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Behind The Scenes: The NFL Today, 1975

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

Behind The Scenes: The NFL Today, 1975

I had planned to do this story today anyway, but over the weekend, Dave Miller posted a great video to go with it. In the clip, we go to CBS Studio 45 at the Broadcast Center, BUT, don’t skip over the story below.

CBS veteran Gady Reinhold and I have had a few conversations about this live show and how complex it is to produce. With sometimes as many as 4 early games and 4 late games, the trick is to line up the half time breaks so they can all go back to NY at the around the same time. Remember, each game is being fed to different regions and time zones on separate channels.

The least complex way to get at least 2 games into the live half time show was to have the game announcers pad for time with a review of the first half on their end while waiting for another game or two to break if they were only a couple of minutes ahead.

Just like in the video attached here, each halftime show has a built in, prerecorded feature in the second part. If the game breaks for halftime too early, Studio 45 can feed the feature first and that game can join the live studio session after the feature, or, get a delayed tape feed of the live segment.

The live portion would include comments on all the games being covered, was being recorded on several machines as they went, starting with the first 2 games to break. They would record the live A block till the fist commercial break on 2 machines, rewind and be ready for play back when the other games joined. The live B and C blocks would be done the same way on other machines. The D and E blocks were the prerecorded features.

Once the early games were over, there were the late games to do. Lather, rinse, repeat. Needless to say, this took a lot of instant communication and some very talented people to pull off.

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4 responses to “Behind The Scenes: The NFL Today, 1975”

  1. Gayle DePoli

    Those were good times. In Captain Kangaroo’s studio with most of his crew.

  2. Val Ginter

    I monitored the NFL games at 51 W 52 during the ’68 and ’69 seasons. There was an NFL Manual that served as a guide book for the producers, directors, announcers, etc. For example, “Time out on the field and the score is…” was a cue for directors across the country to roll their commercials. Otherwise, if the announcer simply said, “Well, it looks like they’re taking a time out,” that was not a cue and you were to stay with the game. It was quite complicated to coordinate the commercials that went into all the games since games were sold as either A-games or B-games with their own sets of commercials. People tried to pay me off to see those games that were blacked out in New York, but the only people in my office–in addition to me–were CBS security, which patrolled the building in their stocking feet.

  3. Steve Byrd

    The “NFL Today” set in Studio 45, with Brent Musberger, Phyllis George and Irv Cross, was billed as “CBS Sports Center” in the 1975 season, then renamed “CBS Sports Control” for 1976-80 before an overhaul, in both studio and sports department management, prior to the 1981 season.

  4. Vance Piccin

    Great story. Loved the full NFL Films treatment in the video, complete with the voice of John Facenda.

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