Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the first televised NFL game?
NBC was the first major television network to cover an NFL game, when on October 22, 1939, it broadcast a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers; the network was still only in its infancy, with only two affiliates, the modern day WRGB (now a CBS affiliate) in Schenectady and W2XBS in New York City. Portions of that game still survive via films, but the film is not footage from the telecast (recordings of television broadcasts did not begin until 1948). The use of a sideline camera, the sole camera used in the 1939 broadcast, would become the standard for all future NFL broadcasts until 2017; the angle is particularly suited for estimating yardage, compared to more mobile camera angles that began to appear in the 21st century.
The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and Public Law 89-800, which govern the antitrust exemptions given to the National Football League, prohibit the broadcasting of NFL games within 75 miles of any high school football game on Friday nights between September and early December. Because most populated areas of the United States have at least one high school football game within a 75-mile radius, and because broadcasting is an integral part of the NFL's business model (roughly half of the league's revenue comes from television contracts), this effectively prohibits the playing of NFL games in competition with high school football. (These rules do not apply during preseason, when Friday night games are common, nor does it apply at the end of the season, though the only time regular season games are played on Friday in the NFL is on Christmas.) Only recently have national sports television channels fully capitalized on this rule; since 2005, the ESPN family of networks (usually the sub-networks ESPN2, ESPNU and online broadcaster ESPN3, although the main channel also shows occasional games) has aired regular season matchups between nationally ranked teams under the "High School Showcase" banner. Fox Sports 1 also included high school football in its lineup when it launched in 2013.
The rival American Football League arose in 1960 and challenged the NFL's dominance. The AFL began in relative obscurity but eventually thrived, with an initial television contract with the ABC network. The AFL's existence forced the conservative NFL to expand to Dallas and Minnesota in an attempt to destroy the new league. Meanwhile, the AFL introduced many new features to Professional Football in the United States: official time on the scoreboard clock, rather than on a watch in the referee's pocket, as the NFL did; optional two-point conversions by pass or run after touchdowns; names on the jerseys of players; and several others, including expansion of the role of minority players, actively recruited by the league in contrast to the NFL. The AFL also signed several star college players that had also been drafted by NFL teams. Competition for players heated up in 1965, when the AFL New York Jets signed rookie Joe Namath to a then-record US$437,000 contract. A five-year, $40 million NBC television contract followed, which helped to sustain the young league. The bidding war for players ended in 1966, when NFL owners approached the AFL regarding a merger, and the two leagues agreed on one that would take full effect in 1970. This agreement provided for a common draft that would take place each year, and it instituted an annual World Championship game to be played between the champions of each league. That game began play at the end of the 1966 season. Once the merger was completed, it was no longer a championship game between two leagues, and reverted to the NFL championship game, which came to be known as the Super Bowl.
On July 30, 1960, the Boston Patriots defeated the Buffalo Bills in the first AFL pre-season game. The Boston Patriots played in the first-ever game in the American Football League, against the Denver Broncos on September 9, 1960, a game which they lost by a score of 10-13. Although the team made only one AFL playoff appearance (in 1963), it had numerous stars. In 1963, eleven Patriots made the AFL All-star team, including Gino Cappelletti, Jim Colclough, Nick Buoniconti, and Babe Parilli. That year the Patriots made it to the AFL Championship for the first time ever, but lost to the San Diego Chargers 51–10. Linebacker Tom Addison, an original Patriot and the first Patriot all-star, founded and was selected President of the AFL Players Association in the mid-1960s. In the late-1960s, fullback Jim Nance became an offensive weapon for the Patriots, gaining 1,458 yards in 1966 and 1,216 in 1967, when he was the AFL MVP.
A standard football game consists of four 15-minute quarters (12-minute quarters in high-school football and often shorter at lower levels, usually one minute per grade [e.g. 9-minute quarters for freshman games]), with a 12-minute half-time intermission (30 minutes in Super Bowl) after the second quarter in the NFL (college halftimes are 20 minutes; in high school the interval is 15 or 20 minutes; 10 minutes for lower grades). The clock stops after certain plays; therefore, a game can last considerably longer (often more than three hours in real time), and if a game is broadcast on television, TV timeouts are taken at certain intervals of the game to broadcast commercials outside of game action. If an NFL game is tied after four quarters, the teams play an additional period, timed like the fourth quarter, lasting up to 10 minutes. There is a coin toss in the NFL just like the beginning of the game. If the receiving team scores a touchdown during the possession, they win. If they kick a field goal, then the other team gets a possession. If they score a touchdown, they win. If they tie the score by kicking a field goal, then the next team that scores wins. If the team with the first possession turns the ball over without scoring any points, then the first team to score, wins. If the defense scores a touchdown through an interception or fumble recovery, or they get a safety, then they win. In a regular-season NFL game, if no one scores in the overtime, the game ends tied. In an NFL playoff game, multiple 15-minute overtime periods are played, as needed, to determine a winner. These periods are timed as if a game had started over. In the extremely rare case a game would go as far as a third OT—which has never happened in the NFL—there would be no "halftime intermission"; play would resume with a kickoff similar to a normal third quarter.
From the beginnings of the NFL, some teams shared stadiums with Major League Baseball teams, with the MLB teams holding leases giving them priority. The NFL was required to schedule around September baseball games. In October, this frequently resulted in NFL teams having to reschedule on short notice if the MLB team in their city made the playoffs. On some occasions, the NFL game could be moved to Saturday or Monday. The NFL would often schedule October division games so that teams would be able to swap home game dates if it appeared that the MLB playoff schedule would make a stadium unavailable to the NFL. Perhaps the most extreme case was in 1973, when the New York Jets played at Shea Stadium and were forced to play their first six games on the road due to the Mets playing in the World Series.
The season ended when the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Buffalo Bills in the AFL Championship game, and was defeated by the National Football League's Green Bay Packers in the first ever AFL-NFL World Championship Game which is now known as the Super Bowl.
The 1926 American Football League season is the only season of the existence of the first American Football League. It started with nine teams, with the initial game of the season being played in front of 22,000 fans in Cleveland, Ohio, but by the end of the season (December 14, 1926), only four teams were still in existence: three teams owned or subsidized by league founder C. C. Pyle and star Red Grange (New York Yankees, Los Angeles Wildcats, and Chicago Bulls) and league champion Philadelphia Quakers. The initial lineup of teams included the traveling Wildcats and a charter member of the National Football League, the Rock Island Independents, which became a second traveling team after having poor attendance in its first three games.
From 1947 to 1956 and again in 1965, NBC only aired the All-Star Game (beginning in 1950) and World Series. From 1957 to 1989, the network aired the Saturday afternoon "Game of the Week" (or a variation of it prior to 1966, when NBC did not hold the exclusive over-the-air television rights). From 1994 to 1995, NBC aired games under a joint broadcasting venture with Major League Baseball and ABC called The Baseball Network. From 1996 to 2000, the network's league coverage was reduced to postseason games (three Division Series games in prime time, the American League Championship Series in even-numbered years, and the National League Championship Series and World Series in odd-numbered years), as well as the All-Star Game in even-numbered years (during years when NBC did not hold the rights to the World Series).
Super Bowl XXXIX was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 2004 season. The Patriots defeated the Eagles by the score of 24–21. The game was played on February 6, 2005, at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, the first time the Super Bowl was played in that city.
The game was previously officially known as the Discover Orange Bowl, since Discover Financial was announced as title sponsor on August 26, 2010 as part of a new four-year agreement. The game had been called the FedEx Orange Bowl from 1989 to 2010, as FedEx sponsored the event during that period. Starting with the 2010–11 season, ESPN carried the Orange Bowl, replacing Fox after four seasons. ABC aired the game from 1999 to 2006, with CBS (1995–1998) and NBC (1964–1994) previously carrying the game.
The game is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in the history of professional sports, as well as one of the finest Super Bowl games. The Patriots entered the game as 12-point favorites after becoming the first team to complete a perfect regular season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and the only one since the league expanded to a 16-game regular season schedule in 1978. The Giants, who finished the regular season with a 10–6 record, were seeking to become the first NFC wild card team to win a Super Bowl, and were also looking for their third Super Bowl victory and first since they won Super Bowl XXV seventeen years earlier. This Super Bowl was also a rematch of the final game of the regular season, in which New England won, 38–35.
Further playoff defeats followed. In 1968, as a 32-year-old Ryan was benched in favor of Bill Nelsen, the Browns finished with a 10–4 record but lost to the Colts in the playoffs. Another playoff loss ended the Browns' season in 1969, this time to the Minnesota Vikings. After the American Football League's merger with the NFL was finalized in early 1970, the Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts moved to the new American Football Conference along with the 10 teams of the former AFL. The Browns were slotted in the AFC Central in the 26-team league, alongside the Steelers, the Houston Oilers and the Cincinnati Bengals, a team Paul Brown founded in 1968 in the AFL. Cleveland's first big move under the new league structure was to trade star receiver Paul Warfield in January 1970 to the Miami Dolphins for the rights to draft Purdue University quarterback Mike Phipps as a replacement for Bill Nelsen, who had a pair of bad knees.
The Browns opened the 1970 season by beating Joe Namath and the New York Jets in the first-ever broadcast of Monday Night Football on September 21. The following month, Cleveland faced Paul Brown's Bengals for the first time in a regular-season game, winning 30–27. That game was a highlight in an otherwise unsuccessful season. The Browns lost their second match against the Bengals 14–10 in November, when Phipps made his first start — Brown called it "my greatest victory" — and finished 7–7.
HBO's first sports broadcast was of a New York Rangers-Vancouver Canucks NHL game, transmitted to a Service Electric cable system in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on November 8, 1972; the channel continued to air NHL hockey games through the mid-1970s. HBO has long been known for its telecasts of boxing matches (which usually air on Saturday nights every two to three weeks on average), including those shown on its flagship sports program "HBO World Championship Boxing". On September 30, 1975, the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier aired on HBO and was the first program on the pay cable network to be broadcast via satellite. That same year, HBO began airing coverage of Wimbledon; it held contractual rights to coverage of the tennis tournament through 1999, when it lost the rights to sister network TNT (owned by Time Warner's Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary).
After winning the 1945 NFL Championship Game, the franchise moved to Los Angeles in 1946, making way for Paul Brown's Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference and becoming the only NFL championship team to play the following season in another city. The club played their home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before moving into a reconstructed Anaheim Stadium in Orange County, California in 1980.
When he took office following the season, there were twelve teams in the NFL playing a twelve-game schedule to frequently half-empty stadiums, and only a few teams had television contracts. The NFL in 1960 was following a business model that had evolved from the 1930s. One of Rozelle's early accomplishments was helping the league adopt profit-sharing of gate and television revenues. The revenue-sharing was a major factor in stabilizing the NFL and guaranteeing the success of its small-market teams. Another important contribution was Rozelle's success in negotiating large television contracts to broadcast every NFL game played each season. In doing so he deftly played one television network against the other. In 1962, Rozelle was re-elected to a five-year contract to remain as commissioner.
Game Show Network launched at 7:00 p.m. ET on December 1, 1994. The first aired game show was "What's My Line?". From 1994 until about 1997, the network aired classic pre-1972 game shows as well as game shows made after 1972, most of which came from the Mark Goodson–Bill Todman library. The network aired game shows in a 24-hour cycle, and also used live interstitials as wraparound programming. In its first few months, GSN's commercials consisted of public service announcements (PSAs), promotions for its programming and commercials related to network parent company Sony. By 1995, when the network began to expand, the network began accepting conventional advertising as it gained new sponsorships. On March 17, 1997, the Game Show Network rebranded with a new presentation package and a new logo (which had the network's name in boxes and a colorful swirling ball) and a new slogan "All Play, All Day". While the logo changed, its programming remained unchanged, the network also debuted new promos and new idents on that day, which were designed by graphics agency Lee Hunt Associates.
The season ended when the Buffalo Bills defeated the San Diego Chargers in the AFL Championship game. Two years later, the AFL would join the NFL to form the AFL-NFL World Championship game, known today as the Super Bowl.
The American Football League stands as the only professional football league to successfully compete against the NFL. When the two leagues merged in 1970, all ten AFL franchises and their statistics became part of the new NFL. Every other professional league that had competed against the NFL before the AFL–NFL merger had folded completely: the three previous leagues named "American Football League" and the All-America Football Conference. From an earlier AFL (1936–1937), only the Cleveland Rams (now the Los Angeles Rams) joined the NFL and are currently operating, as are the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers from the AAFC. A third AAFC team, the Baltimore Colts (not related to the 1953–1983 Baltimore Colts or to the current Indianapolis Colts franchise), played only one year in the NFL, disbanding at the end of the 1950 season. The league resulting from the merger was a 26-team juggernaut (since expanded to 32) with television rights covering all of the Big Three television networks and teams in close proximity to almost all of the top 40 metropolitan areas, a fact that has precluded any other competing league from gaining traction since the merger; failed attempts to mimic the AFL's success included the World Football League (1974–75), United States Football League (1983–85), XFL (2001) and United Football League (2009–2012).
Exhibition games are almost exclusively played at night due to hot summer weather, and are frequently scheduled based on local convenience (e.g. games on the west coast tend to start at 7:00 p.m. PT/10:00 p.m. ET). When applicable, the NFL's blackout restrictions apply, although stations are allowed to play the game on a tape delay if the game does not sell out (unlike the regular season policy, when rights revert to NFL Films). However, the blackout restrictions have never been applied since 2015 as a result of a passed vote during the league's owners' meeting in March in which the league, as an experiment because no regular season games in the 2014 season were blacked out and an FCC vote in September 2014 to no longer enforce blackouts, eliminated blackout rules for at least the last two seasons. Many more exhibition games fail to sell out than do regular-season games.
The 2019 NFL season will be the 100th season of the National Football League (NFL). The season will tentatively begin on September 5, 2019, in the home stadium of the Super Bowl LIII champion (either Los Angeles Rams or New England). The season will conclude with Super Bowl LIV, the league's championship game, tentatively scheduled for February 2, 2020, at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
The 2019 NFL Draft will be held from April 25–27 in Nashville, Tennessee.
CBS' coverage began on September 30, 1956 (the first regular season broadcast was a game between the visiting Washington Redskins against the Pittsburgh Steelers), before the 1970 AFL–NFL merger. Prior to 1968, CBS had an assigned crew for each NFL team. As a result, CBS became the first network to broadcast some NFL regular season games to selected television markets across the country. From 1970 until the end of the 1993 season, when Fox won the broadcast television contract to that particular conference, CBS aired NFL games from the National Football Conference. Since 1975, game coverage has been preceded by pre-game show "The NFL Today", which features game previews, extensive analysis and interviews.
After the season, NFL owners faced competition from the newly formed American Football League and wanted a vehicle through which to showcase more of its supposedly superior NFL professional football product on television. At the time, unlike the AFL, which had a contract with ABC-TV for nationally televised games, often double-headers, few NFL games were televised nationally during the season and there was only one scheduled post-season game, the NFL Championship Game. The Playoff Bowl was devised to match the second-place teams from the NFL's two conferences (Eastern and Western). This doubled from two to four the number of top NFL teams appearing in post-season play on national television. 
The 1966 season required another game following the American Football League Championship Game and the NFL Championship Game, the first of four AFL–NFL World Championship Games between the champions of the two major Professional Football leagues for the undisputed championship. The establishment of the AFL–NFL World Championship Game (Super Bowl was not its official name until Super Bowl III) was the first phase of the AFL–NFL merger of June 1966. This new mega-game between the rival leagues was played in mid-January at a warm weather location, two weeks after the championship games for each league. The NFL's Playoff Bowl was played during the idle week, and because of AFL's equally major league status, interest in the game was waning. In addition, the arrival of the Miami Dolphins in 1966 as an expansion franchise in the AFL reduced local interest in the game.
"When CBS got the NFL back (in 1997), everything picked up again", Pilson said. On November 8, 1998, CBS televised the first NFL game to be broadcast in high-definition, between the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills at Giants Stadium. It was also the first time two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks started against each other in the NFL (Vinny Testaverde for the Jets and Doug Flutie for the Bills).
In 1986, the United States Football League, at the time pursuing an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, signed an agreement with ESPN to carry games on Sunday nights. When the lawsuit failed and the 1986 season was canceled, the NFL swooped in and took the time slot, creating "ESPN Sunday Night Football" in 1987. ESPN thus became the first cable network to broadcast regular season NFL games. Chris Berman helped redefine the pre- and post-game shows when he launched "NFL Countdown" and "NFL Prime Time", and they have since become the top-rated pre- and post-game shows on television. The cable network's contract to show "ESPN Sunday Night Football" was one of the turning points in their growth, transforming them from a small cable network to a marketing empire.