(L-R) Chairman CBS Sports Sean McManus, Host of THE SUPER BOWL TODAY James Brown, Analyst Super Bowl 50 Phil Simms, Play-by-Play Announcer Super Bowl I Jack Whitaker and Play-by-Play Announcer Super Bowl 50 Jim Nantz speak onstage during the "CBS Sports" panel discussion at the CBS/ShowtimeTelevision Group portion of the 2015 Winter TCA Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on January 12, 2016 in Pasadena, California.
CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus is eagerly looking forward to Super Bowl 50, but he’s also anxiously awaiting word as to whether or not his group will own “Thursday Night Football” again.
In late December, the NFL asked networks for financial bids and their planned promotional/production details for “Thursday Night Football” rights, which were up for grabs at the end of the league’s regular season.
“We haven’t heard anything back yet; they’re still looking at the proposals,” McManus told TheWrap of the current “wait and see” period. “We’d like to renew. ‘Thursday Night Football’ has been a big success — not only for us, but for the NFL and the NFL Network.
Our conversation took place during Tuesday’s Television Critics Association press junket, and spanned the CBS Sports group’s time on stage through a small journalist scrum immediately after.
“We had the benefit obviously of doing the first two years of the network broadcast, so we had a lot of experience in both those areas,” McManus said.
But that doesn’t mean he believes keeping those rights will be a chip shot. When we asked McManus if that aforementioned experience makes CBS Sports the “frontrunner,” he couldn’t quite embrace that term.
“I think we have an advantage in that the template is in place with CBS. I’m not sure I’d call us the ‘frontrunner’ because, in the end, the frontrunner normally has the most money, and I’m not sure what the other networks are planning financially,” McManus told us a little later. “But I think the track record that we have — and the fact that we met or exceeded every goal that the NFL had … there’s an ease and a comfort that the NFL has when working with us.”
That said, McManus was quick to point out that other networks have very good experience putting on NFL games and programming, and NBC even very successfully plays in primetime.
It probably doesn’t hurt that while the NFL is weighing bids, CBS is heavily promoting its Super Bowl 50. But McManus doesn’t think that will carry water on the league’s decision-making.
“I don’t think there’s a connection, no,” he said, “I just think it’s the luck of the schedule.”
This time around, the uber-popular pro football league is also considering splitting “Thursday Night Football” among a few broadcast networks, as TheWrap reported Monday. We asked sportscasters James Brown and Jim Nantz to weigh in on whether that is a good idea or a bad idea. Brown, the in-studio host for the “NFL on CBS” punted a bit, to use a pigskin term.
Nantz offered a little more thoughtful — or at least, longer — answer.
“We have loved being a part of ‘Thursday Night Football,'” he said. “There’s been a lot of tonnage — that was 15 Thursdays and most Sundays — and we’ve enjoyed it. We want to continue to be a part of it. And whatever Sean is able to work out, we’ll be glad to do it.”
15 Biggest Sports Scandals of 2015: From Deflategate to Domestic Violence (Photos)
Gilbert Arenas' Sexist Instagram Rant
Former basketball star Arenas invoked the wrath of the WNBA when he demanded sexier female players and suggested they dress like strippers instead of "cast members from #orangeisthenewblack."
The Sacramento Kings guard was punished by the league after he launched into a homophobic rant against veteran referee Bill Kennedy, who recently announced he is gay.
Not only did Rousey get her ass kicked and her championship taken by Holly Holm, she then got blasted for focusing too much on her TV and movie roles, and not enough on fighting.
Sportscaster Simmons' beef with ESPN went public last year when he called out network bosses over coverage of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. The feud reached a boiling point in May and the parties parted ways -- but Simmons, who has since signed with HBO, has continued to criticize his former network, especially since its closure of Grantland in October.
Eighteen months after Dallas Cowboys defensive end Greg Hardy attacked his ex-girlfriend in a violent assault, police photos of her graphic injuries sent fans into a frenzy, prompting many to demand discipline from the team and the NFL.
Fans feared it was the end for former NBA star Odom when he was found unconscious in a brothel last October. He pulled out of a coma, but his road to recovery has been rocky as the former Laker still struggles to walk.
Colin Cowherd Should Cancel His Dominican Vacation
“I’ve never bought into that ‘baseball is just too complex,'” Cowherd said on his ESPN radio show in July. “A third of the sport is from the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic has not been known, in my lifetime, as having world-class academic abilities."
The former MLB star-turned-broadcast analyst was suspended by ESPN for posting racist tweets comparing Muslims to Nazis. “It’s said only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?” he wrote.
Most injuries happen on the field, but New York Jets QB Geno Smith got his jaw broken in the locker room by his own teammate following an altercation over money, $600 no less.
Getty Images
NASCAR Lowers the Confederate Flag
Auto racing is a sport of the South, where many people still consider the Confederate flag to be an appropriate symbol of their culture. When the controversy over the banner hit peak publicity this year, NASCAR made the tough business decision to ban it from official events.
FIFA boss Sepp Blatter finally stepped down after becoming the main figure in an enormous soccer bribery scandal -- but it took a hell of a lot of media backlash to dethrone the futbol king.
A Penn State student tweeted the sports anchor a link to an article about the school’s fundraising efforts to fight pediatric cancer, which included the school rallying cry “We Are…”
Olbermann responded “…pitiful,” which angry tweeters took as a criticism of the school’s philanthropy efforts. As for why he called the charitable cause “pitiful,” the anchor said it was a simple rushed mistake, while saying social media is used as an alternative to “Wild West saloon brawling.”
Warren Sapp was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in 2015, hence his sad mugshot to the left. That frown was most definitely not turned upside-down when the former NFL great was canned by the NFL network.
Yes, Deflategate was 2015 -- even though it feels like years ago by this point. Brady allegedly instructed the New England Patriots' equipment manager to deflate his footballs, allowing for ease of passing and catching. He was initially suspended for four games, but that later was overruled by a federal judge.
During the big College Football Playoff bowl games on New Year’s Day, sportscaster Rome wrote on Twitter: “Is there anyone not in a marching band who thinks those dorks running around with their instruments are cool?” Apparently, there were lots of people who felt “those dorks” were cool, and that Rome’s comment was not.