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Super Bowl XXXIII is an
all-day affair on Fox
By Jim Baker
©TVData Features Syndicate
Every year, it’s written and said
that the Super Bowl surges in cover
age to embrace the biggest single-day
sports event of the year, but Fox is
soaring to new extremes with a near
round-the-clock format to showcase
Super Bowl XXXIII on Sunday, Jan.
31.
Mention Fox, and football fans
immediately think of Pat Summerall
and John Madden completing their
18th season together, and calling their
seventh Super Bowl, as the NFL’s
most popular telecast tandem. But
there’s so much more.
More than seven hours before
game time, there’s Fox Super Bowl
Kickoff, a half-hour look at activities
outside Miami’s Pro Player Stadium.
Following are Hardcore Football;
Behind the Scenes: Super Bowl
XXXIII All Access, Keith
Olbermann’s look at Fox’s prepara
tions; and Madden’s All-Madden All-
Millennium Team, all of which leads
into - incredibly -a four-hour
pregame show.
The premiere of the new animated
sitcom Family Guy and a special
episode of The Simpsons - in which
Homer takes over Fox chairman
Rupert Murdoch’s private sky box -
are part of the postgame act.
“I just love this,” assures Madden,
Fox’s $8 million-a-year analyst, who
is finishing the first chapter of a five
year deal. “The season you work the
Super Bowl is always the best
because you get to put a period at the
end of the sentence. Everywhere I
travel, the No. 1 thing I’m asked is,
‘Who’ll win the Super Bowl?’ and
this is the day we’ll find out.”
Madden says he entered the NFL’s
version of the Final Four convinced
that Minnesota was the best team in
the league. “The Vikings have so
many solid players, including a place
kicker (Gary Anderson) who was the
first ever to make every field goal he
tried all season,” he asserts.
Quarterback Randall Cunningham,
one of the league’s best comeback
stories along with Buffalo quarter
back Doug Flutie, throws to a special
fleet of receivers led by super-rookie
Randy Moss. “He’s the best rookie ■
I’ve ever seen - better than Jerry Rice
was,” Madden says. “I said when the 1
season started he’d be rookie of the
year, All-Pro, and he’s both.”
Madden says he has one major fear
about this Super Bowl, and he’s far
from alone. It has been a dreadful <
season for officials, with one bad call i
after another, and he hopes the title i
isn’t determined by one.
“It’s a shame this was such a big i
story because it really waso’t.new, but ■ J
as a result the league knows it must i
do something," he says. He’s certain s
John Madden (left) and
Pat Summerall add their
expertise to Fox’s cover
age of Super Bowl
XXXIII, airing Sunday.
The fun begins several
hours before kickoff and
continues after the game.
replay use as an officiating tool will
return, but that’s next season.
“We need a streamlined system,”
Madden explains. “We have the tools
already. Everyone sees these things
but the officials. There shouldn’t be
any need for a challenge by a coach
or risk of losing a timeout. When an
official has a question, he should be
able to look at a monitor.
“Replay will be back, and they’ll
add an official downfield, too,”
Madden continues. “The NFL needs
younger officials because of the
game’s increased speed. It used to be
that teams had two wide receivers
and a tight end. Now they send out
four receivers, and officials have to
cover with the same number of guys.”
The four-hour pregame show fea
tures the usual cast of host James
Brown, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long
and Cris Collinsworth. Bradshaw and
Collinsworth review the offenses,
while Matt Millen and Long examine
the defenses and Jerry Glanville
breaks down the special teams. Once
the game kicks off, Ron Pitts and Bill
Maas offer their views from the side
lines.
Fox plans to employ 31 cameras -
up from 29 for its 1997 Packers-
Patriots Super Bowl telecast - and 25
tape machines. And yes, profits will
roll in, with a 30-second commercial
bagging $1.6 million and Budweiser
reportedly paying $2 million to be the
exclusive beer sponsor. Those com
mercials are always a major
sideshow, with sponsors introducing
new and often hilarious pitches.
Other entertainers besides the
players and commercials? Cher is
singing the national anthem, and
Gloria Estefan and Stevie Wonder are
halftime performers.
After the Family Guy premiere,
“Death Has a Shadow,” fills that cov
eted slot following the postgame
show, stand by for the “Sunday,
Cruddy Sunday” episode of The
Simpsons with cartoon renderings
and voices of Murdoch, Troy
Aikman, Dan Marino, Rosey Grier,
Summerall and Madden. “Homer
organizes a trip to the Super Bowl,
takes Bart with him and runs into us,”
the real-life Madden says.
If you start watching in late morn
ing, last through the game and remain
.tuned iq fofHttfner and Bart, you’re
not only a couch potato; you can con
sider yourself mashed.
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