Editing NFL on CBS (section)

===1960s===
[[1960 NFL season|1960]] saw the addition of a new team to the NFL in the form of the [[1960 Dallas Cowboys season|Dallas Cowboys]]. At this point, out of the 13 NFL teams, 10 were aligned with CBS. Two joined forces with NBC (the [[1960 Baltimore Colts season|Colts]] and the [[1960 Pittsburgh Steelers season|Steelers]]) and one (the [[1960 Cleveland Browns season|Browns]]) rejoined its partner, the syndicated Sports Network. Also, the Chicago Cardinals moved to [[1960 St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) season|St Louis]]. So both the expansion Cowboys and relocated Cardinals would cut severely into the monstrous Chicago CBS Network. A silver lining of this however was that [[WBBM-TV|WBBM]] viewers would at least, be able to see at least away games of their [[1960 Chicago Bears season|Bears]] on television, after being virtually shut out from pro football telecasts for years.

[[1961 NFL season|1961]] would serve as the final year that each NFL team would be on their own for television coverage. CBS had 11 teams under contract, including the expansion [[1961 Minnesota Vikings|Minnesota Vikings]]. NBC continued to televise 13 Sundays involving either the [[1961 Baltimore Colts season|Colts]] and [[1961 Pittsburgh Steelers season|Steelers]] (the odd week was when [[Major League Baseball on NBC|NBC]] had the [[1961 World Series|World Series]]) and the [[1961 Cleveland Browns season|Browns]] again had their deal with Carling Beer and the Sports Network (SNI, forerunner to the Hughes Sports Network). On September 17, 1961, [[CBS Sports]] broadcast the first remote 15-minute pre-game show, the first of its kind on network sports television; ''[[The NFL Today|Pro Football Kickoff]]'' originated from NFL stadiums around the country with a comprehensive look at all the day's games.

Then-CBS affiliate [[WISN-TV]] (channel 12, now an [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] affiliate) in [[Milwaukee]] opted not to carry that 1961's annual telecast of ''[[The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', running a [[1961 Green Bay Packers season|Green Bay Packers]] football game instead. In contrast to the infamous ''[[Heidi Game|Heidi]]'' telecast in [[1968 American Football League season|1968]], the popularity of ''The Wizard of Oz'' [[The Wizard of Oz on television|as an annual television event]] at that time was such that the station ran the movie locally at a later date.

====The end of each team having its own TV coverage====
In [[1962 NFL season|1962]], the NFL followed the [[American Football League]]'s (AFL) suit with its own revenue sharing plan after CBS agreed to telecast all regular season games for an annual fee of US$4.65 million. CBS also acquired the rights to the championship games for [[1964 NFL Championship Game|1964]] and [[1965 NFL Championship Game|1965]] for $1.8 million per game, on April 17, 1964.

CBS executive vice president [[James T. Aubrey, Jr.]], who on May 9, 1963, warned the network's affiliates the high cost of rights for professional sports could price them off television, nevertheless in January 1964 agreed to pay $28.2 million to air [[National Football League]] games for two years, spanning 17 games each season. In an interview with ''[[The New York Times]]'', Aubrey said regarding the package, "We know how much these games mean to the viewing audience, our affiliated stations, and the nation's advertisers". Along with obtaining the aforementioned rights to the NFL Championship Game, in April 1964, he agreed to extend the deal for another year for a total of $31.8 million.<ref>{{cite news|title=C.B.S. Relents: Ignores Own Warning on Spiraling Costs.|author=Val Adams|work=[[The New York Times]]|page=X17|date=April 26, 1964}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=C.B.S.-TV to Pay $28.2 Million For 2-Year Pro Football Rights.|author=Val Adams|work=The New York Times|page=1|date=January 25, 1964}}</ref> With this deal, CBS now had full rights to air all of the NFL's games.

====The fallout from the JFK assassination====
On November 24, 1963, just two days after the [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassination]] of [[President of the United States|President]] [[John F. Kennedy]], the NFL played its normal schedule of games. Commissioner [[Pete Rozelle]] said about playing the games: "It has been traditional in sports for athletes to perform in times of great personal tragedy. Football was Mr. Kennedy's game. He thrived on competition."<ref>{{cite news|title=It's Tradition To Carry on, Rozelle Says|author=Dave Brady|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=November 24, 1963|page=C2}}</ref> No NFL games were telecast (CBS Chairman [[Bill Paley]] ordered no telecasts of any NFL games played during the period of mourning), since on the afternoon of November 22, just after Kennedy had been pronounced dead, CBS President [[Frank Stanton (executive)|Frank Stanton]] ordered that all regular programming be pre-empted until after Kennedy was buried at his [[State funeral of John F. Kennedy|funeral procession]]. Normal programming, including the NFL, was replaced by non-stop [[CBS News|news coverage]], broadcast without commercials.

====Half and half format====
In [[1964 NFL season|1964]], CBS experimented with a "half-and-half" format for their announcers. The first half of each telecast would be called by the home teams' commentators while the second half would be done by the visitors' commentators (this practice would later be revived decades later by the [[NFL Network]] when replaying [[National Football League exhibition season|preseason games]] that were broadcast by local stations as opposed to a national network). Also in 1964, CBS ditched the concept of using pooled video and split audio feeds. In [[1962 NFL season|1962]] and [[1963 NFL season|1963]], CBS would provide separate audio for a telecast (for instance, if the [[Green Bay Packers]] hosted the [[Chicago Bears]], the telecast would have the same video, Chicago area viewers watching on [[WBBM-TV]] would hear [[Red Grange]] and [[George Connor (American football)|George Connor]] call the action; meanwhile, viewers in [[Milwaukee]] and other parts of [[Wisconsin]] — [[Green Bay, Wisconsin|Green Bay]] itself was blacked out — would hear [[Ray Scott (sportscaster)|Ray Scott]] and [[Tony Canadeo]] describe the game). Ray Scott was not a fan of the separate audio concept and temporarily left CBS for a job calling a regional slate of [[college football]] games for NBC. Ultimately, CBS dumped the four-man crew and resumed the 1962–63 method for the great majority of games in [[1965 NFL season|1965]], [[1966 NFL season|1966]] and [[1967 NFL season|1967]].

CBS' afternoon [[NFL preseason|exhibition]] telecast of [[1965 Dallas Cowboys season|Dallas]] vs. [[1965 San Francisco 49ers season|San Francisco]] on August 21, 1965, was interrupted by coverage of the [[Gemini V]] blastoff, which resulted in a healthy amount of angry phone calls from fans. The game (called by [[John Roach (American football)|John Roach]], [[Frank Glieber]], and [[Gordy Soltau]]) was subsequently broadcast on [[Broadcast delay|tape-delay]] basis the following afternoon in a number of cities due to the late start. The August 26 exhibition game between [[1965 Baltimore Colts season|Baltimore]]-[[1965 Cleveland Browns season|Cleveland]] game (called by Glieber and [[Pat Summerall]]) however was not tape-delayed. it was the nightcap of [[Art Modell]]'s exhibition doubleheader that ran from [[1962 Cleveland Browns season|1962]]-[[1971 Cleveland Browns season|71]].

On November 25, 1965 ([[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving Day]]), CBS featured the first [[Color television|color broadcast]] of a regular-season NFL game, the traditional Thanksgiving Day game at [[1965 Detroit Lions season|Detroit]]. It was only the second time that the network's first color mobile unit had been used (it had been used a month earlier to cover the attempted launch of an [[Atlas-Agena]], which was to have been the rendezvous target for the [[Gemini 6]] space mission). Only a handful of games during the rest of the season were shown in color, along with the [[NFL playoffs, 1965|NFL Western Conference Playoff]], the [[1965 NFL Championship Game|NFL Championship Game]],<ref>{{cite web|title=CBS TV audio from 1965 NFL Championship game|url=http://www.classictvsports.com/2014/01/cbs-tv-audio-from-1965-nfl-championship.html|website=Classic TV Sports|date=January 23, 2014|access-date=January 29, 2014}}</ref> the [[Playoff Bowl]] and the [[1965 Pro Bowl|Pro Bowl]]. In 1966, most of the network's NFL games were broadcast in color, and by [[1968 NFL season|1968]], all of the network's NFL telecasts were in color.

On December 29, 1965, CBS acquired the rights to the NFL regular season games in 1966 and 1967, with an option to extend the contract through [[1968 NFL season|1968]], for $18.8 million per year (in sharp contrast to the $14.1 million per year it paid for the rights in 1964). On February 14, 1966, the rights to the [[1966 NFL Championship Game|1966]] and [[1967 NFL Championship Game]]s (the Ice Bowl) were sold to CBS for $2 million per game. 1967 also marked the last year that CBS had separate commentator crews for each team for about 90% to 95% of their NFL games.

====The beginning of the Super Bowl era====
For the [[1966 NFL season|1966 season]], CBS featured a number of regular season games in [[Color television|color]], stepping up from the sole regular season color telecast in 1965, including all postseason games. The Week 1 game between [[1966 Baltimore Colts season|Baltimore]] and [[1966 Green Bay Packers season|Green Bay]] was a national Saturday night telecast. Ray Scott and Pat Summerall called the first half, while Chuck Thompson and Summerall worked the second half. This was a black and white telecast. With Summerall working the Green Bay-Baltimore game and with the [[1966 Dallas Cowboys season|Cowboys]] idle, [[Eddie LeBaron]] filled in for Summerall on the [[1966 Cleveland Browns season|Cleveland]]-[[1966 Washington Redskins season|Washington]] game (alongside [[Jim Gibbons (sportscaster)|Jim Gibbons]]) for Redskins viewers. Frank Glieber and Warren Lahr called the game for Browns viewers. With [[Lowell Perry]]<ref>{{Cite news
  | last = Eisenberg
  | first = Jeff
  | title = A Dream Deferred
  | newspaper = The Press-Enterprise
  | date = January 31, 2007
| url = http://www.pe.com/sports/football/stories/PE_Sports_Local_D_sbowl_perry_31.264b35b.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110520020302/http://www.pe.com/sports/football/stories/PE_Sports_Local_D_sbowl_perry_31.264b35b.html| archive-date = May 20, 2011}}</ref> as analyst for the [[1966 Pittsburgh Steelers season|Pittsburgh]] network in 1966 alongside Joe Tucker, October 2 (where the Steelers played against the Redskins) was most likely the first time ever an [[African-American]] was in the television booth as on-air talent for a pro football telecast. In Week 5, Pat Summerall was called upon to work Green Bay-[[1966 San Francisco 49ers season|San Francisco]] [[Doubleheader (television)|doubleheader]] game with Ray Scott. While Scott and feature analyst Summerall worked the telecast for national viewing audience, CBS used local audio for San Francisco network with Bob Fouts and Gordy Soltau. Meanwhile, for the [[1966 Atlanta Falcons season|Atlanta]]-Washington game, Jim Gibbons worked with [[Johnny Sauer]] for first half while [[Ed Thilenius]] worked with Sauer for second half.

In Week 11 of the 1966 season, the [[1966 Philadelphia Eagles season|Philadelphia]]-San Francisco game was a regional telecast with a single audio feed. San Francisco play-by-play announcer Bob Fouts worked with Philadelphia analyst [[Tom Brookshier]], while [[Chick Hearn]] was called in for [[CBS Broadcast Center|CBS Control]] duty. For that year's Thanksgiving Day game, CBS aired a "day/twilight" doubleheader that were both in color. For the San Francisco-Detroit game, Van Patrick and Frank Gifford called the first half while Bob Fouts and Gifford worked the second half. For the Cleveland-Dallas game, Jack Buck and Pat Summerall were on the call for the first half, while Frank Glieber and Summerall announced the second half. Week 12's Green Bay-Minnesota game was the Sunday doubleheader telecast. Hal Scott called the first half, while Ray Scott called the second half. Tony Canadeo was the analyst for the full game and Jim Morse had CBS Control duties. For Week 12, St. Louis-Dallas was the main doubleheader game with Jack Buck and Eddie LeBaron working the first half and Jack Drees and LeBaron calling the second half. 
 
The first [[Super Bowl I|AFL-NFL World Championship Game]] was played on January 15, 1967. Because CBS held the rights to nationally televise NFL games and NBC had the rights to broadcast AFL games, it was decided by the newly merged league to have both of them cover that first game. Ray Scott, [[Jack Whitaker]], Frank Gifford and Pat Summerall called the game for CBS. 39.9 million viewers would watch [[Bart Starr]]'s performance in the game that earned him the [[Super Bowl MVP|MVP]] trophy. NBC did have some problems. The network did not return from a commercial break during [[halftime]] in time for the start of the second half; therefore, the first [[Kickoff (American football)|kickoff]] was stopped by the game's officials and was redone once NBC was back on the air. NBC was also forced to broadcast the game over CBS' feed and cameras (CBS received prerogative to use its feed and camera angles since the [[Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum]] was home to the NFL's [[1966 Los Angeles Rams season|Rams]]). In other words, NBC's crew had little to no control over how the game was shot. The next three AFL-NFL World Championship Games, later renamed the Super Bowl, were then divided by the two networks: CBS televised [[Super Bowl II|Super Bowls II]] and [[Super Bowl IV|IV]] while NBC covered [[Super Bowl III]].

====The Ice Bowl====
The [[1967 NFL Championship Game]] between the [[1967 Green Bay Packers season|Green Bay Packers]] and [[1967 Dallas Cowboys season|Dallas Cowboys]] featured play-by-play being done by [[Ray Scott (sportscaster)|Ray Scott]] for the first half and [[Jack Buck]] for the second half, while [[Frank Gifford]] handled the color commentary for the entire game.<ref>Shropshire, 1997 pg. 173</ref> [[Pat Summerall]] and [[Tom Brookshier]] served as sideline reporters. Gifford and Summerall were intimately aware of the personality differences that existed between Dallas head coach [[Tom Landry]] and Green Bay head coach [[Vince Lombardi]] because they had both played on the New York Giants during Landry's and Lombardi's tenure at the Giants. Over 30 million people would tune in to watch the game.

On third-and-goal at the Dallas two-foot line with 16 seconds remaining, Green Bay quarterback [[Bart Starr]] went to the sidelines to confer with Lombardi.<ref>Gruver, 1998 pg. 203</ref> Starr had asked right [[Guard (American football)|guard]] [[Jerry Kramer]] whether he could get enough traction on the icy turf for a wedge play, and Kramer responded with an unequivocal yes.<ref>Gruver, 1998 pg. 202</ref> Summerall told the rest of CBS crew to get ready for a roll-out pass, because without any timeouts remaining a failed run play would end the game. Landry would say he expected a rollout pass attempt because an incompletion would stop the clock and allow the Packers one more play on fourth down, either for a touchdown (to win) or a field goal attempt (to tie and send the game into overtime).<ref>Ribowski, 2014 pg. 299</ref> But Green Bay's pass protection on the slick field had been seriously tested during the game; the Cowboys had sacked Starr eight times.<ref>Gruver, 2008 pg. 253</ref>

Frank Gifford recounted in his 1993 autobiography ''The Whole Ten Yards'' that he requested and received permission from CBS producers to go into the losing locker room for on-air post-game interviews—a practice unheard of in that era. Gifford, as a [[New York Giants]] player and a broadcaster, already enjoyed a friendship with [[Don Meredith]], and he approached the quarterback for his thoughts on the game. The exhausted Meredith, in an emotion-choked voice, expressed pride in his teammates' play, and said, in a figurative sense, that he felt the Cowboys did not really lose the game because the effort expended was its own reward. Gifford wrote that the interview attracted considerable attention, and that Meredith's forthcoming and introspective responses played a part in his selection for [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]]'s ''[[Monday Night Football]]'' telecasts three years later.<ref>Gifford and Waters, 1993, pg. 243</ref>

No copy of the complete telecast is known to exist. Some excerpts (such as the announcers' pre-game comments on the field) were saved and are occasionally re-aired in retrospective features. The Cowboys' radio broadcast on [[KLIF (AM)|KLIF]], with [[Bill Mercer]] announcing, and the Packers' radio broadcast on [[WTMJ (AM)|WTMJ]], with Ted Moore announcing, still exist.<ref>Gruver, 2002 pg.</ref>

====The beginning of the semi-merit system====
The August 11, 1968, exhibition game between [[1968 Detroit Lions season|Detroit]] and [[1968 Philadelphia Eagles season|Philadelphia]] was originally scheduled for [[Mexico City]], but was cancelled due to growing [[Mexican Movement of 1968|student demonstrations]] on August 8. The following day, the game was rescheduled to [[Philadelphia]].

When CBS decided to abandon its practice of using dedicated announcing crews for particular teams in [[1968 NFL season|1968]], the network instituted a semi-merit system in its place, with certain crews (such as Ray Scott and [[Paul Christman]] or [[Jack Buck]] and Pat Summerall) being assigned to each week's most prominent games regardless of the participating teams.

On December 22, 1968, CBS interrupted coverage of a [[NFL playoffs, 1968|Western Conference championship game]] between the [[1968 Minnesota Vikings season|Minnesota Vikings]] and [[1968 Baltimore Colts season|Baltimore Colts]] in order to show a broadcast from inside the [[Apollo 8]] spacecraft, headed towards the Moon (the first manned space mission to orbit the Moon, and a major step towards the lunar landing the following July). The interruption began approximately three minutes before halftime of the game, and lasted 17 minutes. CBS showed highlights of the missed action (in which neither team scored) when the network returned to football coverage; nonetheless, the network received approximately 3,000 complaints after the game.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, CBS used a [[marching band]]-like instrumental arrangement of the song "Confidence" (from [[Leon Carr]]'s score for the 1964 [[off-Broadway]] musical ''[[The Secret Life of Walter Mitty#Stage adaptations|The Secret Life of Walter Mitty]]'') as the theme for their NFL broadcasts.

With 1969 being the final season before the [[AFL–NFL merger]], this was also the final season where both leagues would have Thanksgiving doubleheaders. Starting in [[1970 NFL season|1970]], only two games would be played on [[NFL on Thanksgiving Day|Thanksgiving]], with the [[1970 Detroit Lions season|Lions]] and [[1970 Dallas Cowboys season|Cowboys]] hosting those games, and an AFC team rotating as the visiting team between Detroit and Dallas every year.

====Monday night games on CBS====
During the early 1960s, NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle envisioned the possibility of playing at least one game weekly during [[prime time]] for a greater television audience. An early bid by ABC in 1964 to have the league play a weekly game on Friday nights was abandoned, with critics charging that such telecasts would damage the attendance at [[high school football|high school games]]. Undaunted, Rozelle decided to experiment with the concept of playing on Monday night, scheduling the [[1964 Green Bay Packers season|Green Bay Packers]] and [[1964 Detroit Lions season|Detroit Lions]] for a game on September 28, 1964. While the game was not televised, it drew a sellout crowd of 59,203 spectators to [[Tiger Stadium (Detroit)|Tiger Stadium]], the largest crowd to watch a professional football game in [[Detroit]] up to that point.

Two years later, Rozelle would build on this success as the NFL began a four-year experiment of playing on Monday night, scheduling a total of five Monday night games on CBS from 1966 to 1969 (including two in 1968).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/10/31/page/69/article/ex-neighbors-will-tangle-in-st-louis|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1967/10/31/page/41/article/green-bays-late-surge-wins-31-23|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers|date=May 27, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1968/09/17/page/55/article/los-angeles-deals-cards-24-13-loss|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers|date=May 27, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1968/10/29/page/49|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers|date=May 27, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1969/10/28/page/47/article/cowboys-harass-fran-frustrate-giants-25-to-3|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers|date=May 27, 2023 }}</ref> The first prime-time telecast on CBS was on Saturday night, September 10, 1966, with the [[1966 Baltimore Colts season|Baltimore Colts]] opening the season against the [[1966 Green Bay Packers season|Green Bay Packers]] at [[Milwaukee County Stadium|Milwaukee]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1966/09/10/page/91/article/packers-and-colts-open-1966-n-f-l-season-tonight|title=Chicago Tribune - Historical Newspapers|date=May 27, 2023 }}</ref> The first Monday night national telecast was on October 31, 1966, with the [[1966 St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) season|St. Louis Cardinals]] winning at home over the [[1966 Chicago Bears season|Chicago Bears]], 24–17.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/196610310crd.htm|title = Chicago Bears at St. Louis Cardinals - October 31st, 1966|website = [[Pro-Football-Reference.com]]}}</ref> NBC followed suit in [[List of American Football League seasons#1968 .5B9.5D|1968]] and [[List of American Football League seasons#1969 .5B10.5D|1969]] with games involving [[American Football League|AFL]] teams.

The Chicago-St. Louis game on October 31, 1966, was a national Monday night telecast except in St. Louis. [[Jack Drees]] and [[Frank Gifford]] called the first half and [[Lindsey Nelson]] and Gifford did the second half. This was almost certainly the first NFL prime time game ever televised in [[Color television|color]]. The Green Bay-St. Louis game from a year later on October 30 was likewise, also a prime time "coast to coast" telecast. Jack Drees again did play-by-play for the first half, while this time, [[Ray Scott (sportscaster)|Ray Scott]] did play-by-play for the second half, and [[Frank Gifford]] was the analyst for the full game.

During subsequent negotiations on a television contract that would begin in [[1970 NFL season|1970]], Rozelle concentrated on signing a weekly Monday night deal with one of the three major networks. After sensing reluctance from both NBC and CBS in disturbing their regular programming schedules, Rozelle spoke with ABC.

Despite the network's status as the lowest-[[Nielsen ratings|rated]] network, ABC was also reluctant to enter the risky venture. Only after the independent [[Hughes Sports Network]], an entity bankrolled by reclusive businessman [[Howard Hughes]] showed interest, did ABC sign a contract for the scheduled games. Speculation was that had Rozelle signed with Hughes, many ABC affiliates would have pre-empted the network's Monday lineup in favor of the games, severely damaging potential ratings. There was even talk that one or two ABC [[owned-and-operated station]]s would have ditched the network feed to carry the games.