"Dandy Don" Meredith: His Impact on MNF and Evolutionary Changes in Broadcasting NFL Games

Don Meredith passed away in December and with him went a huge part of the history of Monday Night Football (MNF). Meredith was a quarterback first with Southern Methodist University, where he became a two-time All-American, then with the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1968. He became the Cowboys starter in 1965 and led them to their first winning season in 1966. He retired in his prime at the age of 31. By 1970 he was doing Monday Night Football with the great Howard Cosell and play-by-play men Keith Jackson and then Frank Gifford.

What they did with MNF was revolutionary. Football was never in primetime and many thought that it would fail because at the time women controlled the remote. It is funny now because women make up a huge fan base for the NFL. MNF was something new and different, football in primetime, who would have thought it. The three men in the booth made it work because of their ability to entertain fans and non-fans alike.

The first football game, college or professional, was televised was on Sept. 30, 1939,  Waynesburg College vs. Fordham University. It has come a long way since then. Sports are about entertainment and there have been many changes that happened to turn the game into the most watched sport on television.

Tex Schramm, who was the original president and general manager of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, helped pave the way for changes in the NFL that helped put the game live and in primetime on television. Schramm first propsed instant reply, sideline radios in quarterback helmets and starting the play clock immediately after the previous play. This helped speed up the game and made it easier to get the games on television. Schramm also suggested wide sideline borders and wind-direction strips dangling atop of goalpost uprights.

Another way to make football more entertaining and to make people want to watch it and keep up with their teams is the idea that Schramm came up with for six divisions and the wild card playoff concept. He also came  up with doing a second game on Thanksgiving, making that day one of the best football days of the year. Schramm came up with another way to have more entertainment for not only the fans but the television audience. In 1972 he hired professional dancers rather then high school cheerleaders, this is what NFL teams had been using. This move made one of the most recognizible squads in the world, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.