Television CBS Sports (1979–1993) Madden joined
CBS as a
color commentator in 1979. After working lower-profile contests during his first years, he was elevated to CBS's top football broadcasting duo with
Pat Summerall in 1981, replacing
Tom Brookshier. Prior to teaming with Summerall on CBS, Madden was paired with a variety of announcers, such as
Bob Costas,
Vin Scully,
Dick Stockton,
Frank Glieber, and
Gary Bender. The team of Madden and Summerall would go on to call eight Super Bowls together. On occasions in which Summerall was unavailable (during the CBS years, Summerall was normally scheduled to commentate on the
U.S. Open tennis tournament during the early weeks of the NFL season), Madden would team with the likes of
Vin Scully and subsequently,
Verne Lundquist. On their final CBS telecast together, the
1993 NFC Championship Game on January 23, 1994, Madden told Summerall that while CBS may no longer have the NFL, at least they have the memories. On
ABC's final
Monday Night Football telecast in 2005, Madden used a similar choice of words.
Fox Sports (1994–2001) In 1994, when
Fox gained the rights to NFC games, leaving CBS without an NFL television deal, CBS employees became free agents. Madden was the biggest star in football broadcasting. Fox, ABC, and NBC made offers higher than the $2 million a year maximum for sportscaster salaries. NBC's owner
General Electric (GE) offered to make Madden its "worldwide spokesman", and
GE Rail would build him a luxury train. After he almost joined ABC, Madden and Summerall, along with Producer Bob Stenner and Director Sandy Grossman—known as the football broadcasting "A Team"—helped establish
Fox's NFL coverage, Toward the end of his tenure, Fox was reportedly losing an estimated $4.4 billion on its NFL contract for the eight-year deal it signed in 1998, and it had been trying to cut programming costs as a result. Madden's Fox contract would have been worth $8 million for 2003. Madden reportedly made $5 million per year.
NBC Sports (2006–2009) In 2005,
Dick Ebersol, president of
NBC Sports, announced that Madden would provide color commentary for
NBC's Sunday night NFL games, beginning with the
2006 season, making him the first sportscaster to have worked for all of the "Big Four" U.S. broadcast television networks. On October 13, 2008, NBC announced that Madden would not be traveling to the October 19
Sunday Night Football Seattle Seahawks–
Tampa Bay Buccaneers game in
Tampa, Florida, marking the end of Madden's 476-weekend streak of consecutive broadcast appearances. Madden, who traveled by bus, decided to take the week off because he had traveled from
Jacksonville to San Diego, and would have had to go back to Florida before returning to his
Northern California home. Madden was replaced by
Football Night in America studio analyst
Cris Collinsworth for the game, He was succeeded by Collinsworth.
Radio In the 1970s, Madden got his start in broadcasting by calling in to longtime San Francisco radio personality "The Emperor" Gene Nelson's show on station
KYA while coach of the Raiders. He followed Nelson when he moved to station
KSFO, and the call-ins continued even after Madden's coaching retirement. Madden later made appearances on
KNBR. In 1997, he began calling in to radio station
KCBS five days a week at 8:15 a.m. Pacific Time. This continued to Thanksgiving 2015, when he ceased calling after heart surgery and other health concerns. Madden also aired sports commentaries in syndication on the
Westwood One radio network in the United States.
Legacy Madden's lively and flamboyant delivery won him critical acclaim and fourteen
Sports Emmy Awards for standing Sports Event Analyst. His announcing style was punctuated with interjections such as "Boom!", "Whap!", "Bang!", and "Doink!"' and with his use of the
telestrator, a device which allowed him to superimpose his light-penned diagrams of football plays over video footage. Madden's use of the telestrator helped to popularize the technology, which has become a staple of television coverage of all sports. Madden was also known for working the annual
Thanksgiving Day games for CBS and later Fox. He would award a turkey or
turducken to the winning team. He awarded a turkey
drumstick to players of the winning team following the Thanksgiving Day game, often bringing out a "nuclear turkey" with as many as eight drumsticks on it for the occasion. The drumsticks served as an odd take on the "player of the game" award. In 2002, Madden stopped announcing the Thanksgiving Day games after he moved to ABC, but the tradition continued. Fox, CBS, the NFL Network, and later NBC presented the Galloping Gobbler to the
game's "Most Valuable" player until 2015. Following his death, the NFL now honors Madden every Thanksgiving. Beginning in 2022, the entire tripleheader of games was dubbed the "John Madden Thanksgiving Celebration". A recording of Madden was played before each of the Thanksgiving games in 2022, and has continued since, along with the awarding of a "Madden Player of the Game" after each game, with NBC continuing on the tradition of awarding the turkey legs to its players of the game.
All-Madden team In 1984, Madden took the advice of NFL coach
John Robinson—a friend of Madden since elementary school—and created the "All-Madden" team, a group of players who Madden thought represented football and played the game the way he thought it should be played. Madden continued to pick the All-Madden team to the 2001 season when he left to move to ABC and
Monday Night Football. Madden added his "Hall of Fame" for his favorite players. He created a special 10th Anniversary All-Madden team in 1994, an All-Madden Super Bowl Team in 1997, and an All-Time All-Madden team in 2000.
All Madden was the title of Madden's third best-selling book, after
Hey, Wait A Minute? I Wrote a Book and
One Knee Equals Two Feet. In
All Madden, Madden explained: ==Other media==