Jim Williams: The golden age of football broadcasting?

Jim Williams, The Examiner
Aug 21, 2006 5:00 AM (1 hr 47 mins ago)
Current rank: # 2 of 6,307 articles

WASHINGTON - The 2006 National Football League season will usher in a new era in sports broadcasting with more networks doing more games than ever before.

FOX, CBS, NBC, ESPN and the NFL Network will offer broadcasts of the regular season games and a record number of the telecasts will be in high definition.

The ability for fans to see all and hear all the games is at an all time with subscriptions to NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV and The NFL on SIRIUS satellite radio growing daily.

The NFL is a ratings king in sports and it does not look like it is going away — just continuing to build on its success.

All five NFL outlets have quality prime broadcast teams.

FOX has Joe Buck and Troy Aikman — who have come into their own over the past couple of years, with Buck showing his father’s versatility. CBS has the smooth combo of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms — who are great at letting the game be the centerpiece of their broadcasts. NBC returns to pro football coverage this season with NBC Sunday Night Football and their team of Al Michaels and John Madden is considered by many as the best broadcast team in NFL history.

Two new teams are making their NFL debut. ESPN Monday Night Football’s Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser are now residing in the prime spot in football broadcasting history. By the way people need to give Tony some time to find his way on MNF and he will be fine.

People may forget at the highest point in the history of MNF Howard Cosell was both the most popular and the most hated man at the same time.

Lastly, the NFL Network will have eight games with Byant Gumbel and Cris Collinsworth doing the games. Both are outstanding sportscasters and will feature more of a conversational style in their broadcasts.

So fans will have a wide variety of NFL broadcasts to watch this season.

Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer.

Examiner