17, On Monday Night time Soccer

When No. 1 Louisiana State and No. 3 Clemson lastly kick it off in Monday night time’s faculty football nationwide championship sport on ESPN, 16 days will have passed for the reason that teams final took the sector in anger for the semifinals. ABC first broadcast regular season National Football League games in 1953 On the time, they solely broadcast Chicago Bears house games and Chicago Cardinals house games. Beginning in 1954 , ABC added Washington Redskins dwelling games. In ABC’s ultimate 12 months of their preliminary go around with the Nationwide Soccer League, they added Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers video games (for the Pacific Time Zone associates ) to associate with their protection of the Bears and Cardinals. Wire accounts present in indicated that the Washington – Philadelphia sport in Week 2 of the 1953 season, was to have been regionally televised by ABC, but the cables needed for the telecast by no means arrived. The articles stated that NFL Commissioner Bert Bell was “fuming” over the incident.

The Lions are lacking their starting quarterback, too; the injured Matthew Stafford final performed the day earlier than the cat appeared. Like the Panthers, the Lions found a approach to lose to the Redskins throughout this catastrophic (get it, cat-astrophic?) finish-of-season swoon. Just like the Panthers, the Lions are a woeful zero-5 since Nov. 4; together, the 2 teams had been above500 earlier than November arrived.

Mel Farr racked up 127 total yards, dashing 16 instances for ninety yards and one touchdown whereas catching 4 passes for 37 yards in a 31-6 win over the Atlanta Falcons Oct. 1, 1973 at Tiger Stadium. Larry Walton, Altie Taylor and Ron Jessie also scored TDs for the Lions while the protection held Atlanta to 188 complete yards. Levi Johnson and Mike Wegner had interceptions for the Lions as Atlanta turned the ball over 5 occasions.

As previously mentioned, in 2000, Don Ohlmeyer, the program’s producer up till 1977 was brought again. 8 After spending time at NBC , Ohlmeyer was lured out of retirement to spark interest and provide some vigor to the broadcast. In addition to the on-air expertise, Ohlmeyer’s changes included clips of gamers introducing themselves, new graphics and music. In another reasonably irreverent move, the scoring bug began incorporating nicknames for the groups, comparable to “Skins” and “Fins” (for the Washington Redskins and Miami Dolphins ) as a substitute of their respective widespread abbreviations, WSH and MIA.

Monday Evening Football was originally the flagship show of the NFL. While the sport itself may have been disappointing, the present had excessive manufacturing value, knowledgeable announcers, and a pedigree that couldn’t be matched with the Sunday video games. That may have been eclipsed by Sunday Night Soccer. Monday Evening Football now has contraptions, a halftime present with music nobody requested for, and a whole lot of advertising opportunity. This is a great video on how ESPN went this route with not simply Monday Night time Soccer, however the business as an entire in case you’re curious why all the big names left.