20 years after its original run ended NFL Primetime still holds a special place in the hearts of many football fans. The iconic show starring Chris Berman aired on Sunday nights from 1987-2005, recapping the day\u2019s NFL games in an era where fans didn\u2019t have immediate access to highlights at their fingertips.<\/p>\n
But in 2006, NBC secured the rights to Sunday Night Football from ESPN, and the Worldwide Leader was not-so-subtly told it was time to end\u00a0Primetime.<\/p>\n
In a recent interview on SI Media with Jimmy Traina<\/a>, Berman revealed some off-the-record comments that NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol had given him at the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cAre you still pissed that the NFL and NBC killed Primetime?\u201d Traina asked.<\/p>\n \u201cPissed? I mean if I\u2019m pissed, jeez get over it. Am I still pissed the Hartford Whalers are the Carolina Hurricanes? Sure, I\u2019m pissed!\u201d Berman joked. \u201cLook, it\u2019s a pretty good show. I\u2019ve loved doing it. I think that people loved it\u2026I like to think, in a small way, maybe we helped grow the sport, and that\u2019s part of why I\u2019m so attached to it. Am I pissed? I mean that ship\u2019s sailed a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo you\u2019re over it a little bit more now than five years ago?\u201d Traina suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cOh god, I\u2019m over it. That was 2006 when my very good friend\u2026Dick Ebersol quietly said to me, \u2018Chris, we\u2019re going to have a pregame show, it\u2019s not going to be like Primetime.\u2018 He didn\u2019t have to tell me any of it, but he and I remain great. \u2018I can\u2019t have you on opposite us, we need people to watch us.\u2019 Okay, that\u2019s an off-the-record comment, I can now say these things that I\u2019m 70<\/a>, right?\u201d<\/p>\n To hear that Ebersol was so candid with Berman is interesting. Of course, Berman could\u2019ve presumed that was the reason Primetime was getting taken off the air. After all, the show had built up a loyal audience over the years, and it would\u2019ve been difficult for NBC\u2019s\u00a0Football Night in America to take off in direct competition with it. But that frankness isn\u2019t always common in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n Perhaps that\u2019s part of the reason Chris Berman and Dick Ebersol remain close to this day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20 years after its original run ended NFL Primetime still holds a special place in the hearts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[19085,19086,7,13528,6,18733],"class_list":{"0":"post-57215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-chris-berman","9":"tag-dick-ebersol","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-football-night-in-america","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-nfl-primetime"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114522835092565037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}