RIP John Madden

[infrared41]

11 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I remember that switch too. It was strange how it happened, but I wonder if they are bastard cousins. Here in San Antonio, Fox, CBS and NBC are all in the same building. That wasn't the case with Cleveland, as far as I remember. Then there was WUAB who were the PBS lite station that seemed to survive because they had Cavs and Indians games on the network and Ohio State basketball.

 

WOIO and WUAB are owned by the same company now.

[infrared41]

10 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

Holy balls - I just happened to catch the end of Band of Brothers, and one of the people they interviewed at the end was Edward "Babe" Heffron.  I did a quick google search and saw he was from South Philadelphia, so I did another search and it turns out he was Blue Meanie's grandfather!

 

If you haven't already, you should watch the entire series. It's excellent. There's another guy from South Philly in it named Bill Guarnere. He and Heffron become good friends in the series. Probably in real life too.

[BBTV]

28 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

If you haven't already, you should watch the entire series. It's excellent. There's another guy from South Philly in it named Bill Guarnere. He and Heffron become good friends in the series. Probably in real life too.

I’ve been meaning to. I have access to it now so it’s definitely in the queue. It looks really well done. 

[MilSox]

On 12/29/2021 at 11:32 AM, infrared41 said:

 

Most of you guys are probably too young to remember this, but FOX getting the NFL was seen by many as a disaster waiting to happen. I remember a lot of "FOX is barely a network" talk. People were worried that FOX NFL broadcasts would be too much like FOX programming. Think XFL version one meets Melrose Place. (You kinda had to be there, but it was a fair point) There was also the issue of FOX not having as many affiliates as CBS and most FOX affiliates being on UHF. That meant the majority of their affiliates were on UHF channels like 68 and 36 instead of the more desirable and easier to pick up over the air VHF channels like 3,5,8, etc. (It was still a thing back then) Getting Summerall and Madden gave FOX NFL broadcasts instant credibility.

 

EDIT: Madden and Summerall  gave the FOX broadcasts credibility, but the FOX score bug was another matter. Hard as it may be to believe today, people lost their -ing minds over that score bug. They hated it. Said it was distracting, took away from the broadcast, covered too much of the screen, and so on. Imagine taking it way today.

 

Fun fact: My first game at Lambeau was in December 1993 against the LA Raiders. The Lambeau Leap game. I still remember when a very drunk guy behind me got annoyed at a TV time out and screamed "CBS YOU SUCK WORSE THAN FOX!!!"

[MilSox]

On 12/29/2021 at 1:54 PM, slapshot said:

I'll repeat what I tweeted...aside from the Sabols (Ed & Steve), no one did more to expand the popularity of the NFL outside of its hardcore audience than John Madden. Between his knowledgable-but-everyman personality in the broadcast booth,  his name on the most successful line of sports video games, and his willingness to poke fun at himself in numerous branding campaigns and commercials, the popularity and reach of the NFL would not be where it is without him.

 

I don't think there's another name for another sport who has done as much as he has to spread their sports popularity as much as he has. Maybe Michael Jordan with the NBA, but the sport was already very popular even before he came into the league. Possibly Babe Ruth?

 

I feel like Joe Namath has to be in that discussion. Whenever someone questions why he's in the HOF, I point out how necessary he was in making the NFL a part of mainstream pop culture. There's a reason why the Jets were always on MNF when it began. 

 

On 12/30/2021 at 9:26 AM, infrared41 said:

 

According to Wikipedia, 70 stations in 30 markets switched network affiliations after FOX got the NFL package. I don't know if the NFL was the reason for every switch, but it was the reason for a lot of them.

 

New World Media sold a lot of their stations to FOX around that time. WITI in Milwaukee was one of them, so we kept tuning in to channel 6 just like we always had to see the Packers.

 

Contrast that with Green Bay, where thanks to local affiliation switches preceding the FOX deal, they saw the Packers on 4 different local stations in the span of 5 years.

[slapshot]

On 12/30/2021 at 10:26 AM, infrared41 said:

 

According to Wikipedia, 70 stations in 30 markets switched network affiliations after FOX got the NFL package. I don't know if the NFL was the reason for every switch, but it was the reason for a lot of them.

 

I was on a trip to DC back in 1994, and I remember seeing a lot of local commercials talking about the then-upcoming switch.

 

I know the Fox thing didn't affect Boston much...Fox was still a UHF affiliate. But even lower-number UHF channels had better reception than higher-number ones. Channel 25 was much less staticky than 38 and 56 (both of which covered local sports before moving full-time to cable stations), even though its antenna was further away. The two Boston VHF affiliates that switched were CBS and NBC, so Patriots games moved to a different local channel with the network that covered AFC games. Fox has been on channel 25 in the Boston area since its inception in 1986.

NBC, however, bought and formed their own network channel in Boston, so the channel that became NBC back in 1995 became an independent station in 2017. Aside from local news, it only carries syndicated programming now.

[Sykotyk]

In Pittsburgh, Fox stayed with WPGH 53. While KDKA was still 2.

 

Interesting, was that Youngstown, Ohio only had NBC, CBS, and ABC. So, the ABC station did double-duty. On Sundays, WYTV-33 ABC would air the Fox games (either one or two, but usually 2).

 

It was interesting, as I grew up just across the border in PA. Our local cable got the three Youngstown channels, but also got WUAB out of Cleveland and KDKA (CBS 2) and WPGH (Fox 53) out of Pittsburgh. When CBS took over the AFC package from NBC, this gave me 4 NFL games, usually, a weekend.  The Browns and Steelers games on CBS, and since Youngstown wasn't a market with a team, they'd have two games in the other time slot. Pittsburgh, then, would have another game in the other timeslot opposite the Steelers game. And usually a different game than Ohio (since The OH/PA line is always seen as the switch from Midwest to Atlantic regions for coverage in a lot of sports).

 

It was a shock when I moved to Pittsburgh briefly when the Steelers game would be the only game on when it was played, and then only a single game in the other time slot. No channel surfing.

[Red Comet]

I’m too young to remember UHF as anything other than the title of a Weird Al vehicle. So all this discussion is certainly interesting. On another note: