History of the National Football League on television
NBC was the first major television network to cover an NFL game, when on October 22, 1939, it broadcast a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers; the network was still only in its infancy, with only two affiliates, the modern day WRGB (now a CBS affiliate) in Schenectady and W2XBS in New York City. Portions of that game still survive via films, but the film is not footage from the telecast (recordings of television broadcasts did not begin until 1948). The use of a sideline camera, the sole camera used in the 1939 broadcast, would become the standard for all future NFL broadcasts until 2017; the angle is particularly suited for estimating yardage, compared to more mobile camera angles that began to appear in the 21st century.
National Football League on television
On November 8, 1987, the very first NFL game ever aired on ESPN was played between the New England Patriots and New York Giants. Technically, the game was only simulcast in the Boston market, with a separate broadcast produced for the New York market by ESPN sister property WABC-TV – at the time, WABC's union contract prohibited non-union workers (like those of ESPN) from working on live events broadcast on the station. This marked the only time since the AFL–NFL merger that a regular season game was locally produced for TV. The WABC broadcast featured WABC's own Corey McPherrin doing play-by-play, and Frank Gifford and Lynn Swann from "Monday Night Football" doing color commentary.