ABC college bowl game broadcasts
ABC's college bowl broadcasts spanned decades and major postseason events.
ABC has broadcast college football since acquiring the NCAA contract in 1966. The network became closely associated with the sport through longtime play-by-play announcer Keith Jackson, who called games for ABC from 1966 through 2005 and was widely regarded as the voice of college football. Jackson served as ABC's lead play-by-play man for 25 years, from 1974 through 1998, and continued on a reduced schedule until the 2006 Rose Bowl.
Quick Facts
- First ncaa contract year
- 1966
- Final abc broadcast
- 2006 Rose Bowl
Facts from the source article.
Did You Know?
- The Las Vegas Bowl has been televised by ABC since 2013, and also in 2001; other editions aired on ESPN or ESPN2.
- The bowl now known as the Las Vegas Bowl was broadcast by Mizlou from 1976 to 1983, by NBC from 1984 to 1985, and by ABC since then except for ESPN in 2011 and 2012.
Major bowl games
From 1999 to 2006, covering the 1998 through 2005 seasons, ABC Sports televised all games of the Bowl Championship Series. The typical schedule included two games on New Year's Day, one on January 2, and one on either January 3 or 4. ABC paid nearly $25 million per year for the broadcast rights to the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls during that period, with the overall contract worth $550 million over eight years for all the bowl games. Starting with the 2006 season, coverage was split between ABC and Fox.
Fox paid $20 million per bowl game and broadcast four BCS games: the Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, and the new fifth game, the BCS National Championship Game. ABC continued to broadcast the Rose Bowl Game under a $300 million eight-year contract extending to 2014. In 2007, ABC and Fox each showed one game on January 1; Fox then aired one game each on January 2 and 3 and the championship game on January 8, with a similar schedule planned for future years.
Fox showed all BCS championship games the first three years of the contract, but in 2010 the Rose Bowl stadium hosted the BCS Championship game, which ABC televised. The Rose Bowl had been on ABC from 1989 to 2010, usually at 2 p.m. PST, and the 2005 edition was the first broadcast in HDTV. The Sugar Bowl had aired on ABC from 1969 through 1998 and again from 1999 to 2006 as part of the BCS package; it was the only Bowl Alliance game to remain with ABC after the 1995, 1996 and 1997 seasons, while the Fiesta and Orange Bowls were on CBS during those years.
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