This blog looks back at classic sports telecasts and announcers (primarily from the mid-1960s to present), provides DVR alerts for upcoming classic programming, and covers other historical aspects of sports media.
Showing posts with label 'college basketball'. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'college basketball'. Show all posts
40 years ago today, Dick Vitale made his debut on ESPN as the analyst on the 12/5/1979 Wisconsin @ DePaul game with Joe Boyle on play-by-play. Over the years, many sources have cited this as the first-ever college basketball telecast on ESPN which was launched three months earlier. But was it really the first?
On December 5, 1979, ESPN broadcast its first college basketball game, DePaul versus Wisconsin, and Vitale, fired a month earlier as head coach of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons, provided the color.
However, the Vitale TV debut was not the first college basketball game on ESPN. I found a 12/3/1979 article from the New York Times archives which reviewed some of the programming from the prior weekend on the new cable network and showed that ESPN televised at least five college basketball contests before the 12/5 Vitale appearance:
11/30
St. John's vs Oral Roberts
Michigan St. vs Princeton (this was a semifinal doubleheader from the Joe Lapchick Memorial Tournament)
12/1
Valparaiso @ Notre Dame
St. John's vs Michigan St. (Lapchick Tournament final)
Yale @ Connecticut
Some references to the Wisconsin @ DePaul game claim that it was the first "major" college basketball telecast on ESPN. Here is an ESPN bio of Vitale
Vitale called ESPN’s first-ever major NCAA basketball game—Wisconsin at DePaul on Dec. 5, 1979
However, the 12/1 Lapchick Tournament title game featured #16 ranked St. John's against reigning national champion Michigan St., so that claim of first "major" seems faulty.
I also found an interestingly worded reference in the 2015 book Every Town is a Sports Town by former ESPN president George Bodenheimer:
Dick Vitale did the very first national basketball game that ever aired on ESPN (a DePaul victory over Wisconsin).
I'm not sure what to make of the "national" qualifier on this statement as I believe all ESPN programming at that time was "national" (at least across the subset of cable system that actually carried the network at that time).
According to my research, the only college basketball game during the 1979-80 season which took place prior to 11/30 was the Hall of Fame Tipoff Classic which was televised by TVS. So that fact combined with the above NY Times article appears to confirm that the St. John's vs Oral Roberts matchup (which opened the Lapchick doubleheader) was the first-ever ESPN college basketball telecast.
This week, ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale is scheduled to call a game with Karl Ravech for the first time. Ravech will become the sixth play-by-play announcer this season to receive a first-ever TV pairing with Dickie V.
After noticing a recent flurry of such first-time pairings, I wondered how many different play-by-play partners have shared the broadcast table with Vitale over the years. So I attempted to compile a list of all play-by-play announcers who have worked with Vitale on college basketball. (Note: I am almost certainly missing some announcers from the early ESPN years as these the hardest to research.)
Vitale called the first college basketball game ever on ESPN back in December 1979 alongside Joe Boyle. Eventually, ESPN paired him regularly with Jim Simpson. In subsequent years, his most common ESPN partners included Mike Patrick, Tim Brando, Brad Nessler, and Dan Shulman. When ABC started carrying college games, he frequently worked with Keith Jackson and later Brent Musburger.
The list is a mix of prestigious broadcasters and lesser-known voices. One interesting name (perhaps surprising to some) is Al Michaels who worked a single time with Vitale (the 1989 Pac-10 championship game on ABC).
I find the pattern intriguing. Starting from the late 1980s, Vitale was acquiring about two new partners per year. Then after 1997, Vitale went without any new partners until 2005 and only picked up three additions to this list from through 2013. However, a few years ago, ESPN installed Jay Bilas as its top analyst to work with Shulman on the highest profile games. This move has resulted in Vitale working with a wide variety of first-time partners in recent seasons (10 since 2014).
Here is the list that my research uncovered (with calendar year of the first such telecast for which I found evidence). Again, note that I am very likely to be missing some names from the first decade.
On Wednesday night, ESPN aired footage from the famous Texas Western victory over Kentucky in the 1966 NCAA championship game. The black & white video was shot from a wider view than a conventional telecast, but it still provided a fascinating glimpse into this historic game which grew in significance over the years.
The ESPN telecast supplemented the footage with audio from the Kentucky radio broadcast. Embarrassingly, ESPN misidentified the announcer as "Walt" Sullivan both in a promotional press release and in an on-screen graphic.
The voice was actually that of longtime Kentucky radio announcer Claude Sullivan. Many other sites propagated this ESPN error without performing any fact checking. (Note: Sometime after the airing, ESPN updated its press release to reflect the correct name of the announcer.)
Sullivan never mentioned race during his game commentary. On multiple occasions, Sullivan misidentified (or failed to identify) Texas Western players, especially early in the game. He seemed to focus more on what he viewed as the "poor" play of the Wildcats rather than praise the Miners. The game action was interesting as there were several travelling violations called (which Sullivan referred to as "walking"). It also provided a reminder that this era featured the one-shot non-shooting foul.
The footage appeared to be from a coaching film. It certainly wasn't from the original telecast as it contained no graphics. ESPN added some supplemental graphics to periodically display the score. Of course, ESPN had previously stated that it was re-airing the original telecast only to later back down from that claim.
ESPN2 will re-air this special on Sunday 4/3 at 11am ET. I assume the ESPN production crew will edit the above graphic by then.
The TV career of Al McGuire got its start on an event he wasn't even broadcasting. During the final seconds of the 1977 NCAA Tournament championship game with the outcome no longer in doubt, the NBC cameras zoomed in on the Marquette head coach. Earlier, McGuire had announced he would retire from coaching after the season at the relatively young age of 48. Curt Gowdy describes the scene as McGuire, on the verge of an unexpected championship, is overcome by emotion.
In rewatching this clip, I was struck by two things: 1) how McGuire (unintentionally) dominated the end of the telecast and 2) the prophetic quote from Gowdy at the 17:46 mark accompanied by a prophetic split screen image with a circle around McGuire (more on that later):
And McGuire who says: "I'm an entertainer. I entertain the fans."
and then this starting at 18:25 from Dick Enberg:
It's going to be sad for us to say goodbye to Al McGuire... Thank you Al McGuire... for the many great moments you've given us.
In fact, the college basketball TV entertainment factor was about to be ratcheted up several notches. The goodbye would be brief and even greater moments were on the horizon.
When McGuire retired from coaching, college basketball was a essentially a regional TV sport with just one national telecast per week. Just two seasons earlier, NBC had added the first regular season national network TV package with Enberg and Billy Packer as the announcers.
For the 1977-78 season, NBC hired McGuire who was a novice to television and added him to the mix. However, rather than place him courtside with Enberg and Packer, NBC initially stationed McGuire next to a monitor away from the court and only cut to him periodically during the telecasts (starting him off as the ultimate sidekick!). And NBC would place his image on a small corner of a split screen during his in-game commentary. After a few weeks of this awkward arrangement, Enberg and Packer convinced NBC to move McGuire alongside them to form a true 3-man broadcasting team.
Nothing about Al McGuire was scripted. Rather than attempt to fill the role of a traditional basketball analyst, McGuire simply "played" himself on the air. And, just as importantly, NBC allowed the true personality of McGuire to shine instead of trying to make him conform to a more conventional style.
He spoke sparingly at the beginning and his vocal delivery wasn't always smooth. But he had a feel for basketball and he eventually developed a feel for broadcasting. He described things in simple terms and offered opinions on in-game coaching decisions he would make. His unassuming style began to resonate with fans.
Al McGuire, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer
When he was a head coach, McGuire didn't watch film of opponents and left the strategic advance planning to his assistants. He made his imprint during games when he reacted to the situation at hand and made the appropriate adjustments. As a broadcaster, he took a similar approach. He didn't study rosters or statistics before telecasts. Instead he would ask a coach or scout to fill him in on a few key players for each team. When the TV lights came on, he would rely on his instincts for the game. He let the action on the court guide his commentary.
McGuire's distinctive voice, with his Brooklyn accent, just sounded so cool and drew me in. He brought a lot of colorful terminology to the airwaves: a tall player was an aircraft carrier, a down to the wire game was a white knuckler, a fancy move was French pastry, the lane area was the paint, and when a game was clinched, it was tap city. His style was enthusiastic and his commentary provided insight into his unusual coaching mindset.
As a coach, McGuire was unconventional to the core. In 1970, he turned down an NCAA Tournament bid and instead took Marquette to the NIT. (The NCAA no longer allows this.) He received two technical fouls in the 1974 NCAA championship game and blamed himself for costing his team a chance to win. He recruited many inner-city players from disadvantaged backgrounds. He implemented a "senior star" system in an attempt to get his veteran players noticed by professional scouts. He helped pioneer some stylish basketball uniform designs which were later banned by the NCAA.
Away from the arena, he loved to talk about motorcycles rather than basketball. Even though he earned decent money, he drew great pleasure from negotiating prices at flea markets. He was brilliant at reading people and relating to them. And he brought those traits into the broadcast booth.
A 3-man announcing team was very uncommon at the time, especially in the fast-paced game of basketball. But because co-analysts Packer and McGuire had such contrasting styles, it clicked. Enberg was emerging as one of the best play-by-play announcers ever. Packer followed the sport intensely (covering ACC games during the week) and focused on player matchups and strategy. McGuire added emotion and flair - the entertainment angle. The trio developed tremendous chemistry and meshed so well together. The resulting blend showcased the strengths of each.
Packer and McGuire frequently disagreed on the air which brought even more attention to the telecasts. The tandem would argue about everything from goaltending calls to coaching decisions to whether the undefeated Indiana State team deserved to be ranked #1 in 1979. Al would often playfully needle Packer about the ACC.
Because NBC generally covered just one national game a week, it was a huge event when the network came to town for a featured Sunday afternoon telecast. And McGuire, the former isolated sidekick, was quickly becoming the star of the show.
I recall tuning in and wondering what McGuire would say about Ralph Sampson or Bob Knight. Or what wacky predictions Al might make. When I played rec basketball in college, I remember McGuire's catch-phrases making their way into the action. When we watched the TV games, the banter between Packer and McGuire was a huge topic of conversation.
The Enberg/Packer/McGuire run lasted only four seasons. CBS acquired rights to the NCAA Tournament starting in 1982 and lured Packer away from NBC. McGuire continued to work regular season games with Enberg on NBC for several years before moving to CBS himself in 1992 and getting to call March Madness games again. After hiring Enberg in 2000, CBS did reunite the trio for one game that season. But McGuire only called two games after that and health issues forced him to miss the 2000 NCAA Tournament.
McGuire sadly passed away in 2001 from leukemia at age 72. But his legendary storytelling lives on, partly due to a one-man play written by Enberg titled McGuire and performed by actor Cotter Smith.
The following clip of McGuire on himself (at the 12:00 mark) captures the essence of McGuire:
For college basketball, Enberg is arguably the best play-by-play announcer of all time and Packer is arguably the best analyst ever. And yet they peaked during those four special seasons alongside McGuire when they formed my favorite all-time broadcasting team. Here is the classic trio on the call of a game from 1980:
College basketball on TV exploded in popularity starting in the late 1970s and I believe that McGuire was a key factor in that growth. By the late 1980s, the sport had national telecasts on all three major networks plus ESPN. But Enberg, Packer, and McGuire paved the way.
Al McGuire was indeed an entertainer and unique as a TV analyst. I thank him for all the great moments he provided. This post is part of a TV Sidekick Blogathon hosted by Classic Film and TV Cafe. Please check out the complete schedule of blog posts for this event.
There has been a lot of media attention on the fact that ESPN did not assign Dick Vitale to this week's UNC-Duke game. Several reports have claimed that Vitale has called every UNC-Duke game that has ever aired on the network, giving the impression that he has never failed to receive that assignment. At best, these reports are very misleading.
First of all, the implication that Vitale's employer has assigned him to every available UNC-Duke game since 1979 is simply wrong. In 1993, ABC (which used some ESPN announcers including Vitale) televised Duke-UNC on March 7 and assigned Brent Musburger and Jim Valvano to the game.
That same afternoon, ABC assigned Vitale to the Kentucky-Florida matchup with Roger Twibell.
The same thing happened on 3/8/1992 when ABC used Musburger and Valvano on UNC-Duke and sent Twibell and Vitale to Missouri-Kansas. So for two consecutive years, Vitale was assigned to another game while his network was televising the famed ACC rivalry on the same day.
For completeness, the January 18, 1986 Duke-UNC game was on ESPN but did not include Vitale as ESPN picked up the ACC Raycom production and delivered it nationally (announcers were Marty Brennaman and Billy Cunningham).
Also, Vitale did not call the quarterfinal game between these schools in the 2002 ACC Tournament. Brad Daugherty was the analyst that evening on ESPN2 while Vitale called the afternoon session that day.
Can you imagine a broadcaster under contract to one network appearing on the air for another network without permission and thinking that nobody would find out? Believe it or not, this scenario actually played out in 1982.
First some background ... In 1981-82, CBS, after acquiring the rights to the NCAA Tournament, added a schedule of regular season college basketball games. Leading up to March, the network had used only two broadcast crews. With the NCAA Tournament upcoming, CBS needed some additional announcers to handle the first weekend of the event across eight sites.
On Selection Sunday 3/7/1982, CBS televised two regional games, but rather than using its main announcer team of Gary Bender and Billy Packer on a game, CBS sent them to Kansas City for the Selection Show. The network assigned its #2 crew of Frank Glieber and Steve Grote to Memphis for the Metro Conference title game which went to most of the country. So CBS needed another broadcast team for its other regional game that day, UNLV at South Carolina.
CBS approached Verne Lundquist about doing play-by-play for that game and possibly the NCAA Tournament. Lundquist who was still under contract to ABC and was working for the ABC affiliate in Dallas agreed to call the game for CBS. But Verne never told anyone at his currently employer or requested permission. He felt confident that nobody of importance would even find out because CBS was only sending that game to six small markets.
As it turned out, the game in Memphis game ended early and CBS decided to send the entire network to the conclusion of the game Verne was calling, thus exposing his presence on CBS to a national audience.
While the idea that Verne could keep such a secret from his boss sounds preposterous, keep in mind that this game took place before the launch of USA Today and the national sports media column by Rudy Martzke. And if the primary game hadn't ended early, perhaps Verne would have successfully pulled it off.
Several years ago, I saw this story posted on a message board by someone who claimed to hear it on the Denver radio show of Irv Brown who was the analyst with Verne on that 1982 afternoon. At the time, I was somewhat skeptical of this tale because I was unable to find any mention of it elsewhere. But Verne told the same story to the Sports Business Journal where he also mentioned getting a call the next morning from a newspaper media critic about his appearance on CBS.
CBS wound up using Verne on the first weekend of the 1982 NCAA Tournament as well. But that created another twist as the ABC affiliate in Dallas which employed Lundquist granted him permission to work that event for CBS on the condition that his games would not be slated for regional coverage in Dallas. So this complicated the assignments of announcers to sites until CBS was able to identify what site of games it wanted to televise in Dallas before it could slot Verne.
Soon afterwards, Lundquist moved full-time to CBS.
Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most memorable and significant games in college basketball history. The 1974 ACC tournament final in Greensboro pitted NC State against Maryland with the eventual national champion Wolfpack prevailing in overtime 103-100.
The telecast started at 8:30 pm ET on Saturday 3/9/74 and was produced by the Chesley network which held the ACC TV rights. The legendary duo of Jim Thacker and Billy Packer were the announcers. Chesley had featured a matchup of the same two schools for his 1973 and 1974 nationally syndicated Super Bowl Sunday ACC telecasts. For the 1974 ACC title game, Chesley again provided syndication to other parts of the country. I remember watching it in the NYC market.
ESPN Classic will replay this historic telecast on Monday 3/10 at 7:30 am ET. (The quality of the footage is quite good. Unfortunately, the last few minutes of the game and the OT session did not survive.)
This game had it all:
Star power: Five future top-13 NBA 1st-round draft picks (David Thompson, Tom Burleson, Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, and John Lucas) were on the court that night.
Drama: In 1974, only conference winners could play in the NCAA Tournament and the ACC used a conference tournament to decide its champion, so this was a winner-take-all matchup of teams ranked #1 and #4 in the nation.
Excitement: The contest featured high-level end-to-end action. Many historians consider it the greatest ACC game of all-time.
After the heartbreaking defeat, the Terps chose to decline an NIT bid. This game prompted the NCAA to relax the one-team-per-conference limit and expand the tournament in 1975.
One scheduling aspect which may sound strange to modern fans is that the NCAA Tournament started that same afternoon. It was only a 25-team event at the time with certain conferences getting pre-determined byes into the Sweet 16. During the telecast the broadcasters discussed the NCAA Tournament bracket and the fact that the ACC champion was slated to play the winner of the Providence-Penn opening round game which was being played the same night. Similarly, UCLA and USC played a regular season game that night for the Pac-8 title with the winner slotted into the Sweet 16.
College basketball was essentially a regional game and would not get a regular network TV package until two seasons later. 1974 was the first time that Chesley televised the entire ACC Tournament. Packer was in his third season on the ACC TV games. One week later, Packer worked his first NCAA Tournament serving as the NBC analyst for the East Regional.
Tomorrow marks the first ever college basketball game on the Fox network as Ohio State faces Marquette at 1 pm ET with Brian Anderson andJim Jackson on the call. Here is a rundown of some other first college basketball regular season (including conference tournament) telecasts for various national TV network packages in the "modern era" (which I define as beginning with the syndicated 1968 UCLA-Houston telecast):
first on ABC
Sat 12/15/1973, UCLA vs NC State (at St Louis), 5 pm, Keith Jackson, Bill Russell
(Note: not part of a package, but a single-game deal arranged by ABC after losing NBA rights)
first on NBC as part of the national package it began in the 1970s
Sat 11/29/1975, Indiana vs UCLA (at St Louis), 11:30 pm, Dick Enberg, Billy Packer
(Note: this was a live telecast - the game started at 10:30 local time)
first on ESPN
Fri 11/30/1979, St John's vs Oral Roberts, 5 pm, <not sure on announcers>
first for Dick Vitale on ESPN(link to video intro)
Wed 12/5/1979, Wisconsin @ DePaul, 9 pm, Joe Boyle, Dick Vitale first on CBS as part of the package it began in the 1980s (split-national coverage)
Sat 11/28/1981, Michigan @ Arkansas, 4 pm, Gary Bender, Billy Packer
Sat 11/28/1981, Georgia @ San Francisco, 4 pm, Frank Glieber, Steve Grote first on ABC as part of the package it began in the 1980s
Sun 1/18/1987, LSU @ Kentucky, 2 pm, Al Michaels, Joe B. Hall
first on ESPN2 (preseason NIT quarterfinal)
Sat 11/20/1993, Towson St @ Massachusetts, 7 pm, Dave Woloshin, Jon Albright
first on CBS Sports Network (which was called CSTV at the time)
Fri 11/21/2003, Wisconsin @ Penn, 6 pm, Carter Blackburn, Matt Doherty
first on ESPNU (Ohio Valley Conference tournament semifinal)
Fri 3/4/2005, Eastern Kentucky vs SE Missouri St (at Nashville), 9 pm, <not sure on announcers>
first on NBC Sports Network (which was called VERSUS at the time)
Sat 11/18/2006, California @ San Diego St, 7:30 pm, Tim Neverett, Craig Ehlo first on Fox Sports 1
Fri 11/8/2013, Boston College @ Providence, 6 pm, Gus Johnson, Bill Raftery first on Fox Sports 2
Fri 11/8/2013, Lafayette @ Villanova, 8 pm, Scott Graham, Tarik Turner first on Fox
Sat 11/16/2013, Ohio St @ Marquette, 1 pm, Brian Anderson,Jim Jackson
The typical timeslots for national sports telecasts on the major over-the-air networks are weekends, holidays, and prime time. It is relatively rare for TV networks to show daytime sports programming on weekdays when a sizable portion of the potential audience is at work or in school. But this does occur on occasion and here is a sport-by-sport historical summary of my research of such telecasts.
For the purposes of this post, I am only considering telecasts on the major networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox) and I am excluding major holidays.
MLB
From 1947-1970, all weekday World Series games were televised in the afternoon. NBC also aired two weekday afternoon games in 1971 sandwiched around the first prime time World Series telecast. The last weekday afternoon World Series telecast took place in 1972 when rain impacted the original weekday prime time schedule and NBC carried the rescheduled game 5 on a Friday afternoon.
Since 1969, most postseasons have featured at least one League Championship Series game on network TV on a weekday afternoon. The exceptions are:
1975 (regional weeknight coverage in prime time)
1994 (no postseason)
1995 (regional weeknight coverage in prime time via the ill-fated Baseball Network)
2002 and 2005 (both years, Fox would have televised a weekday afternoon game had one series not ended early)
2007 (all Fox LCS telecasts were at night)
The 1981 divisional playoff round also included some weekday afternoon network telecasts. And, in 2001, Fox televised three League Division Series games on weekday afternoons.
Major networks also provided weekday afternoon coverage of the tie-breaker series in 1951, 1959 and 1962 and tie-breaker games in 1978 and 1980.
From 1949-1966, every MLB All-Star game was televised on a weekday afternoon. The same was true of the 1969 game which was rescheduled on a Wednesday afternoon following a rainout the previous night.
College basketball
From 1991 to the present, CBS has presented afternoon coverage of the opening Thursday and Friday of the NCAA Tournament.
On Friday Dec 31 in 2010, CBS televised an afternoon regular season game.
College football
Starting with 1973, the major networks have provided one or more afternoon telecasts annually on "Black Friday" - the day after Thanksgiving. Also, during the bowl season, networks have often televised weekday afternoon games on dates such as Dec 31 and Jan 2.
NFL
For many years, the NFL avoided playing any games on Christmas Day. When the holiday fell on a Sunday, this policy resulted in Monday afternoon Dec 26 telecasts of the NFL Championship game on NBC in both 1955 and 1960. In 1977, CBS televised a divisional playoff doubleheader on Monday Dec 26. CBS also aired a wild-card playoff game on Monday Dec 26 in both 1983 and 1988.
CBS televised an afternoon regular season game on Friday Dec 31 in 1993. Fox provided afternoon telecasts on Friday Dec 24 in both 1999 and 2004.
Golf
Going back to 1996, NBC has annually televised 2 hours in the late afternoon of the Thursday and Friday rounds of the US Open.
CBS provided Friday afternoon coverage of the Masters in 1956 and 1957.
Major networks added Monday afternoon coverage of 18-hole playoffs for:
the Masters in 1962, 1966 and 1970
the US Open in 1965, 1966, 1971, 1975, 1984, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994, 2001, and 2008
the PGA Championship in 1961 and 1967
and of Monday finishes due to rain for:
the Masters in 1961, 1973 and 1983
the US Open in 1983 and 2009
the British Open in 1988
the PGA Championship in 1976, 1986, and 2005
Tennis
For several years, CBS has televised Friday afternoon action during the second week of the US Open. Since 2008, CBS has also provided a late afternoon telecast of the men's finals on Monday. From 2008-2011, rain necessitated the Monday finish. Since 2012, the tournament has been scheduled to conclude on Monday.
Similarly, NBC has carried daytime weekday coverage for many years during the second week of the French Open tournament although much of that action has been on tape delay. NBC did the same for Wimbledon when it held the network TV rights.
NHL
NBC televised the 2012 Winter Classic on Monday afternoon Jan 2 as New Year's Day fell on a Sunday.
Auto racing
The 1997 Indianapolis 500 was postponed by rain on Sunday and suspended after 15 laps on Monday (Memorial Day). It was resumed on Tuesday May 27 and ABC provided a daytime telecast of the race.
Note: The 2012 Daytona 500 was postponed by rain on Sunday and Fox had planned to televised the rescheduled event on Monday Feb 27 at noon. However, additional rain caused the race to be pushed back to Monday night so the Fox telecast wound up in prime time.
Olympics
The major networks holding the rights have made a habit of devoting many daytime weekday hours to both the Summer and Winter Olympic games.
Summary Several of these examples involve special circumstances such as rain postponements, tie-breakers, or events taking place on the day before/after a major holiday. The yearly staples which still wind up on "regular" daytime weekday TV are:
NCAA Tournament opening Thursday and Friday afternoon sessions
I recently discovered the fascinating Replacement Players podcast series. This series has a rather intriguing concept - select an older sports telecast as the main topic and use it as a springboard for discussion.
On the podcast, host Matthew Callan interviews a special guest after each has watched a recording of the classic telecast. The conversation covers interesting details about the game itself, but also delves into a wide range of areas including commentary on the announcers, graphics, and original commercials. Callan and his guests do a skillful job of supplying background details surrounding the game at hand and conveying the sports TV landscape of that time.
The first episode focuses on the so-called "Rick Camp game" (Mets-Braves) from July 1985. I remember watching some of the early innings of this game on WOR-9, heading out somewhere, driving home late, learning from the car radio that the game was still going on, and then staying up until around 4 AM to watch the remainder. The podcast recaptures the wackiness of that night and reminded me of many specifics I had forgotten.
Episode 2 covers the "Mark Fidrych game" which of course is the famous ABC Monday Night Baseball telecast (Yankees-Tigers) from June 1976 which has also been replayed on MLB Network. The topic for episode 4 is the "Pedro Martinez game" from the 1999 ALDS (Red Sox-Indians).
While the series has dealt mostly with baseball telecasts, episode 7 branches into college basketball and looks at the 1992 Duke-Kentucky NCAA tournament regional final (a.k.a. the "Christian Laettner game"). Check out the complete episode listing.
Replacement Players uses the classic Jet Set instrumental music to provide an ideal lead-in to the baseball episodes. You may recall this as the theme song from the syndicated TV series This Week in Baseball.
I highly recommend this free and entertaining podcast series. If you saw the original telecast in question, it will bring back tremendous memories. And even if you didn't see the original, the podcast episode will provide some valuable historical perspective.
In 1973, NBC televised the NCAA championship game on Monday night after airing it on Saturday afternoon the previous four years. The success of Monday Night Football on ABC prompted NBC to move the basketball title game to prime time where it has remained ever since. That 3/26/1973 contest featured Bill Walton scoring 44 points and hitting 21 of 22 shots as UCLA defeated Memphis State to win its 7th consecutive championship. The telecast started at 9 pm ET with Curt Gowdy and Tom Hawkins calling the game for NBC.
Last year, I compiled a 3-part historical summary of the TV coverage of the NCAA tournament from 1969 to the present. I recently made some updates and this week is an appropriate time to post the revised version.
Part 1 covers 1969-1981 when NBC held the network rights and both TVS and NCAA Productions also televised games. This era saw the initial ESPN involvement in the tournament and spans from Curt Gowdy to the legendary team of Dick Enberg, Billy Packer, and Al McGuire.
Part 3 covers the modern era of 1991-present starting when CBS took over the entire tournament. Jim Nantz has been the voice of the Final Four throughout this period which takes things up to the current CBS partnership with Turner Sports providing coverage of all games across four channels.
Indiana State began the 1978-79 college basketball season unranked and did not appear on the original NBC TV schedule. But as the Sycamores remained unbeaten and star player Larry Bird emerged as the consensus national player of the year, attention started increasing on the team and its talented forward. Eventually, NBC decided to add a late-season Indiana State game to the schedule so it could showcase Bird before the NCAA tournament.
Many fans were at least aware of Bird. The Boston Celtics selected him in the first round of 1978 NBA draft, but he still had eligibility left and returned to school for his senior season. Sports Illustrated put Bird on the cover of its college hoop preview his junior year and profiled the team in an article early in 1979. But the sport received relatively limited coverage in the pre-ESPN era and Bird's teams had never qualified for the NCAA tournament, so most fans had still not seen him play.
NBC sent Jim Simpson and Al McGuire to Terre Haute to call the Sunday 2/25/1979 contest against Wichita State. And Bird put on a brilliant 49 point performance as Indiana State went to 26-0.
Despite the NBC coverage, not all parts of the nation got a chance to see Bird that day. For one thing, NBC did a regional telecast of a South Carolina game in the same timeslot (although the network did send the Indiana State game to most of the country). Also, some NBC affiliates pre-empted the network games for local programming.
Earlier in the season, Indiana State had become the focus of an on-air debate between McGuire and co-analyst Billy Packer. McGuire believed the undefeated Sycamores deserved to move up to #1 in the polls while Packer was rather vocal in his disagreement. This drew such ire among Indiana State fans that Packer actually received death threats. NBC played it safe and avoided assigning him to the 2/25 Indiana State game. Packer instead worked the game in Louisville which opened the NBC doubleheader that afternoon.
Indiana State ascended to #1 in the polls the next day and backed up the ranking by advancing all the way to the national championship game. NBC did send Packer (with Simpson) to call the Indiana State games for the first two weekends of the NCAA tournament. For the Final Four, Packer joined McGuire and Dick Enberg. The Bird vs. Magic championship game against Michigan State remains the highest rated college basketball game of all time.
Looking back at how relatively few schools NBC tended to select for its featured Sunday telecasts, it is quite interesting to note that NBC put its spotlight on a 1979 Missouri Valley regular season game! And while this remains the signature event in Sycamore regular season history, I find it ironic that the memorable moments section of the official Indiana State basketball record book lists the wrong date for this game.
<UPDATE 6/9/2016: Added the demotions of Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci as co-#1 Fox MLB analysts.> <UPDATE 9/16/2013: Added the demotion of Clark Kellogg as lead CBS college basketball analyst.> CBS analystPhil Simmsreceived many unfavorable reviews for his recent Super Bowl 47 broadcast performance and some critics have even suggested that CBS might (or should) demote him from the lead NFL analyst position.
Simms has been the #1 NFL analyst at CBS for 15 seasons. He started there in 1998 working alongside Greg Gumbel and has been paired with Jim Nantz since 2004. For the three years prior to his CBS stint, he was one of two analysts on the #1 crew for NBC.
The post-Super Bowl speculation regarding CBS and Simms got me wondering about the historical frequency of such a move. So I decided to research cases where a TV network actually demoted its #1 analyst. Specifically, I looked at situations where CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox covered a sport using multiple announcer teams and I focused on the NFL, NBA, MLB, college basketball and college football.
For the purposes of this post, I am defining demotion as a case where the former "A" team analyst returns to the same network the following season on a lower tier broadcast crew.
Based on this research, no lead analyst with the longevity of Simms has ever been demoted to a lower tier crew on the same network. I only found 7 instances where a network demoted a #1 analyst who had been in that position for at least 5 years. In two of those cases, the "demoted" analyst actually moved into a play-by-play position. And in four of those cases, the network made the move to fit a newly hired broadcaster onto the "A" team.
Here is a closer look at those seven demotions ordered by longest tenure:
Tony Kubek(14 years as lead NBC MLB analyst)
Kubek had been the top analyst for the NBC baseball Game of the Week from 1969-1982 working first with Curt Gowdy and later with Joe Garagiola. In 1983, NBC hired Vin Scully as its lead play-by-play voice and Vin wanted no part of a three-man booth. So NBC decided to shift Garagiola into the lead analyst role alongside Scully and demoted Kubek to the "B" team where he worked with Bob Costas. Kubek remained in the #2 analyst role at NBC for 7 years. I believe this ranks as the most controversial lead analyst demotion of all time. On the plus side, Bob and Tony meshed so well together and I still consider them my favorite national baseball telecast tandem.
Bob Griese (12 years as lead ABCcollege football analyst)
ABC had used Griese as the top analyst for its NCAA games starting in 1987 where he worked with Keith Jackson. Griese remained in that role through the 1998 season. In 1999, ABC shuffled its broadcast crews and went without a true #1 team after Jackson switched to primarily covering west coast games. Griese remained on one of the crews which ABC treated as essentially co-#1. However, the network used Gary Danielson as the analyst for the BCS championship game that year.
Merlin Olsen (10 years as lead NBC NFL analyst)
Olsen had been in the #1 role at NBC from 1979-1988 working alongside Dick Enberg. In 1989, NBC brought in Bill Walsh as its new top analyst and demoted Olsen to the #2 slot. Merlin remained at NBC for only one season before taking an analyst position with CBS.
Bud Wilkinson (10 years as lead ABC college football analyst)
Wilkinson had served as the lead analyst on the ABC NCAA package from 1966 to 1975. He worked first with Chris Schenkel and later with Keith Jackson. In 1976, ABC demoted Wilkinson after it hired recently retired coach Ara Parseghian as lead analyst. Wilkinson remained with ABC for one season calling lower tier games.
Tom Brookshier(6.5 years as lead CBS NFL analyst)
Brookshier had been the lead CBS analyst since midway through the 1974 season when the network moved Pat Summerall into the top play-by-play role. That duo formed the #1 CBS team through the 1980 season. In 1981, CBS elevated John Madden into the lead analyst spot and shifted Brookshier to a play-by-play position on a lower tier crew. Brookshier remained with CBS for 6 more seasons after the demotion.
Don Drysdale(5 years as lead ABC MLB analyst)
Drysdale had been the top analyst on ABC Monday Night Baseball from 1978-1982. In 1983, ABC hired recently retired manager Earl Weaver as the new lead analyst. Drysdale stayed with ABC for 4 more seasons and became the play-by-play announcer on the "B" team.
Clark Kellogg(5 years as lead CBS college basketball analyst)
Kellogg was the #1 analyst on NCAA basketball for CBS 2008-09 through 2012-13. In September 2013, CBS promoted Greg Anthony to lead analyst. Kellogg became the lead studio analyst, but continued to serve as a game analyst on a lower tier crew.
Many cases involving a change to #1 analyst position featured an announcer retiring or moving to another network. Most of the long tenured lead analysts such as Billy Packer, Al McGuire, John Madden, and Tim McCarver were never demoted.
For completeness, here is a summary of the other cases when a network demoted its top analyst:
NFL
Kyle Rote (3 years)
#1 for NBC from 1968-1970
demoted in 1971 for Al DeRogatis
remained with NBC in #2 analyst role for 3 years
John Brodie (1 year)
#1 for NBC in 1977
partially demoted in 1978 when NBC essentially used co-#1 crews of Brodie (paired with Curt Gowdy) and Merlin Olsen (paired with Dick Enberg)
fully demoted in 1979 when NBC made Enberg and Olsen #1
remained with NBC in analyst role through 1984
Bob Trumpy (3 years)
#1 for NBC from 1992-1994
demoted in 1995 for the duo of Paul Maguire and Phil Simms
remained with NBC in analyst role for 3 years
MLB
Sandy Koufax (2 years)
co-#1 for NBC from 1967-1968 (Koufax and Pee Wee Reese were on a 3-man "A" crew)
demoted in 1969 for Tony Kubek
remained with NBC as "B" team analyst for 4 years
Bob Uecker (2 years)
#1 for ABC from 1976-1977
demoted in 1978 for Don Drysdale
remained with ABC as "B" team analyst for 5 years
Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci (2 years)
co-#1 for Fox from 2014-2015
both demoted in 2016 for John Smoltz
each remained with Fox in a lower-tier game analyst role
NBA
Tom Heinsohn (4 years)
#1 for CBS from 1983-84 to 1986-87
demoted in 1987-88 season for Billy Cunningham
remained with CBS in analyst role for 3 years
Matt Guokas (4 years)
#1 for NBC from 1993-94 to 1996-97
demoted in 1997-98 season for Doug Collins and Isiah Thomas
remained with NBC in analyst role for 4 years
Hubie Brown (2 years)
#1 for ABC from 2005-05 to 2005-06
demoted in 2006-07 for Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy
has remained with ABC in #2 analyst role ever since
college football
Ara Parseghian (1 year)
#1 for ABC in 1976
partially demoted in 1977 when ABC hired Frank Broyles - ABC essentially treated both Broyles and Parseghian as #1 analysts by alternating which of them was paired with Keith Jackson each telecast
fully demoted in 1981 when ABC made Broyles the sole #1 analyst
remained with ABC as an analyst that year before moving to CBS in 1982
Pat Haden (2 years)
#1 for CBS from 1982-1984
demoted in 1985 for Ara Parseghian
remained with CBS as an analyst for 5 more years (and was reinstated as the #1 analyst in 1987)
This Sunday marks the 45th anniversary of the "Game of the Century" between UCLA and Houston at the Astrodome. That game on Saturday 1/20/1968 was the first prime time national telecast of a college basketball game. And it was almost certainly the most significant telecast in the history of the sport. To illustrate the state of college basketball on TV at the time, consider that the Final Four was not yet on network TV.
Houston coach Guy Lewis had the idea to schedule it at the Astrodome making this the first ever college hoop game played in a dome. The court was set up in the middle of the stadium meaning all fans were quite a distance from the action. The 4:00 minute mark on this documentary provides a great visual of the court position. The floor was imported from the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The event drew a record 52,693 fans.
Heading into the game, UCLA was ranked #1 and Houston #2. Both were unbeaten. UCLA featured Lew Alcindor and Lucius Allen, and was coached by John Wooden. Mike Warren (later of Hill Street Blues fame) also started for the Bruins. Houston was led by Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney. Behind 39 points by Hayes, the Cougars defeated the eventual national champion Bruins 71-69 and ended their 47-game winning streak.
ABC showed some interest in televising the game in the afternoon on Wide World of Sports. But Eddie Einhorn acquired the television rights and decided to syndicate the game in prime time on his TVS network. Einhorn lined up 150 stations in 49 states throughout the country. Some of these stations signed up on the day of the game.
Dick Enberg was the play-by-play announcer for the 9 pm ET telecast. At the time, Enberg was the UCLA broadcaster. The analyst was retired NBA star Bob Pettit. In his book Oh My!, Enberg labelled this game "the most important sports event I've ever called".
Interest in the game kept growing to the point that Einhorn was actually fielding phone calls while the game was in progress from companies wanting to buy TV ads. He handwrote ad scripts on the fly and handed them to Enberg to read on the air during timeouts.
Here is a clip of the surviving footage from the historic TVS telecast (end of 1st half and entire 2nd half). It also contains snippets from some of the commercials. The video quality is quite decent considering the time period.
The telecast of this landmark game increased interest in college basketball and helped make it more than a regional sport. It also led to some additional nationally syndicated college basketball games on TVS and eventually on the Chesley network which owned the ACC rights. By the next season, Enberg became the lead announcer for TVS and called a number of subsequent national games that Einhorn produced, many of which featured UCLA.
40 years ago today, one of the most significant events in college sports TV history took place - the first Super Sunday college basketball TV game. On Sunday 1/14/1973, the ACC and the regional Chesley network produced a national telecast of the NC State at Maryland game on the day of Super Bowl 7.
At the time, college basketball was primarily a regional sport and schools almost never played on Sundays. However, the ACC and TV rightsholder C.D. Chesley decided to schedule this matchup on Sunday, line up 145 stations throughout the country (with help from the Hughes Sports Network), and syndicate this game nationally.
The idea was to provide a sports viewing option to lead fans into the Super Bowl pregame programming. The basketball game started at noon ET so it would end well before the Dolphins and Redskins kicked off at 3:30 pm ET. Chesley originally considered televising this game nationally on Saturday 1/13, but believed he could clear more stations for a Sunday telecast.
The game spotlighted the top two teams in the ACC. Maryland was ranked #2 and featured Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, and John Lucas. NC State was ranked #3 and led by David Thompson and Tom Burleson. All five of these players would become first round NBA draft picks.
Ray Scott and Billy Packer were the announcers for this historic telecast. Even though Jim Thacker was the primary play-by-play announcer on the regional Chesley network, the ACC felt that the unique national stage for this game required a more recognized announcer such as Scott to be the lead voice. Scott of course was a high-profile NFL broadcaster who had called three Super Bowls for CBS. Chesley did include Thacker on the telecast for sideline features.
This game also put Packer in front of a nationwide audience for the first time. The first national network TV deal for the sport was still three years away, but this telecast helped position Packer for the analyst role on that package.
The event worked out perfectly for Chesley as NC State won a thrilling contest 87-85 behind 37 points from Thompson who burst onto the national scene that afternoon. An estimated 25 million TV viewers watched the game, exceeding Chesley's expectations.
A year later, the ACC and Chesley again televised a game nationally on Super Bowl Sunday between the same two schools. That Maryland at NC State game on 1/13/1974 started at 1 pm ET with Thacker and Packer on the call. Scott broadcast the Super Bowl on CBS later that day.
38 years ago tomorrow, Dick Enberg and Billy Packer called their first game together, a matchup of UCLA at Maryland. At the time, college basketball was very much a regional sport with a minimal national TV presence. Enberg was the primary play-by-play announcer for the TVS network founded by Eddie Einhorn. Packer worked as the main analyst for ACC games on the Chesley network produced by C.D. Chesley.
The game took place on Saturday 12/28/1974 at 9 pm ET and was syndicated to much of the nation. This telecast was the first joint production between TVS (which had rights to several conferences including the Pac-8 which included UCLA) and Chesley (which had rights to the ACC and therefore Maryland).
Packer's book Hoops: Confessions of a College Basketball Analystprovides a lot of detail on the first Enberg/Packer telecast. However, Packer incorrectly describes it as "a 1975 Super Bowl Sunday game". These teams did not play on 1/12/1975 (or any other Super Bowl Sunday for that matter) and there was no national college basketball telecast on this date either. The game actually took place two weeks earlier on a Saturday night.
According to Packer's book, the question of whether this telecast would feature TVS or Chesley announcers was still undecided until the morning of the game. Eventually, Einhorn and Chesley came to a compromise agreement. Enberg opened the telecast and called play-by-play for the first half. Jim Thacker (who was Packer's regular broadcast partner on the ACC games) handled play-by-play for the second half. Packer was the analyst throughout. Thacker did sideline features while Enberg was calling the game and vice versa. Packer said that he met Enberg that morning for the first time.
In his book Oh My!, Enberg also mentions this game and raves about how impressed he was with Packer's basketball knowledge and insights on that first telecast.
Enberg and Packer became a regular tandem during the 1975-76 season when NBC in conjunction with TVS put together a weekly package of national games. NBC first hired Enberg to broadcast this package and actually considered having him call the games solo. According to Enberg's book, he had been so impressed with Packer from the 1974 game that he recommended NBC sign Packer to be the analyst. Two seasons later, the network added Al McGuire to the mix to form a legendary broadcast trio.
To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the NCAA tournament, CBShas an interesting array of special programming planned. The celebration kicks off when CBS airs 75 Years: Behind the Mic on Sat 12/29 at 2 pm ET. This show is hosted by Greg Gumbel and features many announcers who have called the tournament over the years including Dick Enberg, Gary Bender, Jim Nantz, and Bill Raftery. It also contains a special segment on the 1992 Duke-Kentucky regional final with Verne Lundquist and Len Elmore who called that memorable contest.
UPDATE: This show also includes a nice tribute to the great Al McGuire. Props to CBS for incorporating some original NBC tournament footage into the mix. And while Billy Packer does not appear, the other announcers discuss his contributions to this event.
The documentary Going Big debuts on Thu 12/20 at 9 pm ET on ESPNU with many re-airings scheduled. For DVR purposes, note that the premiere episode follows a live basketball game so plan accordingly. You can also catch replays of earlier installments of SEC Storied including:
Croom (Mississippi State football coach Sylvester Croom)
Here is a preview clip. (Note: I'm not exactly sure what Jack Ramsay means when he says that Portland should have packaged Clyde Drexler and the pick to get a center and then drafted Jordan. It sure sounds like he is double counting the draft pick.)
This Saturday, the two schools meet on the basketball court in Chicago to commemorate the Game of Change nearly 50 years after this significant moment in civil rights history.
