NFL on ABC
The American Broadcasting Company television network has nationally broadcast National Football League games in various stints throughout its history. ABC's first stint, which lasted from 1948 to 1950, involved a "game of the week" format and the NFL Championship Game; it also owned broadcast rights for up to three teams from 1952 to 1954. ABC started airing NFL games again with the debut of Monday Night Football in 1970; it became part of the Super Bowl broadcasting rotation in 1985 and started annually airing two NFL Wild Card playoff games in 1991.
Following ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XL, ESPN took over as the exclusive rights holder to Monday Night Football in 2006, and the ABC Sports division was merged into ESPN Inc. by parent company Disney. Afterward, ABC did not broadcast any game from the NFL until it simulcasted a Wild Card playoff game from ESPN in 2016. ABC would then return to Monday Night Football in 2020, when they aired three games as simulcasts from ESPN.
Since 2020, ABC simulcasts or exclusively airs some Monday Night Football games, two Saturday games during Week 18, one Wild Card playoff game, and the Pro Bowl in conjunction with ESPN. Beginning in 2023, ABC and ESPN will simulcast one divisional playoff game, and both networks will air the Super Bowl in 2027 and 2031. All games since 2016, whether a simulcast or an exclusive broadcast, have used ESPN branding and graphics.
History
Prior to ''Monday Night Football''
ABC began television professional football in 1948, where the network used a "game of the week" format to broadcast the NFL. Later that year, the network broadcast the NFL Championship Game between the Chicago Cardinals at Philadelphia Eagles with Harry Wismer providing commentary. The 1949 NFL Championship Game between the Eagles and Los Angeles Rams in Los Angeles was only made available to viewers on the West Coast because at the time, there was no way to send live television programs from the West Coast to the East Coast and vice versa. ABC the following year, would broadcast the playoff game between the New York Giants and Cleveland Browns. For the 1950 NFL Championship Game between the Browns and Rams, the game was not televised to Chicago, but it was so in Los Angeles.Beginning in 1951, the DuMont network for all intents and purposes, replaced ABC as the NFL's prime network telecaster. However, come 1953, ABC was able to sign contracts with the Chicago Bears, Chicago Cardinals. They would soon add the Washington Redskins beginning in 1954, and come 1955, the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Red Grange and Bill Fay typically called home games for the Bears and Cardinals in Chicago. For Washington Redskins games, ABC usually used the broadcast crew of Bob Wolff and Dutch Bergman. In 1955, the Redskins left ABC in favor of syndicated regional coverage that was sponsored and produced by Amoco Gasoline.
As previously mentioned, also in 1955, ABC picked up games featuring the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers and broadcast them specifically to their affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone. These games were usually either called by the team of Bob Fouts and Frankie Albert or by Bob Kelley and Bill Brundige. ABC also broadcast that year's Thanksgiving Day game between the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions with Harry Wismer and Budd Lynch on the call.
ABC's involvement with the NFL would end the following year with the demise of DuMont as CBS would acquire television rights to all but one of the teams, with the Browns electing to form their own broadcast syndication network. ABC would go on to become the first national broadcaster of the competing American Football League when it debuted in 1960, but it eventually lost the rights to NBC in 1965.
''Monday Night Football'' (1970–2005)
During negotiations on a new television contract that would begin in 1970, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle contacted ABC about signing a weekly Monday night deal. Despite reluctance, ABC would sign a contract for the scheduled games. The first Monday Night Football game on ABC aired on September 21, 1970, between the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns with Howard Cosell, Keith Jackson and Don Meredith in the broadcast booth. However Frank Gifford would replace Jackson in 1971.In an era with only three television broadcast networks, the series became the longest-running prime-time sports program in television history, and developed into one of television's most valuable franchises. The Cosell-Meredith-Gifford dynamic helped make Monday Night Football a success; it frequently was the number one rated program in the Nielsen ratings. The inimitable style of the group distinguished Monday Night Football as a distinct spectacle, and ushered in an era of more colorful broadcasters and 24/7 TV sports coverage.
Meredith left for three seasons to work with Curt Gowdy at NFL on NBC, then returned to MNF partners Gifford and Cosell. In 1974, Fred Williamson was selected by the ABC as a commentator on Monday Night Football to replace Don Meredith. He was relieved of his duties at the beginning of the regular season, becoming the first MNF personality not to endure for an entire season. He was replaced by the fellow former player Alex Karras. Karras served three years in that role until leaving after the season, with his most memorable comment coming in his first game, when he joked that bald Oakland Raiders' lineman Otis Sistrunk, who never attended college, was from "the University of Mars", after seeing steam coming off his head.
Prior to 1978, Monday night games were not scheduled in the final week of the regular season. From 1974 to 1977, a Saturday night game was scheduled for Week 14, and televised live by ABC, in lieu of a game on Monday night.
During a game between the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots on December 8, 1980, Cosell broke the news that former Beatle John Lennon had been shot and killed, news that stunned a nationwide audience.
1982–1989
As part of the renewal of the NFL's television contract in 1982, ABC was put in the Super Bowl rotation for the first time, giving it the broadcast rights to Super Bowl XIX in 1985. A second renewal of the television contract gave them the rights to Super Bowl XXII in 1988. Don Meredith retired from sportscasting after the 1984 season, a year after Howard Cosell's retirement. His final broadcast was Super Bowl XIX with Frank Gifford and Joe Theismann.From 1983 to 1986, ABC also aired a Friday night game in the final week of the regular season, in addition to the normal Monday night game.
During the first half of the September 5, 1983 Monday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins, Cosell's commentary on wide receiver Alvin Garrett included "That little monkey gets loose doesn't he?" Cosell's references to Garrett as a "little monkey," ignited a racial controversy that laid the groundwork for Cosell's departure from MNF at the end of the 1983 season. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, then-president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, denounced Cosell's comment as racist and demanded a public apology. Despite supportive statements by Jesse Jackson, Muhammad Ali, and Alvin Garrett himself, the fallout contributed to Cosell's decision to leave Monday Night Football following the 1983 season.
"I liked Howard Cosell," Garrett said. "I didn't feel that it was a demeaning statement." Cosell explained that Garrett's small stature, and not his race, was the basis for his comment, citing the fact that he had used the term to describe his own grandchildren. Among other evidence to support Cosell's claim is video footage of a 1972 preseason game between the New York Giants and the Kansas City Chiefs that features Cosell referring to athlete Mike Adamle, a 5-foot, 8-inch, 195-pound Caucasian, as a "little monkey."
On November 18, 1985, Joe Theismann suffered a comminuted compound fracture of the tibia and fibula in his right leg during a sack by linebackers Lawrence Taylor and Harry Carson during a Monday Night Football game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants. The Monday Night Football announcer team of Frank Gifford, O. J. Simpson and Joe Namath had correctly inferred from the start that Taylor was calling for help. While initially only the players on the field could see the extent of the damage to Theismann's leg, the reverse-angle instant replay provided a clearer view of what had actually happened: Theismann's lower leg bones were broken midway between his knee and his ankle, such that his leg from his foot to his mid-shin was lying flat against the ground while the upper part of his shin up to his knee was at a 45-degree angle to the lower part of his leg. ABC's decision to screen the reverse-angle instant replay several times despite its palpably graphic content shocked millions of viewers, although as the replays were shown, Gifford repeatedly urged viewers at home to exercise discretion. The repeated screening of this replay remains to this day one of the most controversial in-game television production decisions in NFL history.
In 1986, Al Michaels took over play-by-play duties, and Gifford switched to a color commentator role. However, Gifford did play-by-play for the next several years whenever Michaels was covering post-season baseball games for the network.
As previously mentioned, in April 1987, Dan Dierdorf was hired by ABC to join Al Michaels and Frank Gifford on Monday Night Football broadcasts. He spent 12 seasons on Monday Night Football before resigning the post in early 1999.
On October 26, 1987, Gary Bender along with Lynn Swann called the Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and the Minnesota Vikings. That game had been scheduled for October 25, but when the Minnesota Twins played Game 7 of the World Series that day, the football game was moved to Monday and shown to a regional audience. The game was therefore, only made available to the Minneapolis and Denver markets while the rest of the nation would see the game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cleveland Browns.
As part of the league's television contract renewal with the network in 1989, ABC was awarded the television rights to Super Bowl XXV and Super Bowl XXIX, as well as one Wild Card game from each conference, during the first Saturday of the NFL playoffs.