“The Bears…are starting to take to this new offense by Mike Martz.” – “Football Night’s” Tony Dungy
“It really comes down to those players making better decisions and performing better.” – “Football Night’s” Rodney Harrison on Giants
NFL Celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness Month
NEW YORK – Sept. 29, 2010 – The Chicago Bears (3-0), the lone undefeated team in the NFC, and New York Giants (1-2), who first met in New York in 1925, renew their 85-year-old rivalry this week on “Sunday Night Football.”
Calling Bears-Giants will be six-time Emmy Award-winner Al Michaels (play-by-play), who is in his 25th season as the voice of the NFL’s premier primetime package; 11-time Emmy Award-winner Cris Collinsworth, who last year, his first in the SNF booth, won the Emmy for outstanding event analyst; and sideline reporter Andrea Kremer about whom TV Guide said is “one of TV’s best sports correspondents.”
Coverage begins with “Football Night in America,” at 7 p.m. ET Sunday with Bob Costas, who won the outstanding studio host Emmy last year, hosting live from inside the stadium. Dan Patrick will co-host “Football Night” from NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza studios joined by Super Bowl-winning head coach and Emmy-nominated Tony Dungy, two-time Super Bowl winner Rodney Harrison, and Sports Illustrated’s Peter King. Alex Flanagan will report from Lincoln Financial Field on the Redskins-Eagles game and the return of Donovan McNabb to Philadelphia.
Dan Patrick, Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison preview Sunday Night Football’s Bears@Giants game
DUNGY ON BEARS: “The Bears have moved the football and are starting to take to this new offense by Mike Martz.”
HARRISON ON GIANTS: “Lack of discipline. The penalties. Veteran players not coming through. Eli Manning making all types of bad decisions. They need to play better. I know Tom Coughlin blames himself but it really comes down to those players making better decisions and performing better.”
DUNGY ON GIANTS: “They’ve played two poor games in a row. They are playing at home. They’ve got to come out and play better. They’ve got to play up to their talent level…They are doing uncharacteristic things: 11 penalties, three turnovers. Not doing the things you have to do to win.”
“A CRUCIAL CATCH”
For Bears-Giants, “Sunday Night Football” will capture in-stadium efforts supporting “A Crucial Catch.” The National Football League will support October’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month with its largest on-field presence and a national screening-reminder and fundraising campaign. In collaboration with the American Cancer Society, the initiative, called “A Crucial Catch: Annual Screening Saves Lives,” encourages annual mammograms for women over 40. Beginning on October 3 and continuing throughout the month, NFL Breast Cancer Awareness games will feature:
- Game balls with pink ribbon decals used for every down
- Players wearing pink cleats, wristbands, gloves, chin straps, sideline caps, helmet decals, eye shield decals, captains’ patches, sideline towels and quarterback towels
- Pink coins used for the coin toss
- Pink sideline caps for coaches and sideline personnel and pink ribbon pins for coaches and team executives
- Officials wearing caps with pink ribbons, pink wristbands and pins and using pink whistles
- On-field pink ribbon stencils and A Crucial Catch wall banners
- Pink goal post padding in end zones
Many of these items will be auctioned off at www.nfl.com/auction to raise money for American Cancer Society.
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SNF EXTRA: For the third straight season, the entire Sunday Night Football schedule is streamed live on NBCSports.com. The live coverage on NBCSports.com comes from NBC Sports’ broadcast of Sunday Night Football plus four additional camera angles and several new interactive features.
Sunday Night Football Extra employs a full HD-quality player using Microsoft Silverlight and Smooth Streaming that sets new benchmarks for live streaming video cross-platform. The video player includes full DVR and functionality allowing the user to pause and scroll back-and-forth – even review plays in “slo-mo” — all while watching live video.
New for the 2010 season, Sunday Night Football Extra has a draggable picture-in-picture feature for any of the online-only cameras, and greatly enhanced social functionality including a Twitter Tug of War between fans of the two teams and the ability for users to share direct links to any play in the game via Twitter and Facebook.
Sunday Night Football Extra includes expert analysis, including fantasy tips from Rotoworld fantasy experts as well as in-game chats and analysis from ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio. Additionally Sunday Night Football Extra employs online-only in-game analysis from the NBC Sunday Night Football and Football Night in America teams.
Sunday Night Football Extra features the broadcast from NBC’s Sunday Night Football team: Michaels, Collinsworth and Kremer.
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“SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” VIEWERSHIP UP
BEST PRIMETIME AUDIENCE IN 14 YEARS: Through the first three weeks of the NFL season (four broadcasts), NBC is averaging 23.3 million viewers, the most for the first three weeks of a primetime NFL package in 14 years (23.6 million in 1996 on ABC: three broadcasts), according to official national data released today by The Nielsen Company.
- NBC’s three-week viewership of 23.3 million is two million more than and nine percent above last year’s 21.3 million for the opening three weeks of the NFL season and up 30 percent over the first three weeks in 2008 (17.9 million).
- “Sunday Night Football” featuring the New York Jets 31-23 victory over the Miami Dolphins was seen by an average of 18.1 million people, a gain of three percent over last year’s Week 3 SNF game (Colts-Cardinals, 17.5 million).
SNF NOW 3 FOR 3: With 18.1 million viewers, “Sunday Night Football” was the most-watched regularly-scheduled primetime show on Sunday night for the third straight week this season. Last season, SNF was the most-watched Sunday night primetime broadcast in a record 15 of 16 (94 percent) weeks. In 2008, SNF won 13 of 16 (81 percent) Sunday nights after winning 11 of 16 in 2007 (69 percent) and nine of 16 in 2006 (56 percent).
NO. 1 SHOW OF THE WEEK: For the third straight week “Sunday Night Football” was the No. 1 regularly-scheduled primetime broadcast of the week by a wide margin among Adults 18-49, the coveted advertiser demographic, as well as among Adults 18-34 (tied with Glee), Adults 25-54, Men 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. Among viewers and households, SNF ranked just behind Dancing With The Stars on ABC and NCIS on CBS.
- “Sunday Night Football” has a 30 percent margin of victory over the No. 2 show in Adults 18-49 (7.3 for SNF vs. 5.6 for Glee).
- Through three weeks of the NFL season, “Sunday Night Football” stands as the top show on television among viewers, households and all key adult and male demos.
The 11.3/19 national rating for Sunday night’s game is six percent ahead of last year’s Week 3 SNF game (Colts-Cardinals, 10.7/17 million). The three-week average household rating of 14.0/23 is nine percent higher than last year’s first three weekends (12.9/21) and 27 percent ahead of the first three weeks in 2008 (11.0/18).
FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA: “Football Night” (7:30-8:15 pm) is averaging 9.5 million viewers through its first two weeks (Week 3 currently unavailable), its most ever through two weeks and up three percent vs. 2009’s 9.2 million viewers.
MOST WATCHED “SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” GAMES:
*Sundays Only
1. 9/12/10, Cowboys-Redskins, 25.3 million (SNF: Week 1)
2. 9/20/09, Giants-Cowboys, 24.8 million (Dallas Cowboys stadium debut)
T3. 09/19/10, Giants-Colts, 23.1 million (Sunday Night – “Manning Bowl II”)
T3. 12/14/08, Giants-Cowboys, 23.1 million
5. 9/10/06, Colts-Giants, 22.6 million (Original “Manning Bowl”)
6. 11/15/09, Patriots-Colts, 22.4 million
7. 9/21/08, Cowboys-Packers, 22.2 million
T8. 11/8/09, Cowboys-Eagles, 21.9 million
T8. 11/5/06, Colts-Patriots, 21.9 million
10. 11/25/07, Eagles-Patriots, 21.8 million
*The NFL Kickoff Opener on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 between the Vikings and Saints generated an average viewership of 27.5 million people.
REMAINING 2010 “SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL” SCHEDULE
Regular Season – “Football Night in America” begins every Sunday at 7 p.m. ET
Sun. Oct. 3 Week 4 Chicago Bears at New York Giants
Sun. Oct. 10 Week 5 Philadelphia Eagles at San Francisco 49ers
Sun. Oct. 17 Week 6 Indianapolis Colts at Washington Redskins
Sun. Oct. 24 Week 7 Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers
Sun. Oct. 31 Week 8 Pittsburgh Steelers at New Orleans Saints
Sun. Nov. 7 Week 9 Dallas Cowboys at Green Bay Packers
Sun. Nov. 14 Week 10 New England Patriots at Pittsburgh Steelers
Sun. Nov. 21 *Week 11 New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles
Sun. Nov. 28 *Week 12 San Diego Chargers at Indianapolis Colts
Sun. Dec. 5 *Week 13 Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens
Sun. Dec. 12 *Week 14 Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys
Sun. Dec. 19 *Week 15 Green Bay Packers at New England Patriots
Sun. Dec. 26 *Week 16 San Diego Chargers at Cincinnati Bengals
Sun. Jan. 2 *Week 17 TBA
*Flex Week
EMBED NBC SPORTS VIDEO: Video from NBC Sports’ NFL coverage, including clips from “Sunday Night Football” and “Football Night in America,” is available to be embedded on media websites at NBCSports.com http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/22825103/vp/21428022#39375010
Current clips include:
- A “Football Night” preview of Sunday Night Football’s Week 4 matchup: Bears @ Giants
- Mike Florio’s PFTV on Eagles QB Mike Vick
- Team press conferences
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Follow “Sunday Night Football” on Twitter at Twitter.com/SNFonNBC
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