GrandStand (1975–1976) NBC's first official NFL pre-game show was
GrandStand, a program that doubled as a competing sports
anthology series to ''
ABC's Wide World of Sports during the off-season (GrandStand'' also served as the pre-game show for
NBC's
Major League Baseball Game of the Week during the
1976 season).
GrandStand premiered in
1975 with hosts
Jack Buck and
Bryant Gumbel (who joined Buck sometime later in the season). Prior to 1975, NBC aired the
political talk show Meet the Press in the NFL pre-game show's timeslot (12:30 p.m.
Eastern) against
The NFL Today, the pre-game show of
CBS since . In
1976, Jack Buck left
GrandStand in order to return to the booth as a
play-by-play announcer, remaining with NBC. He was replaced as co-host by
Lee Leonard. Leonard (who would later become a co-host of
ESPN's
SportsCenter) left the program in
1977, and was replaced by
Mike Adamle and Regina Haskins as Gumbel's co-hosts. For the post-game show,
GrandStand kept the
Sperry NFL Report, although later incarnations of the post-game would be retitled the
Budweiser NFL Report.
NFL (1977–1986) In
1977, NBC dropped the
GrandStand moniker in favor of
NFL, which the title being paired with a year number that corresponded to the then-current NFL season (such as ''NFL '77
and NFL '78
). Beginning with NFL '80'', NBC would pioneer the use of in-game highlight packages ("Let's go to New York for an ''NFL '80'' update") NBC would use this particular method of titling their pregame show until the
1987 season. Bryant Gumbel hosted the
NFL on NBC pregame show through the
1981 season, when he left NBC Sports to become co-anchor of NBC's morning program
Today. In his final two seasons on
The NFL on NBC, Gumbel served as the sole host for the pre-game show. Gumbel was subsequently replaced by
Len Berman, who was joined by Adamle,
Pete Axthelm (who left following the
1985 season) and
Ahmad Rashad. For Berman's
second season (and what turned out to be his final full season) as host,
Bill Macatee (who left following the
1984 season) and
Dave Marash (who left following the
1983 season) replaced Adamle and Rashad. Rashad would return to the pre-game show in 1984 and continue onward through the
1988 season. In October 1984, NBC was also covering the
World Series between the
Detroit Tigers and
San Diego Padres. Even though Game 5 was on a Sunday afternoon (Game 5 was at 4:30 p.m. ET),
Bob Costas (who anchored
NBC's World Series coverage with Len Berman) was still in
New York City to host ''NFL '84''. At the end of the pre-game show, Costas left the New York studio to travel to
Detroit to cover that night's baseball game at
Tiger Stadium. In the meantime, Macatee filled-in for Costas, providing updates and halftime highlights. Costas later interviewed the Tigers in their
locker room that night. In
1985, NBC moved its Sunday pre-game show to 12:30 p.m.
Eastern Time no matter what time that market got a game.
CBS followed suit in
1986. Previously, NBC and CBS would air their pre-game shows at 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time for markets that were only receiving games with 2:00 or 4:00 p.m. Eastern start times. From the mid-to-late 1980s, NBC would to open its NFL pre-game show with a feature called "Great Games, Great Moments," which rebroadcast an original clip (from an NBC telecast, as opposed to
NFL Films) of a play from a classic NFL game originally televised on the network. The instrumental music that NBC used for the "Great Games, Great Moments" clip was "Constant Energy" by Craig Palmer. During the 1986 season, NBC experimented with using a
studio audience for its ''NFL '86'' telecasts; this would be dropped after that season.
Paul Maguire served as an analyst from 1986 to 1987, alongside Costas and Rashad.
NFL Live! (1987–1994) 1987–1988 In
1987, the network's pre-game show was retitled
NFL Live! (a title that would later be used by ESPN for the NFL analysis program previously titled
NFL 2Night – although without the
exclamation point – in
2003, six years after NBC lost the broadcast rights to the league's
American Football Conference to CBS).
Gayle Gardner would join the team as an analyst in
1988, alongside Costas and Rashad. Also in 1988, Costas' predecessor, Len Berman temporarily returned as the program's host as Costas was covering that year's
Summer Olympics in
Seoul for
NBC.
Gayle Sierens, who made history as the first female play-by-play announcer in NFL history one year earlier, would join Berman while Costas, Rashad and Gardner were in Seoul. Paul Maguire also briefly returned to
NFL Live! (he had earlier left the program to become a color commentator for NBC) during the Olympics period.
1989–1993 For the
1989 season,
O. J. Simpson became an analyst for
NFL Live! alongside Costas; Simpson remained on the program until the end of the
1993 season. (Simpson was arrested on two counts of
murder on June 17, 1994, and remained incarcerated until his acquittal on October 3, 1995.) That year, the program introduced the
John Tesh-composed theme "Gridiron Dreams". In
1990,
Will McDonough moved over from
CBS'
The NFL Today to join
NFL Live! He would leave the program after the 1993 season to serve as a sideline reporter and host of the program's "News and Notes" segment. In
1991,
Bill Parcells (who left after just one season for a role as an in-booth analyst for NBC) joined the team. For Week 1 of the 1991 season,
Marv Albert substituted as host of
NFL Live!. Regular host Bob Costas along with O. J. Simpson, play-by-play broadcaster
Tom Hammond and analyst
Todd Christensen were assigned to cover the
world track and field championships in
Tokyo, Japan. Bob Costas held the main hosting position through the
1992 season, but would continue his involvement with
The NFL on NBC, albeit in a more limited role such as delivering pre-taped, one-on-one interviews.
Jim Lampley replaced Costas as the host of
NFL Live! in 1993, before leaving the program in favor of becoming a play-by-play announcer for NBC's NFL telecasts.
Mike Ditka also joined
NFL Live! as a regular commentator that year. For the 1993 season, "Gridiron Dreams" was replaced as the program's theme music by a composition composed by
John Colby.
1994–1997 From
1994 to
1997, former
NFL Today host
Greg Gumbel served as the program's host, alongside Ahmad Rashad. Meanwhile, a revamped version of John Colby's theme music was used solely for that season. That year,
Joe Gibbs joined
NFL Live! as an analyst, staying on through the 1997 season. In 1994 and
1995, NBC ran an hour-long edition of the pre-game show before Week 1. Ditka left the program after the
1996 season.
The NFL on NBC (1995–1997) During NBC's last three years as the broadcast television home of the
American Football Conference (from the
1995 to 1997 seasons), the pregame show was simply titled
The NFL on NBC. The theme music by
Randy Edelman was used for both the pregame show and the network's game coverage. In
1995,
Joe Montana joined the program as an analyst, but left after just one season. Montana was subsequently replaced by
Cris Collinsworth, who stayed on through the
1997 season. As previously mentioned, Mike Ditka left NBC following the
1996 season to become the head coach of the
New Orleans Saints and was replaced by
Sam Wyche.
Football Night in America (2006–present) After NBC won the rights to the
Sunday Night Football package from
ESPN, effective with the
2006 season, NBC launched the 80-minute pre-game
Football Night in America, the only prime time pre-game show on a major broadcast network. The program was initially hosted by Bob Costas. ==On-air staff==