Super Bowl Brings Out Best In Fox Team

Fox did a great job on its first Super Bowl. Big deal!

The Fox folks have been televising NFL games for three years now, with two announcers who’ve been together for 16 seasons, employing dozens of production people who worked at CBS for years, to fans who have seen 31 of them now.

Yep.

It was another Super Bowl, all right. Just happened to be Fox’s first one.

Five hours of pregame was a bit much, but the real show started after Luther Vandross sang the national anthem. It was quite a show, too. Green Bay beat New England 35-21 in a wild one that needed little embellishment from Fox.

“If you like offense, we’ve had it all. … We had a little running, passing, trick plays, and long passes,” analyst John Madden said.

And just when Madden and play-by-play announcer Pat Summerall thought the action had cooled off, just when they were talking about Green Bay’s troubles on first down, Packers quarterback Brett Favre threw the longest touchdown pass in Super Bowl history, 81 yards, to start the second quarter.

It came on a first down.

“That’s the answer for first down,” Madden said, nonchalantly.

Madden is 60, Summerall 66, and if they have lost a step, if they occasionally miss a beat, if they’ve lost a bit off their fastball, they still are the best in the business.

And this is the perfect forum for Fox - a big, razzle-dazzle event that’s mostly showbiz anyway.

“With all this hoopla, is it as big as it seems?” Summerall asked as Fox opened the game show.

“I think it’s bigger than it seems,” Madden replied.

And that’s about the way Fox feels about it too. In fact, Fox Sports president David Hill called it the “defining moment” for the 10-year-old, upstart network.

Four years ago, Fox didn’t even have a sports division. Now, in less than a year, it has televised the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs, the World Series and Super Bowl.

On the World Series last October, Fox seemed just a little hesitant to push the envelope, going the safer, more conventional route. On the Super Bowl, it was a little more Foxy.

Its Super Bowl graphics were a mix of Star Trek and Alcatraz, but they worked for me. Madden was wound tighter than Madonna’s corset, ZZ Top was kickin’ at halftime, and the action was just about as furious as it gets.

“As soon as New England gets back in it, Green Bay takes it away.” Summerall said after Desmond Howard ran back a kickoff 99 yards for a Green Bay touchdown and another Super Bowl record.

That made it 35-21, and Green Bay left New Orleans the biggest winner of the day. Fox was second biggest.

Out takes

The best of the pregame: the “Diaries” of players leading up to Super Sunday and Ronnie Lott’s grim-faced challenge ” … and I want to know, Paul Tagliabue, why we don’t have any African-American coaches.”

The worst: Pam Oliver, who actually predicted that Brett Favre would have to play within himself for the Packers to win. Top that, Madden.