The last time ABC telecast a Super Bowl, the whole nation was watching. But not because of the football game. The Persian Gulf war had started just days earlier and a patriotic fervor swept over Tampa, the 1991 site, as well as the network.
Instead of a two-hour pregame show, ABC News took much of the time for war updates. “The war was the primary focus,” says pregame producer Curt Gowdy Jr. It “took precedence.”
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Most remember Whitney Houston’s dramatic version of the national anthem. Brent Musburger, then as now host of the pregame show, recalls the security.
“I remember going through metal detectors at 8 o’clock in the morning,” says Musburger. “And I remember a meeting with security officials. They told us, `We can cordon off the (broadcast) booth fairly well. But Brent, in that field-level studio, if you should be taken hostage’-that kind of snapped me to attention-`try to move yourself away because we’ve got a sniper who can hit anyone in the stadium.’ “
Things should be back to normal Sunday, including a pregame show that will include the usual team features as well as live shots from Antarctica to San Diego. That’s something for which game telecast producer Ken Wolfe is grateful.
“It’s nice just to have a football game as the main ingredient,” Wolfe says. “Obviously, the last Super Bowl (on ABC) was played against quite a backdrop. I’d prefer it this way than the way it was last time.”
Wolfe remembers the conditions as being “very bizarre. Between the security searches and the unknown of what was going on (in Kuwait), it was a very strange background. There was a real obvious lack of significance for a football game.”
Analyst Frank Gifford says the seriousness of the circumstances didn’t set in until the morning of the game when the broadcasters met with a SWAT unit and were told how to react if they were “taken.”
“I looked at (the security officer) and said, `Taken?’ ” recalls Gifford. “What they were referring to was in the event of an attempt to kidnap one or all three of us. I thought, `My God, what are we getting into? This is a football game.’ It was very, very odd.”
Analyst Dan Dierdorf, too, remembers that security meeting as “sobering. They talked to us about the likely scenario if (some group) stormed the booth and took us hostage during the telecast. There were snipers on the other side of Tampa Stadium with line-of-sight into our booth.
“We were getting lessons on how to be hostages and how to gain separation and how to let your body go limp. I’m looking down at myself and then looking at Frank and at Al (Michaels) and I’m envisioning bullets flying around our booth. I’m wondering who’s going to get hit, and figuring out right away it’s going to be me.”
Super radio: For those who won’t be around a TV set Sunday, CBS Radio will feed its English-language broadcast with Jack Buck and Hank Stram to WMVP-AM and its Spanish-language broadcast with Rene Giraldo, Jessi Losada, Armando Quintero and Fuad Reveiz to WTAQ-AM. Both programs will start at 4:45 p.m. Buck is prepared for the worst-case scenario of a blowout. “You usually prepare as heavily as possible for a game of this magnitude, knowing you’ll only use about 20 percent of it,” he says. This time, “I anticipate using all the information.”
Other Super stuff: In addition to its TV coverage, ABC also is going interactive, offering a special Super Bowl program-complete with updated game stats and photos-through America Online. . . . As expected, ESPN is throwing most of its resources at Miami, including 27 reporters and eight special telecasts, from live coverage of Commissioner Paul Tagliabue’s “State of the League” address at 10:30 a.m. Friday to the initial “NFL GameDay” postgame show following ABC’s telecast. . . . ESPN2 will put its spin on the weekend with tape-delay coverage of the annual flag-football game at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in addition to having “SportsNight” anchor Suzy Kolber joining reporters Hank Goldberg and “Downtown” Julie Brown in Miami. . . . ABC and ESPN aren’t the only networks with blanket coverage. Beginning Friday night, TNT will have several hours of NFL-related programming, including five hours, co-produced by the league, of “Super Bowl Television on TNT,” hosted by CNN Sports anchor Fred Hickman. The two-hour “Super Bowl Insider” airs at 9:30 p.m. Friday, the “Super Bowl Awards” show is at 9 p.m. Saturday and “Super Bowl Tailgate Party” is at 1 p.m. Sunday. . . . NFL Films is busy this weekend with the weekly “This Is the NFL” at 10 a.m. Sunday on WFLD-Ch. 32, featuring Super Bowl III hero Joe Namath, and the annual “Road to the Super Bowl” special, recapping the season, at 6 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 a.m. Sunday on WLS-Ch. 7. . . . Steelers QB Neil O’Donnell and Dolphins coach Don Shula share their Super Bowl thoughts on “Inside the NFL” at 6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday on HBO. . . . Even “Lesbigay Radio Chicago,” heard Sundays mornings on WCBR-FM, is getting into the act by co-sponsoring a Super Bowl party with Interactive Network at the North End tavern, 3733 N. Halsted.
Other stuff: Co-host Willow Bay interviews Bulls forward Toni Kukoc on “NBA Inside Stuff” at 11 a.m. Saturday on WMAQ-Ch. 5. . . . Channel 5 also will have a special postgame show after the Bulls-Warriors game Sunday, followed by yet more Shaq hype called “NBA Special: Shaquille O’Neal.”