Proud as a peacock, NBC back in game

Dick Ebersol was reflecting on a major decision from eight years ago. It was after the 1997 NFL season, and NBC was ending its 3 1/2-decade affiliation with the league.

Ebersol, the chairman of NBC Sports, understood the magnitude of walking away.

``The NFL is the premier product of American television," he said during a recent vacation on Martha's Vineyard. ``You can take the No. 1-rated comedy or drama and you can't be sure in Years 2, 3, and 4 that it will hold that popularity against the advent of so many channels in America. The only product of any kind that has held its own, with the same power and impact, is the NFL. I knew that at the time."

So why walk away? Why open the door for other networks, Fox and CBS, to have such an important piece of the sports broadcasting landscape?

``Two decisions were made," Ebersol recalled. ``One was to stay in the NFL, but only if we could get into prime-time football. ABC had an option to stay in [prime time] and they used that to their advantage, and we weren't able to get into it. The second decision, which was more painful, was completely economic. We said we would not enter into any big rights deal unless we could break even or have a return."

Eight years later, NBC is back in the game -- and with the piece of prime time it originally coveted.

With a price tag of about $600 million per year, NBC landed the rights to broadcast the league's Sunday night games; the package also includes Super Bowls in 2009 and 2012. NBC's reentry officially begins tonight in Pittsburgh when it broadcasts the season-opener between the Dolphins and defending champion Steelers.

It's a big splash for NBC, which also walked away from Major League Baseball in 2000 and the NBA in 2002 because of skyrocketing rights fees. Without those sports, NBC relied on its long affiliation with the Olympics, key golf tournaments, core tennis events, and horse racing's Triple Crown to carry its sports programming. NBC also played what Ebersol called ``little ball", such as broadcasting Arena Football League games.

Ebersol said a few key factors had to be in place for NBC to return to the NFL. Prime time was crucial, but it had to be Sunday night, not Monday.

``We would not have been a bidder if the games had been played on Monday night," Ebersol said. ``To have a game that would end at 12 or 12:30 at night would have harmed Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien. Sunday night became the one place for us, and it started with the league moving its premier package from Monday to Sunday."

Then, of course, there was the economic side, the same area that led NBC to walk away in the first place.

Despite the exorbitant rights fee, Ebersol believes NBC and its parent company, General Electric, can turn a profit this time around, a result of the preferred partnership GE has with the NFL in which GE can help teams ``build new stadiums, providing the financing, the power, the energy, and the lighting. It's a company the NFL wanted to be in business with."

Viewers will notice several changes from NBC's last go-round with the NFL:

Al Michaels (play by play) and John Madden (analyst) move over from ABC. Andrea Kremer, who has relocated from Los Angeles to Marblehead, serves as the sideline reporter, with NBC planning to have her regularly contribute to the ``Today" show as part of a cross-promotion. Tomorrow, for example, Kremer is scheduled to have a piece on ``Today" with the mother of Peyton and Eli Manning; the Manning brothers face each other Sunday night when the Colts play the Giants.

NBC is touting its studio show as ``Football Night in America" and Bob Costas will serve as host. He'll be joined by Cris Collinsworth, Jerome Bettis, Sterling Sharpe, and Sports Illustrated's Peter King. The show is scheduled to begin at 7:15 p.m. and will include highlights from the day's action, or what Collinsworth calls ``one-stop shopping" for NFL fans. Kickoff for that night's game is 8:15. NBC will attempt to create a dialogue between the studio team and the broadcast team during games.

In Weeks 10-15 and Week 17, NBC will choose the non-Monday game of its liking. CBS and Fox will have the option to protect five games over that seven-week span.

The final decision on which game will be moved to Sunday night must be made 12 days before the game. This change allows NBC to avoid what happened to ABC in the final four games of each of the last three seasons, when that network had only one contest between teams with winning records.

NBC hired Fred Gaudelli as producer and Drew Esocoff as director, both of whom had been with ABC's ``Monday Night Football."

Summing up NBC's reentry, Ebersol said: ``I'm not somebody who looks back with regrets. I continued to enjoy watching games, and jumped in more avidly as a spectator. But we're absolutely delighted and enthralled to be back."