NFL owners Jerry Jones, Robert Kraft say FOX deal 25 years ago changed everything

Terry Bradshaw talks to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as former Cowboys great Lee Roy Jordan presents the George S. Halas Trophy following the NFC Championship Game, a 38-27 Cowboys victory over the Green Bay Packers in 1996.  (AP)

The partnership between Fox and the NFL, celebrating their silver anniversary in 2018, has turned out to be a match made in football heaven, according to three of the league’s living legends.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who bought America’s Team in 1989, said the league’s association with Fox “is one of the most impactful and important developments that the NFL has experienced.”

Jones credits hard-charging Fox founder Rupert Murdoch’s aggressive philosophy “and his instinctual knowledge of how to build a network” for making the relationship work.

“Rupert knew that having the NFL as a property would lift all of the other platforms of Fox whether it be news or entertainment or the opportunity to get into other college and professional sports properties,” Jones told Fox News. “He pushed a big pile of chips to the center of the table, and then delivered quality.”

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft alks with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones before the game on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015, in Arlington, Texas.  (AP)

Murdoch had tried to acquire the rights to broadcast “Monday Night Football” in the late 1980s, but the NFL wasn’t ready to team up with the unproven network and renewed its deal with ABC. But in 1993 the NFL changed its tune and accepted Fox’s reported $1.6 billion offer to broadcast the NFC television package, beginning with the 1994 season, leaving rival CBS devastated and without football for the first time since the 1950s.

At the time, Fox was known for eccentric comedies like "The Simpsons," “In Living Color” and "Married . . . With Children” but lacked live events. The NFL was the first major sports programming for the upstart network, which was just beginning to establish itself as a fourth broadcast network alongside legacy networks ABC, NBC and CBS.

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft remembered most analysts thinking Fox was a “fool’s errand,” as its competitors had been long established and most people thought cable television was the way of the future.

Pat Summerall and John Madden provided Fox's coverage of the NFL instant credibility. (Fox)

But all that changed when Murdoch partnered with the NFL.

“Not only did that investment forever change his network, the way Fox produced and promoted NFL games changed the way other networks covered the NFL, too. Fox was a game changer, quite literally,” Kraft told Fox News. “They helped transform the NFL into the league we are today.”

At the time, football broadcasts hadn’t changed in years. Games were covered in a bland fashion, lacking the pomp and circumstance that has transformed telecasts over the past 25 years. Fox kicked things off with a “Same Game, New Attitude” ad campaign featuring celebrities touting the network’s new acquisition and revamped everything from the theme music played during games to the on-screen graphics.

FOX Sports commentators Pat Summerall and Terry Bradshaw before Super Bowl XXVIII between the Dallas Cowboys and the Buffalo Bills at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga. The Cowboys won the game, 30-13

Jones credits former Fox executives David Hill and Ed Goren for hitting the ground running, bringing “an attitude of not being afraid to swim against the current” with bold, innovative coverage.

Among the many changes, Fox moved the NFC Championship game and Super Bowl trophy presentations from the locker room out onto the field, and increased the number of cameras involved in the production.

“That was designed to capture the pageantry and emotion of the moment that can only come from having live and ecstatic fans as part of the audience,” Jones said, adding that additional cameras offers fans “vantage points that viewers hadn’t experience before.”

A FOX Sports television cameraman during a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers at Candlestick Park on November 13, 1994 in San Francisco, Calif.  (George Rose/Getty Images)

Under Hill and Goren, broadcasting legends John Madden, Pat Summerall and Terry Bradshaw joined Fox, bringing instant credibility to the coverage.

“They were great recruiters of talent and had a feel for how to change the viewing habits of millions of American eyeballs when it came to presenting live television,” Jones said. “They turned things upside down and got everyone’s attention.”

A quarter of a century later, Bradshaw is still with the network, and now co-hosts the Thursday night pregame show alongside Michael Strahan and Howie Long in addition to his Sunday duties.

Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers with Terry Bradshaw of Fox Sports after the Packs' 35-21 victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI at the Superdome in New Orleans, La. (Sporting News via Getty Images)

“I can’t imagine that I would be 25 years with Fox,” Bradshaw said. “Where did [the time] go? How did this happen?”

Bradshaw said that Fox “needed football to get big” and to be taken seriously as a network, and echoed Jones’ feeling that Fox’s outside-the-box thinking has changed the modern sports landscape.

“Remember when we put the scoreboard in the top corner? Everybody said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing.’ Now people look for it. And NBC said they were never going to do that. Well, they did. Then we brought a rules expert into the pregame show. What did everybody else do? They brought in a rules guy,” Bradshaw said. “Fox has been the leader in innovation and coverage of live sporting events for 25 years and it’s been copied by everyone.”

While the partnership has helped build Murdoch’s media empire, NFL executives are equally thrilled with the way things have gone as Fox’s coverage of the NFL helped grow the sport to new heights.

Pat Summerall and John Madden in the FOX broadcast booth before the NFC divisional playoff game on Jan. 20, 2002. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

“Fox Sports has been a tremendous partner of the NFL for the past 25 years, not only pushing the envelope of production excellence but constantly innovating around the broadcast to bring fans closer to the game,” NFL COO Hans Schroeder said. “The dedication and pursuit of excellence from the crew at Fox Sports has not only benefited their millions of viewers but has been an integral part of the NFL’s success over the past two decades.”

The success of NFL on Fox resulted in the network obtaining the rights to other sports. Eventually, Fox launched a chain of regional cable network dedicated to sports and now has around-the-clock, national all-sports programing on Fox Sports 1 in addition to a thriving sports radio station and a video-focused sports digital presence.

One of the many people who benefited from the rise of Fox Sports is Clay Travis, who co-hosts the first-of-its-kind gambling show “Lock It In” on FS1 and hosts “Outkick The Coverage” on Fox Sports Radio every weekday morning. Travis told Fox News that the network became “culturally relevant” when it started airing NFL games.

Fox Sports sideline reporter Erin Andrews interviews running back Ezekiel Elliott after a game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field on November 13, 2016 in Pittsburgh, Pa. (George Gojkovich/Getty Images)

“I think football and the rise of football has been integral to the rise of Fox Sports, certainly, and to its expansion,” Travis said before noting that Fox now airs a variety of major events such as the World Series, World Cup, NASCAR, USGA and a variety of college football games.

“All of them would not exist, I don’t believe, had that decision 25 years ago not been made to move into the pro sports arena with the NFL. And I don’t think it would exist if they made the decision to move in with any other sport, other than the NFL, because they timed it perfectly, right as the NFL exploded and grew to heights that people could only have imagined back in the 90s,” Travis said.

Fox shares parent company 21st Century Fox with Fox News.