NFL on television in the 1980s

Year-by-year breakdown

For Super Bowl XIV, CBS’s television broadcast featured Pat Summerall on play-by-play and Tom Brookshier as color commentator. Former Oakland Raiders coach John Madden appeared as a guest analyst on the network’s pregame show, and his performance so impressed CBS executives that he took over as lead game analyst from Brookshier in 1981. On CBS Radio, Jack Buck and Hank Stram handled the call, while Brent Musburger worked both radio and television, hosting the Super Bowl Today pregame show and the Vince Lombardi Trophy ceremony. Musburger was joined on CBS’s pregame coverage by the NFL Today crew: Irv Cross, Jayne Kennedy, Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, and Jack Whitaker, plus guest analyst George Allen. Remote reports came from bars in the teams’ home markets: Paul Hornung filed from The Ginger Man in Beverly Hills, and Tim Ryan from the LeMont Restaurant in Pittsburgh. Dick Stockton conducted interviews in the Los Angeles Rams locker room. Television ratings for 1980 were the second-highest in NFL history, behind only the combined ratings of 1976. All three networks saw gains: NBC’s 15.0 rating was its best ever, while CBS and ABC posted their highest ratings since 1977, at 15.3 and 20.8 respectively. Beginning with the 1980 season, CBS often used the opening guitar riff of Heart’s “Crazy on You” to transition to commercial breaks.