DGA Monthly

4 I D G A M O N T H L Y The Super Bowl originated from the 1966 merger agreement between the rival NFL and AFL, creating a championship game in 1967 between the two league champions in a winner-take- all playoff. Called the "AFL-NFL World Championship Game," and played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the fi rst game was simultaneously broadcast on both CBS and NBC. The NBC broadcast was directed by Ted Nathanson, who would later receive the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Direction in 1991. Nathanson would go on to direct more Super Bowl broadcasts than any other Director to date, with 11 games to his credit. For that fi rst game, he arranged to have as big a television set as could be found mounted in the mobile production truck and trained a camera on the screen, occasionally zooming in and beaming that tighter shot over the air. Of the technique he recalled, "The CBS crew couldn't fi gure out how NBC managed to get its 'exclusives.'" In alternate years from 1967–1975, CBS and NBC continued to have exclusive broadcasts of the game, which offi cially adopted the title "Super Bowl" in 1969 when AFL owner Lamar Hunt was inspired by a children's toy with Roman numerals used from Super Bowl V. Nathanson continued directing for NBC until Super Bowl VIII in 1974. That year, Tony Verna helmed the CBS broadcast. Verna, who received the DGA's Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Direction in 1995, was already legendary as the inventor of the feature that would revolutionize televised sports, instant replay. As a young Director, he was always searching for ways to make his broadcasts more exciting but recalled that in the early years NFL teams were reluctant to embrace television. "It was very diffi cult to do anything innovative because the climate was different," said Verna. "The teams didn't give our camera operators good positions on the fi eld. We didn't have the freedom to move around. Our cameras were on turrets that were bolted down." In 1976, Sanford "Sandy" Sanford Grossman made his Super Bowl debut, taking the baton to helm CBS' broadcast of Super Bowl X. Grossman would go on to direct 10 Super Bowls — second only to Nathanson — and win the very fi rst DGA Award for Sports Directing in 1985. He later helmed FOX's fi rst Super Bowl broadcast in 1997 when the network joined the rotation. Six Decades of Directing the Super Bowl In 1939, when the Guild was still in its infancy, Directors and their teams were already making their mark in sports history with the very fi rst broadcast of a professional football game in October 1939, when Director Burke Crotty captured the game in which the Brooklyn Dodgers defeated the Philadelphia Eagles for an audience of perhaps 1,000 people on NBC's experimental station W2XBS in New York. Since then, football has consistently ranked among the most viewed broadcasts in television history, and of those, none rank higher than the crown jewel of sports, the Super Bowl. The fi rst Super Bowl in 1967 was a contest between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs played at a neutral site: the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It didn't come close to selling out, even with tickets priced at $12, $10, and $6. CBS charged $85,000 for a one-minute commercial. Sixty years later, the cost of the most inexpensive ticket for 2026 was over $4,800 for upper-level seats and a 30-second commercial cost advertisers between $8 million and $10 million. As we celebrate the 60th incarnation – where in his eighth Super Bowl, Director Drew Esocoff led a team of Associate Directors and Stage Managers — we look back at the DGA members who have called the plays in the booths to capture the action on the fi eld. THE FIRST BROADCAST: While Directors Bob Dailey and Ted Nathanson helmed the fi rst Super Bowl broadcast, Nathanson (above) would go on to direct more Super Bowls than any other Director to date.

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