2024 Super Bowl: How to watch ‘YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE!’ documentary about the historic ‘The NFL Today’

“The NFL Today” is the longest-running pregame show in the history of sports television, serving as the first live pregame show, the first to show halftime highlights from other games and the first to conclude as a postgame show, changing the way sports games were covered forever.

With memorable hosts like Brent Musburger, Greg Gumbel, Jim Nantz and James Brown, “The NFL Today” has thrived as the pregame show across America. Musburger, Irv Cross, Phyllis George and Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder led the way for more than a decade, followed by Gumbel, Terry Bradshaw, Lesley Visser, Pat O’Brien and Jim Gray.

When CBS regained the rights to the NFL for the 1998 season, “The NFL Today” returned with Nantz, Deion Sanders, Randy Cross, Jerry Glanville and Mike Ditka ushering in a new era. James Brown returned to CBS as host in 2006, joining Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe for nearly a decade when Bill Cowher and Boomer Esiason joined.

Brown, Cowher and Esiason are still on “The NFL Today,” and Nate Burleson and Phil Simms joined the team in 2017. The same pregame team has been together ever since, and will be the pregame panel for their third Super Bowl together in Las Vegas for Super Bowl LVIII.

On Super Bowl Sunday, CBS Sports will present “YOU’RE WATCHING LIVE! The Show That Changed Sports Television Forever,” a one-hour original special on the history of “The NFL Today.” The special debuts Sunday, February 11 at 1 pm ET on CBS and Supreme+which leads directly into a four-hour edition of “The NFL Today” ahead of CBS Sports’ Super Bowl LVIII presentation.

The four hosts (Musburger, Gumbel, Nantz and Brown) shared memories of their time hosting the show and what “The NFL Today” meant to them. Nantz choked up when the original score for “The NFL Today” appeared.

“Listening to the opening music and animation,” a cheerful Nantz recalled. “We have a contemporary version, I guess you could call it, of that issue. I don’t know how it doesn’t exist yet. It’s not my place to make those decisions.

“It’s right up there with the melody of ‘The Masters’ and those other scores you associate with a TV show.”

Gumbel was a host when Bradshaw was an analyst in the early 1990s. Most of his memories occurred off set, and he wanted to share them on the show when “The NFL Today” aired.

“He used to say so many things that were so memorable when we went out to dinner that I couldn’t wait for them to air on Sunday,” Gumbel said. “Of course, when Sunday came, maybe I couldn’t say that.

“On all those shows we did, the background was football, but the makeup was the people we all worked with. I was lucky enough to work with Terry (Bradshaw), Dan Marino, Shannon Sharpe, Boomer Esiason. They are the which made it quite memorable from one day to the next.”

Nantz cherished his time hosting “The NFL Today” from 1998 to 2003, and choked up the memories he shared with that group. CBS lost the rights to the NFL in 1994, leaving “The NFL Today” dormant for four seasons. When CBS obtained the rights to the AFC for the 1998 season in the subsequent television deal, Nantz was installed as the new host of “The NFL Today.”

“The first day we came back to the NFL in 1998, it was a magical feeling,” Nantz said. “I worked with a lot of different partners, including Boomer. Dan Marino, Deion Sanders (chokes), he was tremendous there. Mike Ditka, working with him was reminiscent of Brent’s days, hanging around New York with (Jimmy) The Greek. “

Nantz told a story about his time with Ditka, showing the loving, carefree person the Hall of Fame tight end was offstage.

“When I think back on those six years, it was being with all my teammates, and the biggest imprint on my mind was being with Ditka. He was a larger than life character,” Nantz said. “He always tipped everyone $100. Cloakroom, bar. Not $20 or $50. We’d go out to dinner, $100, keep the change. Most generous guy I’ve ever seen.

“I once asked him, ‘Coach, do you ever carry 20s, 5s, or singles?’ He said, “I see it that way. This is supposed to be fun for me. I just decided we’ll have 20 weeks a year and I’m not going to think about money. I allocated $5,000 a week.” “For my play money, I take 50 $100 bills to New York every weekend. “I like to think that I come home with nothing in my pocket.”

“‘My goal was the day I’m submerged six feet under, somehow in my coffin there’s a little opening and that last 100 dollar bill is flying in the air in my name. That’s how I wanted to live my life in the Last moment.’ “

With a background in reporting, Brown’s memorable moment occurred during one of the strangest moments in Super Bowl history.

“Maybe this is the Brent Musberger in me. I focused on the event itself and its news value. The power outage at the SuperDome,” Brown recalled. “I really wish I had gotten up from my desk and done a report on it.

“That’s the reporter in me. I tried to stay in the moment. I just try to make sure I’m aware of what’s going on.”

As Musburger, 84, smiled as he shared his own stories from the anchor chair, the rest of the anchors on “The NFL Today” looked on in admiration for what he did for the industry.

“When (CBS Sports) said, ‘Hey, we want you to do this and all you have to do is get on the shows that Brent Musburger filled,’ it was discouraging because Brent wrote the book on it,” Gumbel said. “I don’t think anyone has done it better.”

Nantz is thrilled that Musburger is getting his due for this show and for everything he accomplished in his more than a decade as a host that made “The NFL Today” the phenomenon that still exists.

“I think everyone who has presented a syllabus owes him a great deal of gratitude,” Nantz said. “Brent set the tone.”