Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

When did networks begin to have several hours worth of preview shows before the actual game?

The network pregame for Super Bowl III was a half hour. It grew from there. Checking the 1/18/76 Pittsburgh Press Sunday TV section, the CBS pregame for Super Bowl X was up to 90 minutes.

First Super Bowl I remember watching was XX and that pregame show was at least 3 hours.

I think by Super Bowls XIII and XIV it was up to four hours for the pregame shows. I recall Brent Musberger criticizing NBC's Super Bowl XIII pregame show for spending a long time on the 10th anniversary of the NY Jet victory in Super Bowl III, maybe an hour. Musberger said on his CBS radio show something like "I was expecting Joe Namath and the Jets to take the field."

Rupert Patrick wrote:The network pregame for Super Bowl III was a half hour. It grew from there. Checking the 1/18/76 Pittsburgh Press Sunday TV section, the CBS pregame for Super Bowl X was up to 90 minutes.

I had a memory of the NBA Game of the Week coming on before the Super Bowl. I thought it was the Celtics playing a home game in the Boston Garden. However, looking at Pro Basketball Reference, it shows the Celtics playing on that day but it was at Milwaukee. Can you check and see if that memory of the game being televised before the Super Bowl is correct?

Prior to the first Super Bowl, the Celtics hosted the 76ers in a game that started at 2 Eastern

I can recall postgame articles after Super Bowl XVI (the first SF-Cincy game) complaining about the fact that the two-hour pregame had plenty of useless filler.