NBC Sunday Night Football

Sunday Night Football

Program:

Sunday Night Football

NBC Sunday Night Football opening logo.

Format:

Sports

Broadcast Information

Runtime

Conclusion of game, usually about 180 minutes

Studio announcers/Commentators

Commentators: English: Al Michaels & Cris Collinsworth Michele Tafoya Studio hosts:Bob Costas, Dan Patrick, Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison, Peter King and Mike Florio Spanish (Translation): Jessi Losada René Giraldo Edgar López

Country:

United States (USA)

Network:

NBC Sports (NBC-TV)

First Aired/Last Aired:

August 6, 2006-present

TV Picture Format/Internet

480i standard definition (SDTV), 1080i hi-definition (HDTV)

Official Website

website = http://www.snfonnbc.com/

NBC Sunday Night Football is a weekly television broadcast of Sunday evening National Football League games on NBC that began airing on Sunday, August 6, 2006 with the pre-season opening Hall of Fame Game. Al Michaels serves as the play-by-play announcer, with Cris Collinsworth as the color commentator and Michele Tafoya as the sideline reporter, Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff, the lead producer and director respectively, carry over their duties from ABC's telecasts of Monday Night Football. John Madden, the color commentator for the first three years of the program, retired prior to the 2009 season; Collinsworth succeeded him. ESPN, which aired Sunday night games from the 1987 through 2005 NFL seasons, took over Monday Night Football from sister network ABC starting in 2006.

In the 2011–12 season, it was named the highest rated, most watched TV program in the Nielsen ratings. In second place was FOX-TV's American Idol, a show that had previously held the title of most watched TV program for eight consecutive seasons and eight straight years.

Starting in 2012, under the new NFL television contract, a Spanish-language simulcast on fellow Comcast property Telemundo began.

Studio show

• Main article: Football Night in America

The studio show Football Night in America, featuring Bob Costas, Dan Patrick, Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison, Hines Ward, and Peter King precedes the broadcast each week, featuring a recap of the other Sunday NFL contests. Costas, Tafoya, Collinsworth, and Michaels also contribute to the studio show from the game site.

Contract

NBC's current contract includes the season-opening Thursday night NFL Kickoff Game and two Saturday games in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The network aired, or will air, two Super Bowl games during the six years of the deal, following the 2008 (Super Bowl XLIII) and 2011 (Super Bowl XLVI) seasons, and the Pro Bowl games in the years NBC airs the Super Bowl. Beginning with an extended contract in 2012, NBC will also air a primetime Thanksgiving game (which had previously been part of NFL Network's Thursday Night Football package), one divisional playoff game in lieu of a Wild Card game in the postseason, and three more Super Bowls beginning in 2015 with (Super Bowl XLIX), 2018 for (Super Bowl LII), and 2021 for (Super Bowl LV). The new contracts will run until 2022. However, the annual Pro Bowl is not included in the new deal as exclusive rights will revert to ESPN in 2014. NBC is the current home of the annual Pro Football Hall of Fame Game, which begins the NFL's preseason each August. However, the 2007 game aired on the NFL Network because the league had planned to stage the China Bowl just a few days later, to be televised by NBC as a tie-in to its coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics in that country. The China Bowl was postponed indefinitely. Normally, there are two other preseason telecasts on NBC; however, because of the Beijing Olympics, only two were shown in 2008. Two preseason games (the Hall of Fame game and one other match-up, depending on other NBC Sports commitments), and the Thursday night season opener will be retained in the new contract beginning in 2014.

During Wild Card Saturday, Tom Hammond (play-by-play) and Joe Theismann (color commentator) called the afternoon game for NBC from 2007 to 2009, while Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth handled the evening game. In addition, due to Madden's fear of flying, Collinsworth substituted for Madden on October 19, 2008 for the game featuring the Seattle Seahawks at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This was due to Madden not wanting to make back-to-back-to-back cross-country trips via bus (the October 5 game was in Jacksonville and the October 12 game was in San Diego). Collinsworth was commentator for the Pro Bowl in Honolulu, Hawaii for Madden following Super Bowl XLIII, and (in his capacity as Michaels' broadcast partner) will presumably do so again before Super Bowl XLVI. For the 2009–10 playoffs, Hammond teamed with Joe Gibbs and Joe Theismann to call the early Wild Card game, while Michaels and Collinsworth called the late game. For the 2010–11 playoffs, Hammond and Mike Mayock called the early Wild Card game, while Michaels and Collinsworth called the late game. For the 2011–12 playoffs, Hammond and Mayock again called the early game while Michaels and Collinsworth called the late game. For the 2012–13 playoffs Dan Hicks and Mike Mayock called the early game while Michaels and Collinsworth called the late game once again.

Scheduling

For more details on each game's results and statistics, see NBC Sunday Night Football results (2006–present).

Opening game

The first regular season game to be shown by NBC under this contract, Miami at Pittsburgh, aired September 7, 2006, followed by the first Sunday-night game—Indianapolis at the New York Giants—on September 10, 2006. The actual first game of the run—the 2006 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between Oakland and Philadelphia—was televised on August 6, 2006.

Flexible scheduling

NBC Sunday Night Football is the beneficiary of the leauge's new flexible-scheduling system. Since the NFL now considers 'Sunday Night Football to be its featured game of the week, for the final seven weeks of the season (seven of the final eight weeks during the 2006 and 2011 seasons because of Christmas weekend), the NFL has the flexibility in selecting games to air on Sunday night.

World Series conflicts

In its first four seasons of Sunday night coverage, NBC took one week off in late October or early November, so as not to conflict with Fox's coverage of baseball's World Series. In 2006 NBC did not air a game on October 22, which was the set date for World Series Game 2, but a potential conflict still existed on October 29 had the series gone seven games (the conflict never arose, however, as the 2006 World Series ended in five games). With the change in World Series scheduling beginning in 2007, NBC did not air a game in order to avoid a conflict with World Series Game 4, which is the first chance a team would have to clinch the series. In 2007, there was no game on October 28; in 2008, there was no game on October 26; and, in 2009, there was no game on November 1. Although no games aired on these nights, Football Night in America still aired as scheduled at 7 pm Eastern.

NBC televised a game on October 31, 2010 and again on October 23, 2011, opposite Game 4 of the World Series on Fox in both cases. Both games featured the New Orleans Saints at home, first in 2010 against the Pittsburgh Steelers, then in 2011 against the Indianapolis Colts. Both cities that are home to the Saints, New Orleans and the Colts, Indianapolis do not have a Major League Baseball team, and the Pittsburgh Pirates have been recently poor, having not recorded a winning record since 1992. Coincidentally, the minor league team in Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Indians, have been the Pirates AAA affiliate since 2005.

Ratings have been mixed for these results, with the NFL winning the night in 2010 while MLB won in 2011. While the Saints won both games, the former matchup featuring a major Nielsen ratings draw in the Steelers, combined with the latter matchup against the Colts being a 62–7 blowout while Game 4 of the 2011 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers was a more closely contested game, caused the ratings to slip in 2011.

In 2012, the NFL once again scheduled the Saints to play on Sunday Night Football in late October, this time against the Denver Broncos at Sports Authority Field at Mile High on October 28. (Denver does have an MLB team, the Colorado Rockies, that has had some success in recent seasons, including a trip to the 2007 World Series, though they did not contend for the NL West this season.) The game wound up being scheduled opposite the fourth (and final) game of the 2012 World Series.

2016 schedule

Preseason

2016

Day	Start Times	Date	Visiting Team	Final Score	Host team	Stadium
Thursday	8:00 p.m.	August 25	Atlanta Falcons	0-0	Miami Dolphins	Camping World Stadium
Sunday	8:00 p.m.	August 28	Cincinnati Bengals	0-0	Jacksonville Jaguars	Everbank Field

Regular season

2016

2016 marked the first ever tie on NBC Sunday Night Football, which occurred in week 7, when the Seahawks and Cardinals tied at 6-6. Seahawks-Cardinals also became the lowest scoring SNF on NBC game to date (12 points total), and the first primetime NFL game tie since November 23, 1997, when the Redskins and Giants tied at 7-7 on ESPN Sunday Night Football. Due to NBC having the rights second half of the Thursday Night Football package, NBC Sports gave Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth a "Bye week", giving him 3 games off: Packers-Redskins, Steelers-Colts (Thanksgiving), and Chiefs-Broncos. Mike Tirico and Doug Flutie.

Day	Start times ( All times Eastern)	Date	Visiting Team	Final Score	Host Team	Stadium
Thursday	8:30 p.m.	September 8	Carolina Panthers	20-21	Denver Broncos	Sports Authority Field At Mile High
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	September 11	New England Patriots	23-21	Arizona Cardinals	University of Phoenix Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	September 18	Green Bay Packers	14-17	Minnesota Vikings	U.S. Bank Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	September 25	Chicago Bears	17-31	Dallas Cowboys	AT&T Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	October 2	Kansas City Chiefs	14-43	Pittsburgh Steelers	Heinz Field
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	October 9	New York Giants	16-23	Green Bay Packers	Lambeau Field
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	October 16	Indianapolis Colts	23-26 (OT)	Houston Texans	NRG Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	October 23	Seattle Seahawks	6-6 (OT)	Arizona Cardinals	University of Phoenix Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	October 30	Philadelphia Eagles	23-29 (OT)	Dallas Cowboys	AT&T Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	November 6	Denver Broncos	20-30	Oakland Raiders	Oakland Coliseum
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	November 13	Seattle Seahawks	31-24	New England Patriots	Gillette Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	November 20	Green Bay Packers	24-42	Washington Redskins	FedEx Field
Thursday	8:30 p.m.	November 24	Pittsburgh Steelers	28-7	Indianapolis Colts	Lucas Oil Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	November 27*	Kansas City Chiefs	30-27 (OT)	Denver Broncos	Metlife Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	December 4	Carolina Panthers	7-40	Seattle Seahawks	CenturyLink Field
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	December 11	Dallas Cowboys	0-0	New York Giants	Metlife Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	December 18**	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	0-0	Dallas Cowboys	AT&T Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	December 25	Denver Broncos	0-0	Kansas City Chiefs	Arrowhead Stadium
Sunday	8:30 p.m.	January 1	TBA	0-0	TBA	TBA

*Patriots–Jets game was flexed out for the Chiefs–Broncos game. **Steelers-Bengals game was flexed out for the Buccaneers-Cowboys game.

Postseason

Day	Start Times	Date	Visiting Team	Final Score	Home Team	Stadium
Saturday	8:15 p.m.	January 7	TBA	0-0	TBA	TBA
Saturday	8:15 p.m.	January 14	TBA	0-0	TBA	TBA

LEGEND

Winning team in bold.

Similarity to ABC

Much of NBC's Sunday Night Football production crew comes from ABC/ESPN, including Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff (producer and director, respectively), as ESPN moved most of its previous Sunday night crew over to Monday Night Football. Michaels, Madden and Kremer also came to NBC directly from ABC/ESPN, and Football Night in America's Sterling Sharpe was a member of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown in recent years (calling several Sunday night games for the network in 2005). With regard to using ABC/ESPN talent, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said, "I was not interested in the quote, unquote vanity of starting anew ... There's not a lot of room for experimentation."

Also, NBC has the starters introduce themselves, much as ABC did in the last few years of its run, and the short postgame show (so affiliates can get to their late newscasts) follows a similar format to ABC's.

Michaels and Madden ended each telecast in the 2007 and 2008 NFL seasons by selecting an MVP for that night's game to receive the Horse Trailer award (with a photo of each recipient being affixed to the side of a production truck, also known as a "horse trailer"). This concept originated from Madden's days with the NFL on CBS, where he invented the similar "Turkey Leg Award" for the Thanksgiving Classic in 1989 (he later took the concept to Fox, then expanded it to every game of the year with the Horse Trailer Award when he joined ABC in 2002). In the 2006 season, the MVP concept was modified slightly, where the game's MVP was called the "Rock Star of the Game" and had his photo placed on a display at the "Top of the Rock" observation deck atop the GE Building, NBC's New York headquarters, in New York. When Madden retired following Super Bowl XLIII, the Horse Trailer Player of the Game award was discontinued.

Theme music

Academy Award winner John Williams composed the instrumental theme music for Sunday Night Football. For Super Bowl XLIII, NBC commissioned Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music to create new instrumental cues adding techno and rock elements around the main brass melody. These cues replaced the original Williams arrangements full-time at the start of the 2009 season. Singer Pink sang the theme song for the broadcast in 2006, a reworking of the Joan Jett song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" retitled "Waiting All Day For Sunday Night". Several alternative versions were used throughout the season, substituting different lyrics when appropriate, e.g. "Waiting All Year For Opening Night."

In 2007, country singer Faith Hill replaced Pink as the singer of the opening theme, and a new arrangement of the Joan Jett song coincided with her debut. The Faith Hill intro in particular, has not been without criticism and parody. On the October 9, 2010 episode of Saturday Night Live, host Jane Lynch as Hill (with Jason Sudeikis as Al Michaels and Bill Hader as Cris Collinsworth), lampooned the intro. On the 30 Rock episode "Season 4", Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) sings what appears to be an allusion to the Faith Hill intro for NBC's fictional Tennis Night in America program. On the South Park episode entitled "Faith Hilling", Eric Cartman sings an obvious spoof of Hill's actual Sunday Night Football song.

The use of the reworked Joan Jett song is another similarity to ABC's Monday Night Football coverage. From 1989 to 2011, Country music singer Hank Williams, Jr. opened MNF with a reworking of his song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" entitled "All My Rowdy Friends Are Back for Monday Night (Are You Ready for Some Football?)".

On Sunday October 7, 2012, the Soul Rebels Brass Band had a featured performance on NBC Sunday Night Football, performing the show's theme song.

Show opening

The song is at the centerpiece of the opening montage, which has changed in the following ways over the years. Williams' music has always played in the background over the official welcome after the opening is completed and the teams take the field.

2006

For the first season, Pink appeared to sing from the top of a skyscraper as a helicopter zoomed down on a city skyline with enlarged players Shaun Alexander, LaDainian Tomlinson and Tom Brady and the field, the results of computer-generated imagery. A television monitor, which resembles NBC's monitor at Times Square, showed game preview footage and opening credits.

2007

Pop/Country music singer Faith Hill, who replaced Pink, sang on a stage while some of the key players in the game and announcers Michaels and Madden arrived in limousines and walk on a red carpet as they head to a simulated theater. The marquee outside the theater showed the logo of then-official NFL communications partner Sprint, which paid a product placement fee, and one of the "bystanders" recorded the red carpet scene on a Sprint camera phone. Access Hollywood co-hosts Shaun Robinson and Tony Potts also appeared in the opening. Also, some of the lyrics were changed slightly and the musical arrangement tilts toward country music more than rock music, to reflect the change in singers.

2008

The 2008 opening, which debuted on September 7, takes place in a stadium. Hill performs surrounded by video screens with simulated game action, and the song ends with a computer-generated fireworks display. Once again, a Sprint camera phone is used, this time by a fan. Among the spectators are NFL stars Ray Lewis and Antonio Gates. Again, there were some lyrics changes, among them was the substitution of the lyrics "last one standing better turn out the lights."

2009

Faith Hill sang the theme song for the third straight year. This time, she performed in a closed-studio setting, surrounded by video monitors, neon lights, and a message board that displayed the names of the production staff. Sprint returned for more product placement, as a branded cell phone appeared to give an alert that the game was about to start.

2010

Faith Hill was seen in front of a Ford Mustang convertible as the song began, overlooking a bluff; the scene was taped in the Hollywood Hills in Southern California. A number of NFL stars appeared in front of various landmarks throughout the United States, including Peyton Manning at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Eli Manning at Times Square, Desean Jackson at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Larry Fitzgerald in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Drew Brees on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Hill herself drove down a road with some simulated billboards with the opening credits and a product placement ad for Verizon (which replaced Sprint as the league's telecommunications sponsor) and was also seen at the Washington Monument. Some of the lyrics changed yet again; for example, the opening line once again asked, "Alright, Sunday night, where are you?" Hill gathered with the NFL stars on a computer-generated football field inside a stadium at the end of the video. In Week 16, the introduction did not air due to the game moving to Tuesday night and time constraints.

2011

There were a few significant changes from the previous year, including Faith Hill (who herself returned for her 5th year as part of the telecast's opening) arriving in a motorcycle. Also, Verizon returned for more product placement. And most of the scenes, including the NFL stars' appearances in front of various landmarks throughout the U.S. and Hill at the Washington Monument (with the minor difference being her wardrobe), were repeated from 2010, as mentioned above. Several new stars appeared, including Adrian Peterson and Brian Urlacher; and in the last few seconds, all of them gather on a computer-generated football field. In another notable change, the opening credits are gone. J. Ivy, a spoken word poet from Chicago who has worked with Kanye West and Jay-Z, also appears during the opening.

Super Bowl XLVI

Faith Hill performed a special Super Bowl version of the song at the start of the network's Super Bowl XLVI broadcast. With computer-generated technology, this was filmed in a closed-studio setting, with Hill surrounded by video screens showing clips from past Super Bowls. A Verizon smartphone (product placement) was seen at the beginning of the video sequence.

2012

The show's opening had some changes, including Faith Hill walking through the tunnel towards the stage. She then performs with a rock band in front of a live audience, with video screens in the background. Shortly after the start of the song, there have been weekly guest appearances on the video screens (such as three of The Voice judges from Week 1 and the Chicago Fire Department from Week 3). The live audience uses their smartphones to form the Verizon logo. NFL stars are also seen going through the tunnel with moving images of city landmarks, players and team logos (through computer-generated imagery). Initially, the stars presented were Aaron Rogers (Packers), Clay Matthews (Packers), Ray Lewis (Ravens), Patrick Willis (49ers), Jimmy Graham (Saints), DeMarcus Ware (Cowboys), Calvin Johnson (Lions), Larry Fitzgerald (Cardinals), Jared Allen (Vikings), Rob Gronkowski (Patriots), Darrelle Revis (Jets) and Eli Manning (Giants). The opening itself has been remixed with Nick Mangold (Jets) and LeSean McCoy (Eagles) filling in for Ray Lewis and Darrelle Revis. This opening graphic sequence was not used at the start of the NBC Sunday Night Football Thanksgiving Special broadcast (November 22, 2012), nor on December 16, 2012, two days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Graphics

NBC's Sunday Night Football graphics, logos and scoreboard were designed by Troika Design Group, along with the city skyline graphics used in the introductions to both Football Night in America and the game itself. It was effectively the first time the network used permanent time/score boxes throughout any of their sports broadcasts outside of Olympic Games broadcasts, where permanent scoring displays were compulsory; previous to 2006 the network continued the previous mode of score presentation of flashing the score on-screen for a short time every few minutes or so seen in American sports broadcasting until Fox's 1994 introduction of constant scoring displays.

NBC's game telecasts use the same type of bottom-line scoreboard that Monday Night Football used in the 2005 NFL season (and was subsequently used by ABC Sports until its rebranding in August 2006). After its debut, the graphics also began to be phased in across other NBC Sports properties, including its coverage of Notre Dame football and the annual Bayou Classic game (which uses the exact graphics used on SNF broadcasts), National Hockey League coverage (which uses the SNF graphics but with a scoreboard on the top), and tennis and golf (which use a modified version influenced by the look, but with bolder text for readability purposes). NBC's Olympics coverage continues to use a different package mixed between NBC's graphics and those of the IOC's world feed. The NBC football graphics are also used, in some form or another, on certain local preseason telecasts carried by the network's stations who are the flagship stations to NFL teams (such as New York Giants preseason games on WNBC, and the Minnesota Vikings on KARE-TV).

File:NBCSNFscore09.PNG

The scoring banner used from 2009–2011 (regular season). Notice the addition of timeout indicators at the bottom, and the cleaner looking font in the team's initials.

NBC's bottom-line scoring banner underwent a significant revamp for the 2009 season. The revamped banner debuted during the network's Super Bowl XLIII coverage on February 1, 2009. The changes included presenting downs and yardage in a feather derived from NBC's famous peacock logo in the colors of the team currently on offense. Also, when a team scores a touchdown, the banner will open, the team's logo and initials will slide to the left of the banner and "TOUCHDOWN" is displayed in the remainder of the banner. After a few moments, the banner will show the drive information. Then the banner returns to normal and show the change in the team's score. Additionally (beginning with Week 9), timeout indicators were added below each team's respective scores. For the 2010 season, the timeout indicators were changed to 3 white trapezoids below the team abbreviations, and the play clock was moved from above the team in possession of the football to above the game clock (for the final 2 minutes of regulation and if necessary, overtime). The down markers also changed in 2010, which is now featuring the team logo next to the down marker. On January 2, 2012 during the NHL Winter Classic (with a sneak two days before during a Notre Dame hockey game on Versus), the graphics of all of NBC Sports' productions were updated to a new package intended to unify the graphical image between both the network and the rebranded NBC Sports Network, which relaunched that same day. Subsequently on Wild Card Saturday (January 7), the network's NFL presentation was changed to the new graphical styling to match the style and layout of the recently-christened NBC Sports Network. Most of the banner's styling remains the same, but with a cleaner and larger font for readability and a more neutral NBC logo to the left rather than the "aggressive peacock" used since 2006. Elements such as team and individual player stats take on team colors (main color as the background, secondary color as the accent), and the down/yardage/possession graphic also takes on team coloring, with neutral team comparison stats and other elements having a gold/blue/black coloring. Additionally, the play clock appears directly above the game clock throughout the entire game.

International broadcasts

In Canada, SNF telecasts are seen live on TSN, using the NBC feed (despite not being an over-the-air channel, it is simsubbed by Bell TV and cable providers which carry feeds from the service). In the United Kingdom, SNF is aired live on Channel 4 carrying the NBC branding and commentators during games, it is hosted by Nat Coombs and analysed by Mike Carlson.

See also

• Flexible scheduling
• NFL on NBC
• Monday Night Football
• ESPN Sunday Night Football
• TNT Sunday Night Football
• Sunday Night Football (radio)

External links

• http://www.snfonnbc.com/ NBC Sunday Night Football Extra website
• http://www.snfallaccess.com/ NBC Sunday Night Football official website - All Access
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Others

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• New NBC talking heads have history across NFL telecasts
• NBC a much happier NFL TV Partner – Sports Business News October 27, 2006