Phoenix, Feb. 12 (US): Even while watching last year’s Super Bowl, Bill Richards was planning how this year’s pregame show would look.
Richards is the lead producer of Fox’s Super Bowl pregame show for the fifth time.
The five hours leading up to Sunday’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles is analysis, entertainment and festival all rolled into one massive production.
“It’s a cloud,” Richards said earlier this week. “I don’t say it to feel negative, but it’s something that’s been with you for at least a year.” “You’re always kind of like if I get something great for Week 7, do I save it for the Super Bowl?”
Although Fox and Richards took a year to prepare, the final rundown wasn’t finished until Saturday afternoon, the Associated Press reports.
Most of the features—especially the final two hours—were dictated by teams, but Richards and his crew managed to get a couple done before the match between the Chiefs and Eagles kicked off two weeks ago.
Along with profiles on Arizona and Phoenix, who are hosting their fourth Super Bowl, there will be a feature on the 50th anniversary of the perfect 1972 Miami Dolphins season. Richards said he was happy with this profile because he feels it brings viewers into the locker room.
There will also be features that run the gamut from funny to thought-provoking.
“I think we do sports comedy as well, if not better than anyone else,” said Richards. “So we’ll have a little bit of that. But this is our first Super Bowl with Tom Rinaldi (hired from ESPN in 2020) and I’m really excited about the things he’s going to bring to it and kind of grabbing a different kind of vibe.”
The first three hours will be a mix of entertainment, celebrity interviews, and other features before the focus shifts to the beginning of the game’s deconstruction for the final two hours.
“It’s quite a challenge to move these chess pieces in motion, making sure you get the right things in at the right time,” said Richards. “You really want things to flow. The attitude of the show is going to be different than it was in the end. If you’re going to get there early, it’s like showing up at a party, those are the people you want to hang out with. And then when you get closer and you start to focus, it’s a little more than X and O and less music and fun.”
Besides figuring out where certain features are located, Richards also has to split time among the 13-person cast who either serve as host or analyst.
Host Curt Menefee said he would arrive at the stadium 3 1/2 hours before the show starts at 1pm EST. Besides anchoring the pregame show, Menefee and the Fox NFL Sunday team of Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan, and Rob Gronkowski will be on the halftime and postgame coverage.
“People keep asking how you’re doing pre-game in the Super Bowl on Sunday, it’s all about speed because it’s a long day,” Menvey said. “It passes quickly once you get into it and the excitement builds.”
The pre-game show is not only produced by Fox Sports. Includes appearances from those with shows on Fox as well as some syndication from Fox News and Fox Business.
There’s also another reason Super Bowl pre-shows are so long — they make money. A 30-second commercial went through the first two hours of the pre-show for $100,000. That rate rises to nearly $3 million before kickoff.
Charissa Thompson — who hosts the early Fox NFL Kickoff show on Sundays during the season — will take over some early hosting duties. Sean Payton remains part of the coverage despite being hired by the Denver Broncos two weeks ago.
“If the preliminary game was six or seven hours long, there would still be plenty to talk about and no shortage of entertainment,” said Thompson.
Fox Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks has been involved in all of the network’s Super Bowl broadcasts.
While he still looks back fondly on the first Fox in New Orleans in 1997, he’s seen the network continue to grow as it airs the Super Bowl for the tenth time.
“I don’t think it’s ever going to replace the former, because it was joining the other three networks in doing the Super Bowl. But I will say this one is getting bigger and more nuanced,” he said. “I think our storytelling has grown by leaps and bounds. And quite frankly, our ability to make it a big event now is with everything we do.
“It won’t replace that first, but there’s no such thing as the next.”