American Football League on ABC
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American Football League (AFL) on ABC is a
network television
broadcaster.
Terms of the deal
On June 9, 1960, the league signed a five-year television contract with ABC, which brought in revenues of approximately
professional football, in which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs; the National Football League would follow suit in 1961, a move that required Congress to pass the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961
to accommodate such collective broadcasting contracts.
Innovations
ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras (as opposed to the fixed midfield cameras of CBS and the NFL), and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games.
List of commentators
Pat Hernon hosted ABC's national postgame show out of New York. While ABC did show scores and updates from both the AFL and NFL, seldom if ever did viewers see any actual AFL highlights except from the game that had just been broadcast in their region, or nationally. They however, never showed any actual NFL highlights whatsoever.
Play-by-play
- Charlie Brockman (1964)
- Jack Buck (1960-1963)
- John Ferguson (1960)
- Bill Flemming (1964)
- Curt Gowdy (1962-1964)
- Keith Jackson (1964)
- Charlie Jones (1960-1964)
- Les Keiter (1960)
- Bob Neal (1961)
Color commentary
- Elmer Angsman (1960; 1964)
- Fred Benners (1960)
- Paul Christman (1962-1964)
- Dick Danehe (1960)
- Bill Dudley (1960)
- Lee Giroux (1961)
- Johnny Lujack (1964)
- Paul Mannaseh (1960)
- Jim McKay (1961)
- George Ratterman (1960-1964)
References
- ^ Brulia, Tim. "A CHRONOLOGY OF PRO FOOTBALL ON TELEVISION: Part 1" (PDF). Pro Football Researchers.