Notre Dame Football on NBC

Notre Dame Football on NBC is a presentation of the Notre Dame football television package on NBC. The television network broadcasts all Notre Dame home games.

History

Since 1991, NBC has aired all of Notre Dame’s home football games. This has ensured that all of its home games are on national broadcast television. Most of the games are aired in the afternoon, usually beginning between 1:30 and 2:30 CST. The games are typically planned around NBC’s schedule of such events as the Ryder Cup or Breeders' Cup (before it moved to ESPN in 2006), and include full-game replays on NBC Sports Network, formerly Versus.

In 1991, the initial contract was sold to NBC for $38 million for 5 years or $1.2 million a game. Notre Dame got half of the latter figure and its opponent got the other half.^[1] In June 2008, NBC signed a contract extension, which covered from 2011 to 2015.^[2] According to Notre Dame, a portion of the television revenue goes towards academic scholarships.^[3]

In 2009, the team began to play one home game each year at a neutral site for recruitment and exposure purposes, starting with a late October 2009 game against Washington State at the Alamodome in San Antonio; NBC televised this game in primetime, a first for the contract. A November 2010 matchup against Army at Yankee Stadium, which NBC also televised, was also a Notre Dame home game, despite West Point's proximity to the Tri-State area.

Recently, Notre Dame's ratings have been down significantly due both to relatively poor play and to NBC's overall decline in ratings in other dayparts; Notre Dame games on NBC drew less than half the ratings that CBS and ABC averaged for their college football games in 2008.^[4]

In 2011, sister channel Versus began airing rebroadcasts of past Notre Dame games, including those aired on NBC over the years. Now, Versus has been re-branded NBC Sports Network. Previously via NBC's rights deal, related cable network Universal HD aired same-week reruns of Notre Dame home games until the January 2011 NBC-Comcast merger.

NBC's other college football coverage

NBC broadcast the Rose Bowl beginning in 1952 until the 1988 Rose Bowl when ABC took over. It had the Orange Bowl from 1965 through 1995. NBC is also the home of the annual "Bayou Classic" between Grambling State University and Southern University at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

As of the 2011-12 season, NBC Sports also holds rights to select Pac-12, Ivy League, and Mountain West Conference games through its new sister channel NBC Sports Network.

Personalities

Current

• Alex Flanagan: sideline reporter (2007–present)
• Tom Hammond: play-by-play (1992–1996; 2000–present)
• Mike Mayock^[5]: color commentator (2010–present)

Former

Play-by-play

• Don Criqui^[6] (1994–1997)
• Dick Enberg (1991; 1993; 1998–1999)
• Charlie Jones^[7] (1993–1997)
• Dan Hicks (2002; 2011) - Hicks filled in for Tom Hammond (who was recovering from heart surgery) on the November 2, 2002 game against Boston College. In 2011, Hicks again, filled in for Hammond (who this time around, was calling the World Track & Field Championships in Daegu) on the September 3 game against the USF Bulls
• Craig Minervini (2000) - Minervini filled in for Tom Hammond for the September 9, 2000 game against Nebraska, and the following week's game involving Purdue. Hammond was preparing for and subsequently, assigned to work on NBC's Summer Olympic telecasts in Sydney, Australia.

Color commentary

• Todd Christensen (1993)
• Cris Collinsworth (1992; 1994)
• Randy Cross (1994–1996)
• Pat Haden (1998–2010) - left to become athletic director at USC
• Paul Maguire (1995)
• Beasley Reece (1996)
• Phil Simms (1995)
• Bob Trumpy^[8] (1993; 1995–1997)
• Bill Walsh (1991)

Sideline reporters

• Jim Gray^[9]
• Lewis Johnson
• Lynn Swann

References