All You Need To Know: FOX’s Super Bowl Coverage

By Brian Powell
It’s tough to even begin to portray how over-the-top and grandiose this year’s coverage of the Super Bowl will be, but I’m going to give it a shot. Here’s an easy equation that might break everything down for you.
American Idol + Oscars + Politics + MTV Awards = Fox’s Coverage
The key individual to all of this mess is FOX Sports Chairman Dave Hill. You may remember Dave’s work from the Orange Bowl this year where he decided to show the bands of Kansas and Virginia Tech about 800 times during the Jayhawks win. Our good friend Dave has never hid the fact that he wants to turn Sporting Events into something “bigger”, but with this schedule of events for the Super Bowl he might have just gone too far.
The first hint that this is a bit too much is your host for the pregame festivities: one Ryan Seacrest. I personally have nothing against the Top 40 and American Idol host, but I don’t think the Super Bowl is the place for him to show off his talents. It’s not just that Seacrest is the host of the festivities, but they’re throwing him in with the regular NFL on FOX crew.
While Curt Menafee, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmy Johnson will be covering the Football side of things Seacrest will be taking us through interviews on an actual red carpet and the various musical performances. Paula Abdul, Alicia Keys, Jordin Sparks and a duet between Willie Nelson and Sara Evans are scheduled to all go down before we even get close to a Kickoff for the big game.
Now you may think that while that’s enough to deal with that’s only a breakdown of what’s supposed to occur during the “official” pregame from 2-6pm. There’s still five more hours to fill since FOX’s coverage starts at 9am!!! Here’s what else you can expect.......
FOX NEWS SUNDAY/FOX SUPER SUNDAY (9 a.m. - 12 p.m. ET)
The special will kick off with a one-hour edition of FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, followed by a two-hour block of political and sports coverage with FOX News anchor Shepard Smith live from Glendale, AZ just two days before the 22 state primary contests on Super Tuesday.
ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL (12-1 p.m. ET)
Narrated by Alec Baldwin, and produced by Emmy Award-winning NFL Films, Road to the Super Bowl captures the most dramatic moments of the 2007 NFL season.
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INSIDE THE RINGS WITH TROY AIKMAN (1-1:30 p.m. ET)
“Inside the Rings” with NFL on FOX lead game analyst Troy Aikman is a close up look at select quarterbacks and their personal journeys to Super Bowl victory.
HOWIE LONG’S TOUGH GUYS “SUPER BOWL EDITION” PRESENTED BY CHEVY (1:30-2 p.m. ET)
FOX NFL SUNDAY analyst Howie Long pays tribute to the NFL’s roughest and toughest.
Oh and if none of those programs seem interesting to you ESPN plans a three-hour edition of Sunday Countdown starting at 11am. Someone wake me for the kickoff.↵