The Dallas Cowboys and Buffalo Bills aren’t the only repeaters from last year’s Super Bowl. NBC is back, too. Through a clause in the previous TV contract, the game was awarded to ABC, CBS and NBC on a rotating basis-except for this one, which was open for bidding by all three networks.
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When NBC showed the only interest (and backed it up with the $40 million the league’s TV committee thought the championship game was worth), the NFL had little trouble making the network the first to televise two straight Super Bowls since CBS did I and II.
Lucky NBC-stuck with the rematch from hell.
Or is it?
Tommy Roy, NBC Sports’ executive producer, certainly isn’t preparing for another 35-point rout. In the now-standard two-hour pregame show, for instance, Bob Costas will interview the Cowboys’ Dynamic Duo of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson. Together. And there’ll be the semi-obligatory features on Leon Lett, Bruce Smith and the ’69 Jets. Bill Cosby will add his own humorous touch to the slapstick comedy of Paul Maguire and Cris Collinsworth playing the “NFL Experience” games.
“The Super Bowl has turned into a happening,” said Roy. “It’s almost an American holiday. We look at it as the biggest television show that’s going to air on the NBC network for the next two years. We’re treating it as a spectacle-and as a game.”
Part of that treatment includes nearly two dozen cameras covering the field and the locker-room areas. Six of those are “Hot Head” remote-control cameras operated by a local company, Fletcher Chicago, in cooperation with NBC director John Gonzalez.
Except for the new cameras, “we’re not going to do it a whole lot different from last year,” added Roy. “The production people and the announcers are all in place from last year, which was a very good telecast.”
That “very good telecast” couldn’t overcome the lopsided result. But despite the 52-17 score, the telecast was the most-watched Super Bowl in history (estimated at 133,400,000) and the 10th-highest rated sports event of all-time (45.1 rating with a 66 share).
How many of those viewers will return for Sunday’s telecast?
“The Super Bowl, in a way, is almost a narcotic in that you can’t get away from it,” said NBC play-by-play man Dick Enberg. “It drags you in whether you want to do other things or not. If it’s a competitive game, it’ll knock the roof off the ratings again.”
Enberg’s partner, Bob Trumpy, went further to predict “if Buffalo has a chance to win late in the second half, this is going to be like the U.S. Olympic hockey team (in 1980), which dragged people to the television late. If we’re fortunate enough that it is close, the late-game numbers are going to be unbelievable. People will stop what they’re doing to look for a television set with the prospect of Buffalo winning.”
Hank Stram, who will team with Jack Buck for the 14th straight year on CBS Radio’s bowl coverage, said: “The game last year isn’t any indication of what the game is going to be like this year. The Bills are a totally different team.”
If not, there’s always eight hours of “Andy Griffith Show” reruns on TBS.
Super Charles: Not all the programming on NBC Sunday will be football-oriented. “NBA Inside Stuff’ presents a half-hour special on Charles Barkley at 2 p.m. on WMAQ-Ch. 5 following the Suns-Celtics game. “If there’s anyone calling for a special, it’s Charles,” said NBA Entertainment’s Don Sperling. And how does Barkley feel about the Michael Jordan-like attention? “It’s been fun working with (the producers),” he said. “It’s been a great ride in the NBA, and it’s fun to sit back and rehash everything. It’s fun seeing highlights and old plays. It brings back a lot of good memories.”
Other Super notes: The B-52s and halftime entertainer Travis Tritt will headline TNT’s “Super Bowl Saturday Night” at 7 p.m. Super Bowl Eve (not yet designated an official holiday). TNT’s “Stadium Show” crew of Bob Neal, Kevin Kiley and Craig Sager will host the 90-minute special that includes the presentation of several NFL awards. . . . Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, Howie Long and Deion Sanders discuss role models and the NFL on “Both Sides with Jesse Jackson” at 4:30, p.m. Saturday on CNN. . . . Both Interactive Network and the interactive “QB1” game will have links to the game. . . . On the advertising front (and what other purpose does the game really have?), Reebok, with the cooperation of NFL Films, will shoot a “live” commercial during the game that will be edited on-site and broadcast during the fourth quarter.
Still more Super notes: Among the zillion or so overhyped Super Bowl-related shows this week on WMAQ-Ch. 5 are “Which Way to the Super Bowl?” a so-called “youth-oriented” special produced by the NFL and featuring Red Johnny and The Round Guy (who prove in the opening how truly untalented they are) at 2 p.m. Saturday and the more traditional “Road to the Super Bowl,” hosted by NFL Films’ Steve Sabol at 10 a.m. Sunday. . . . Jan Wannstedt, wife of the Bears’ coach, co-hosts “Sports Page” at 10 a.m. Friday on WMVP-AM, with husband Dave probably one of the guests. . . . And SportsChannel may have the last word on Super Bowl XXVIII with “Coca-Cola BIG TV at the Super Bowl: Post-Game Show” at 10:30 p.m. Sunday. The two-hour program-part of a seven-hour project costing Atlanta-based Coke $1.6 million to sponsor-is produced by former CBS Sports executive Ted Shaker and stars a slew of soon-to-be-former CBS announcers: Pat O’Brien, Terry Bradshaw, Lesley Visser and Jim Gray.