Professional Football Researchers Association Forum
PFRA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the history of professional football. Formed in 1979, PFRA members include many of the game's foremost historians and writers.
Crazy Packers Fan wrote: ↑Fri Nov 24, 2023 3:49 pm
John Madden's greatest legacy is the video game. By putting his name on the video game, he legitimized it, while forcing EA Sports to have 11 players per team or else he wasn't doing it. The video game exploded in popularity, and now (even with the annual cries of how the game stinks) it is a cultural phenomenon and one of the main ways youngsters learn football. Kids today aren't getting into football because of the coaches (which Madden was), or because of the announcers (which Madden was). It's the video game that pulls them in. And the video game never becomes big without Madden's name on it.
I don't play modern Madden games, but from what I hear, it seems like kids are more obsessed with buying these Ultimate Team cards than actually playing the game.
The complainers are right, though. It does suck (you would be better off getting an old electric football table).
He was this big burly guy who came across as goofy and harmless...a bit of an oddball but in an endearing way. He did go over the top and play up that Madden cartoon character personality much like Terry Bradshaw did when going from CBS to FOX. He always seemed to have funny and sometimes bizarre random stories and facts, sometimes about things that had very little (or nothing to do) with football. Kind of a Cliff Clavin side to his personality.
Honestly I've never heard of him being a jerk to anyone. Not saying it didn't happen but Madden never seemed to have any kind of dark personal side to him. Maybe there was one...but he lived a very long public life (part of it was the ultimate outlaw team) and came out of it pretty much unscathed
One thing is for sure ... he put Fox Sports on the map, when they bought the NFC package in 1994. All those people went from CBS to Fox because of John Madden. They didnt have to, they all could have went to other networks but decided to keep a winning team going. John brought his competitive nature to both networks and surely rubbed some people the wrong way but his popularity remained. CBS finally got the AFC package, as NBC went without football until Sunday nights but I miss the NFC-AFC rivalry between the networks.
Madden, to me, is a deserving top-tier First Ballot Hall of Famer! Even if he as a HC alone wouldn't (or maybe still would) grant him such status, its the he as a HC, he in the booth, and the video game (and don't forget books of his) that'd then at least make him a multi-purpose deserving First Ballot Canton resident!
If a Martian lands on Earth and says, "Introduce me to a true-blue 'football' guy!", yeah...you know WHO! And it's unanimous! NFL Films catapulted the product to what its been for decades since it surpassed baseball. Well John Madden further tightened things up once his post-coaching career took off! Any chance of baseball ever having..."caught back up" - or basketball or hockey (or...soccer) deciding to make a run - would be stunted in the bud from ever happening. Yes, it begins with the Sabols. But Madden's persona carried it all the further and further!
What I also think is cool is that he growing up in the Bay Area, the alley that he and his childhood friends played at was named, 'Madden Alley'. Or it may have been named, 'Madden Field'; not 100% certain. But having grown up in a neighborhood with 30 kids who all played sports and there being a basketball court (in a parking lot) named after the family that lived closest to, and a sandlot named after the family who lived closest to (even if, in each case, the family didn't put up the net nor actually own the sandlot property respectively), it makes me imagine if either family member would go on to be a big sports icon - and here, even in early-childhood, he or she already had something sports-related named after them!
He and John Robinson being childhood friends, I think, is real cool as well!
I'm sure he wasn't perfect nor an Angel. Then again, nobody else is either. In addition to agreeing with most of these posts, I second the recent post that states how he was very much in the public eye all that time and, basically, nothing eye-raising ever coming up.
He (his Legend) did well.
Growing up as autumn truly starts kicking in, getting ready to usher in winter, sun setting early, most leaves off the trees, the smell of something cooking in the kitchen, hearing John and Pat, smelling NFC football cooking up as well...that forever resonates!
To me NBC will always be the AFC channel and CBS the NFC channel. You knew FOX was gonna cartoon things up when they got the NFC package and go overboard with the graphics, forced comedic skits, over the top personalities and Hollywood nonsense.
Even without Madden I can't see FOX not succeeding. The games were all that mattered and ratings were gonna be huge even if they presented things in a more polished, informative, and professional manner.
One thing I'll never get over is NBC killing NFL Primetime. That was a sacred institution and the best highlight show of all time. Then NBC gets the package and it is forbidden for any other network from showing highlights at that time. So Primetime died and instead we got milquetoast whispering bore Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison. What a downgrade. Eventually Primetime would've run its course but we could've gotten more years out of it
NBC acquired the rights to Sunday Night Football in 2006, effectively killing NFL Primetime on ESPN. The Peacock is permitted to air 60 minutes worth of highlights, something NBC Sports executive Dick Ebersol negotiated into the deal. Ebersol, a friend of Berman’s, made sure ESPN was not allowed the same highlights deal. It was a death sentence for Primetime.
Still, NBC doesn’t utilize most of its highlight allotment. Instead, it focuses mostly on short highlights followed by analysts talking and quick-hitters featuring Mike Florio of NBC-owner Pro Football Talk and Peter King of The MMQB.
NBC didn’t want to use the highlights. They wanted to make sure Berman and Jackson couldn’t.
Madden really owes his big break to Tom Brookshier. Brookshier and Summerall were the "best-oiled" pair in broadcasting, inside and outside the booth. Both guys admitted to starting their weekends on Wednesday. "I figured everybody got up at 10 every morning and had a beer," Summerall liked to say. CBS Sports split the pair up before boozing killed both of them. Brookshier got paired with the saintly Dick Vermiel (sp?) and Summerall spent the next 22 years with Madden. It worked out for all of them.
Thanks for that link to NFL Primetime, sheajets ...
I had forgotten that Primetime lost those rights in 2006. Ebersol had been blamed for the losing the AFL/AFC package, thinking the networks were giving the League and owners way too much money but had to try to save face getting the SNF package. It was smart on his part to take fans away from Primetime, though I liked when ESPN had the package before as well. ABC giving MNF to ESPN was stupid though ...
