By: Julio Olmo

Briefly ignoring all of the recent turbulence in the league which is making news, it should be noted that a new way to watch NFL football was established years ago.

Fox out maneuvered the other big three networks took the NFL and John Madden right out from under their noses, creating a more modern pregame show, inventing a new way to see football and – if you use their current higher ratings for Thursday Night Football as indication – it’s now in the middle of extending their empire.

Twenty-five years ago this month Fox took over NFL football, a sacred rite of American life.

Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, was determined that Fox Sports was not going to be just another underdog tale so he not only grab the current team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to call NFL games, for good measure Murdoch also hired John Madden.

Fox Sports executives strongly believed that NFL football had gotten stale and boring as hell.

So it meant that their new pregame show would be about laughs, as much as it would be about sports. It also meant the score and clock would be on the television screen at all times.

More camera angles and audio for the viewers so they could not only see, but also hear NFL sounds.

Essentially change the entire presentation of the game.

Even if it also meant making – my guy! – crazy ass Terry Bradshaw look normal.

Their premise was simple:

1. Give the owners a cruise ship full of money and tell ’em to get out-of-the-way while…

2. They delivered to a more urban, a lot younger and irreverent audience, the following message:

“This ain’t goin’ be your grandparents NFL, anymore!

The fact was that the NFL owners had use Murdoch before for negotiating tactics.

So what change?

Well, the original networks were in cost-cutting, “No way in hell, we’re going to lose money on these NFL games” mode and the owners decided to finally go into business with Rupert Murdoch and Fox Sports.

There always has been a clear and definite advantage to being underestimated…trust me!

More details on the “Great Change ‘NFLonFOX’ via Associated Press – Sport’s Writer Joe Reddy

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