ESPN's Chris Berman opens up on reuniting with Tom Jackson for 'NFL Primetime'

Michael McCarthy

ESPN's Chris Berman opens up on reuniting with Tom Jackson for 'NFL Primetime' image

Rejoice you old fans of ESPN's "NFL Primetime."

Chris Berman and Tom Jackson will reunite for an encore episode of the classic highlights show this Sunday night after the AFC/NFC Conference Championship Games (10 p.m. ET). Keyshawn Johnson will also appear on the show.

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Berman will host another "Primetime" special after Super Bowl 52 on Feb. 4. But not with Jackson, his on-air partner for 29 years at ESPN. Instead, in that special he'll be teamed with Randy Moss and Steve Young.

Like many fans of "Primetime" during its 1987-2005 run, I consider it my favorite sports highlight show of all time. The action. The chemistry between "Boomer" and "TJ." The humor. The nicknames like Curtis "My Favorite" Martin. The driving music that made you want to get off the couch and put on a helmet.

Nobody before or since has brought NFL excitement to life the way Berman and Jackson did on "Primetime." Before RedZone Channel, social media and smart phones, "Primetime" was the place, the only place, to catch up on the day's NFL action. Especially if you were a fantasy football player hungry for highlights of your favorite players. 

How popular was "Primetime"? When NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol won the NFL's Sunday Night TV rights in 2006, he made sure Berman and Jackson's "Primetime" would not go up against his new "Football Night in America."

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Ebersol admitted to his old friend Berman that he didnn't want his new pregame competing with "Primetime" for viewers.  With NBC glomming exclusive Sunday Night highlight rights, ESPN was forced to surrender its Sunday night powerhouse. The "Primetime" name survived in a truncated form, on other days, at other times. But it was never the same. 

Despite landing "Monday Night Football" in return during that fateful negotiation, Berman called ESPN losing "Primetime" a "f---up of the tenth magnitude" in James Andrew Miller's book, "Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN." Berman and Jackson continued their on-air partnership on ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" pregame show. But Jackson retired from TV in 2016. A semi-retired Berman turned over his "Countdown" chair to Samantha Ponder in 2017. Berman had hosted the show for 31 years, an eternity in TV time.

Meanwhile, the sportscaster suffered a personal tragedy when his wife of 34 years, Kathy, was killed in a car accident last year.

I talked this week to the 62-year old Berman at his home in Hawaii about reuniting with Jackson, whether he misses "Countdown," and if ESPN brass underestimated his bond with viewers. Without Berman at the helm, "Countdown's" average viewing audience fell 12% to 1.2 million during the 2017 regular season. The show averaged a 0.8 rating, down 11% from the previous year. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

SPORTING NEWS : Boomer, were you surprised to learn you'd be working with Tommy again this Sunday?

CHRIS BERMAN : Unbelievable. These two shows, I was going to do them. The 'Championship Primetime' and 'Super Bowl Primetime.' This one is being done from the L.A. studio because of where I’m at (Hawaii). We figured we’d use a couple of West Coast guys: Keyshawn [Johnson] and Herm Edwards. [Herm] moved in for Tom the one year I wasn’t with Tom. Then Herm become coach of Arizona State… I was just going to do it with Keyshawn. Fine. I’ll give Seth Markman [ESPN's senior coordinating producer for NFL & MLB studio coverage] the credit. He said let me make one call. He didn’t tell me. So this has only been in the works since the week after Herm took the job… With Tommy, this is our show. Hopefully we don’t screw it up…

If there’s a game like last [Sunday's Minneapolis Miracle], or even close, or even a game like Philly-Atlanta with a big ending, we’re on right afterwards. We’re right after the game. The old ‘Primetime’s used to be at 7:30 [p.m. ET] on Sunday night. The late game was just over. It wasn’t like, ‘OK, we’ve got five hours to tidy up and now let’s present a show.’ So this is kind of the old rules, if you will. One game is over, another game just ended. So you just roll with it. That will be fun. I hope people have a smile on their face and say, ‘You know, we enjoyed a lot of years with family watching this show.’ We won’t disappoint. We’re so up for it. I’ll have to pinch myself when I’m sitting there with [Tom] doing ‘NFL Primetime.’ Maybe we bring the old music out. What more could you ask for if you’re me? 

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SN : When we last spoke, you talked about the 'Primetime' fans who wrote you over the years that they used to watch with their whole family. And the son who didn’t get along with his father. But for one hour a week, they bonded while watching your show. Do you still get that from fans, even though the show in original form has been gone for 12 years? 

CB : I get it ALL the time. All the time. It hasn’t been on for over 10 years, at least the way we did it. And the way it was allowed to come right after the 4 p.m. games, but before ESPN 'Sunday Night Football,' it was perfect. I still get, ‘Boy that was football, those were the days.’ It warms me every time I hear it. Especially since the show hasn’t been on for 12 years since it was every Sunday Night at 7:30. Everybody has a story. I liked the music. I liked the nicknames. It made me a football fan. I didn’t really watch football. But for one hour, I did . I take that to heart. It was a gathering place. It was appointment TV beyond what we knew we were doing. I still get it today. And I will have many of those feelings going into doing these two shows, trust me.

 

 

SN : Could "Primetime" still draw in today's media climate of cell phones, Twitter and YouTube?

CB : It’s not like, ‘Well, everybody sees the highlights now, we don’t need it.’ That’s not it. By contract, it’s not allowed to be done. Which is a bummer. Now let me just say this. This is a different thing. I think it would still be very popular were it allowed to be done from 7:30 to 8:30 [p.m. ET on NFL Sundays]. Even though, on your phone you just saw at 2 p.m. this play. But you didn’t see it all in an hour… As you know it was the highest rated weekly sports studio show in the history of cable. It will never be passed. Times changes. We got shows in the 5’s. We averaged for a year 4.8’s. Like, c’mon. The late '90s. So would it do that? No. Would it get a number? Yeah. Could football use it to make fans? Not everybody’s born a football fan. I still believe today that show would make football fans. At that time. 

SN : Do you and Tommy still talk football?

CB : Yes. This was not planned. At the end of the third quarter of [the Eagles' 15-10 win over the Falcons Saturday] I called him. We were going to talk on the weekend. We ended up staying on the phone, me in Hawaii and him at home, for the entire fourth quarter. Until Julio Jones didn’t get it on the fourth down. We were talking strategy. OK, if they don’t get a first down here on third down, they can still punt. But if they get one, this is it. Why wouldn’t they take a timeout here? They have to run to the left …But we stayed on the phone the entire fourth quarter. It was not planned. Not planned. It was like, 'Oh my god, look what we just did? We used to sit back with each other, watch all these games and think:  What are they doing. That was brilliant. Whatever … It was a fun fourth quarter for me. So hopefully the hour will be fun for everybody else. The Super Bowl [Primetime show] won’t be with Tom. But it will be with Randy [Moss] and Steve [Young] like last year when we had [Bill] Belichick come right off the podium. That was unbelievable. That NEVER happens… So Tommy and me on the phone for 45 minutes during Eagles-Falcons. True story. Not planned.

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SN : You're famous for your player nicknames: Jake "Daylight Come and You Gotta" Delhomme. Eric “Sleeping With” Bieniemy. Andre 'Bad Moon' Rison. Mike 'You're in Good Hands with" Alstott. Have you brushed up on the current playoff rosters and come up with new nicknames?

CB : There’s one that I’ve used that will get some pub… [Vikings WR] Adam Thielen is right out of Lionel Richie. ‘Oh, What a Thielen, Dancing on the Ceiling.’ That’s a LOCK. Because he’s become a huge player. But that’s already established. The answer is no. I haven’t looked at any rosters. I'm sure when LeGarrette Blount [rushes], we’ll have the sound effects like we did for Mike Alstott. But Michael, like I told you, I don’t plan the gags. I really don’t. I haven’t really looked at Jacksonville. The [Sony] Open in Hawaii was won by Patton Kizzire. Ke-Zire; I think that’s how you pronounce his last name. I said, ‘Boy, if he was playing in one of these games, he would be Patton 'A Streetcar Named ' Kizzire. But I digress. But 'Oh, What a Thielen, Dancing on the Ceiling' is a lock. What you hear will be fresh, trust me. Like morning coffee.

SN: Do you miss hosting 'Sunday NFL Countdown?' Thirty-one years is a long time, especially in TV.

CB : I miss the action. I miss my teammates. Randy [Moss], Matt [Hasselbeck], Charles [Woodson]. I worked with them last year so I always root for them. I root for Rex [Ryan]. I think Sam [Ponder] did a good job. Remember it went back to three hours. That’s no layup, I can tell you first hand. So I miss the action. I miss being in there from start to finish. I miss being on top of all the teams — or at least trying to be. I didn’t leave it because I got tired. I left it because I did it a long time. It was mutual. It was good and I’m good with it. I’m not sitting here crying, ‘Oh, I had another three years left, why did it…?' That’s not the case. Nothing has changed. Then again, I’ve lived something else this year [the death of wife Kathy] that I wasn’t planning on anyway. It all goes secondary to what happened in my life here. So I miss the action, I miss the teammates, I miss being in the middle of it. I don’t miss that alarm at 6:15 [a.m.], in at 8, get home at 1, walk the dog, go to bed at 2. Get up early, go back in at 11 or so…At 62 years old, there’s part of it I don’t miss — although I loved every minute of it… By the way, I can't believe how much I get done on a Sunday now. 

SN : During its first year without you, 'Sunday NFL Countdown's TV audience fell 12%. Did ESPN underestimate your popularity with viewers?

CB : Maybe so. But that’s not for me to say. And I didn’t leave because it was like, ‘We don’t need him any more.’ That wasn’t it. That’s not how it went down. You know, I contribute to it [the show via taped segments]... They had to change it quite a bit. Not because I wasn’t physically there. But you can’t say, ‘Here’s the new host — but we’re doing the same show.’ Can’t do that. Whether it was me or whether it was anybody. I don’t know. I couldn’t say. But I didn’t leave knowing they don’t think I’m necessary any more so it’s time to go. I don’t think that was the case for ESPN either. As a matter of fact, I know it wasn’t. So it was a mutual thing… People will be reminded, though, how good a show 'NFL Primetime' was. But I want to reiterate, it’s only fair to say this is not a reaction to, ‘Well, the show’s different, let’s bring them back.’ I was coming back to do these [two post-season shows] anyway… It will be fun to be in the saddle again. I hope I don’t get thrown from the horse."

Michael McCarthy

Michael McCarthy Photo

Michael McCarthy is an award-winning journalist who covers Sports Meda, Business and Marketing for Sporting News. McCarthy’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC.com, Newsday, USA TODAY and Adweek.