to CBS, NBC, and ABC. FOX was not in the picture in early 1993. It was a network known for The Simpsons and shows geared towards young adults, but not football. That all changed quickly with a mega bid by Rupert Murdoch to bring the league to his upstart channel. Three decades have come and gone and the game was changed forever. Money, technology, and entertainment. The trilogy was FOX’s calling card and is to this very day.
Murdoch tried to acquire the NFL as early as 1987, FOX’s first full year on the air. ABC was hedging at renewing its deal for Monday Night Football and during negotiations, FOX offered the league the same money, ABC was paying, around $1.3 billion for the package. Since FOX wasn’t an established network then, the NFL stuck with ABC.
Then 6 years later, when the contracts for both conferences, along with the Sunday and Monday prime time packages, FOX again aggressively jumped into the fray. Wanting to build up its credibility, FOX outbid CBS for the NFC package by more than $100 million. The final bid was $1.58 billion to get a four-year contract. FOX wanted the NFC because of the big US television markets in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Dallas. As part of the deal, FOX secured the rights to broadcast Super Bowl XXXI in 1997.
FOX immediately had an impact on the game of football. The salary cap was coming into the NFL in 1994 and the bids by FOX and the other networks allowed the league to move from a cap of a projected $32 million to $34 million.
The network did not have a sports division prior to 1993 and when it won the NFC rights, execs at FOX had to build a department from scratch. Enter David Hill, who was running Murdoch’s U.K.-based Sky Sports to head it up. With very little time to build a quality department (8 months), Hill began bringing over former members of the CBS staff, hiring Ed Goren as the second in command. But the biggest hires were yet to come.
Hill’s biggest task was likely trying to figure out a way to make FOX’s NFL broadcasts credible. How do you do that? Well, for Hill, he thought “Let’s bring over longtime announcers Pat Summerall and John Madden to be the lead booth.” Why not? The two had major success at CBS and were a well-known and well-respected tandem. This hire set the wheels in motion, for building a quality broadcast crew.
FOX Sports brought in Dick Stockton and Matt Millen to man the number two booth and then Hill and Goren worked on the studio show. Hiring James Brown as the host — after he called games on CBS — and Terry Bradshaw who became the lead analyst for the pregame show.
Smartly, Hill wasn’t only thinking about the immediate moment, he had the foresight to think about the future at the same time. Hill brought in a group of young and up-and-coming play-by-play guys for that “next generation”. He hired Kenny Albert, Thom Brennaman, Joe Buck, and Kevin Harlan. FOX launched their careers and allowed them to grow into their roles, which certainly paid off down the road for the announcers and the network.
Hill’s visions for how to broadcast the game of football have stood the test of time. The first impression he made was expanding the pregame show to one hour. It’s kind of hard to remember those times when we only had 30 minutes of preview. For years, the pregame shows emanated from New York, but Hill brought them to Los Angeles feeling that the vibe would be different than in the Big Apple.
Bradshaw told The New York Times in 2018, “David understood that he wanted the viewer entertained. We cover the news but we tend to do things a little more jovial.”
For Hill’s part, he saw Bradshaw’s addition as critical. “He is the core of what FOX Sports is — he’s funny, self-deprecating, but gets the job done,” Hill said.
Troy Aikman was still a player when the pregame show debuted, but remembers coming home after the opening weekend of the 1994 season and hearing from some friends.
“I had a couple college buddies that were raving about the pregame show and how great and fun it was with everyone,” said Aikman to The New York Times in 2018. “It was refreshing, new and unique, and that set the tone for the network.” Aikman joined the network 7 years later.
The formula used seemed simple for assembling his studio crew and it was. A host, a former offensive player, a former defensive player, and a coach. Sound familiar? It should. It is basically the blueprint for every pregame show in the NFL today.
At that time three decades ago, FOX Sports used the credo “Same Game, New Attitude” and it wasn’t just lip service. The network put money into the product and wanted it to look different to the viewer. The real difference was the production of the telecast. Hill added some bells and whistles that remain not only part of football but every other televised sport in the world.
FOX was the first to use the “scorebug”, or as it was known then, the “FOX Box”. It would constantly show the time and score on the screen throughout the game. The “Box” was introduced during Sky Sports’ coverage of the English Premier League in 1992, when Hill was there. His boss hated it, calling it “the stupidest thing he’d ever seen” and wanted it removed. Hill defied the boss’s demands and kept it in place.
It seems so commonplace and simple now, but back in the day, it was considered a great technological advancement that wasn’t easy to produce. What we sort of expect and take for granted was a bit of an undertaking back in 1994. The old way of doing it, was dedicating a camera to shoot the clock, which was then superimposed on the screen. FOX took it up a notch.
On FOX’s 25th anniversary, The New York Times did an in-depth feature on the network and part of the coverage exposed the tricks used to project the first “FOX Box”. The process involved an engineer and embedding a black box in each scoreboard. The box allowed the time, score, and other critical data to be transmitted to Los Angeles and the production trucks at the stadium.
“There was a guy named Richard Flanigan who had to go to each stadium with a ladder and screwdriver and put the black box in each scoreboard. But he had to build a black box for each scoreboard because they were all different,” Eric Shanks, a broadcast associate in 1994 and now FOX Sports’ CEO and Executive Producer told The New York Times. “The attitude from David (Hill) was the bigger, the louder, the better. We were doing things with graphics and sound effects that only used to exist in big production movies.”
Those are a few other ways that FOX changed the look of an NFL telecast. The graphics are always big and bold. There are sound effects for everything and audio from the field that was not prevalent before FOX became an NFL partner. The way they take chances on things is appreciated. Not everything FOX does works, just ask NHL fans about the famous “glow puck” experiment. Their telecasts seem to stay modern and on point. Super-slow-mo cameras show the fans the feel of a big hit, or a great catch on the field.
FOX became a viable network thanks to its foray into the world of the NFL. It also made the league a cash cow, allowing the salary cap to increase exponentially. Teams were now able to tap into their “TV” money to get involved in free agency and keep productive players.
I’m not sure how to describe it, other than there is a vibe that screams excitement and entertainment. The NFL was already immensely popular in the US, and FOX has not only enhanced it but has built upon it with their telecasts. The way I see it, every network could use a “David Hill”, someone that takes some chances, reinvent yourself, don’t just settle for “the way it’s always been done”. That’s the easy way out.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
