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If Tony Dungy sticks around, he'll broadcast the 2021 Tampa Super Bowl for NBC

 
Pictured, from left, Dan Patrick, co-Host, Tony Dungy, studio analyst, Aaron Rodgers. [Ben Cohen/NBC]
Pictured, from left, Dan Patrick, co-Host, Tony Dungy, studio analyst, Aaron Rodgers. [Ben Cohen/NBC]
Published May 24, 2017

Lost in the Super Tuesday news of the Super Bowl coming back to Tampa was this nugget:

Tony Dungy will have the chance to broadcast a Super Bowl from his hometown.

NBC, where Dungy, 61, serves as a studio analyst, holds the rights to the Super Bowl LV, to be played at Raymond James Stadium on Feb. 7, 2021.

After delays in building a new stadium for the event in Los Angeles, NFL owners unanimously agreed to move the game to Raymond James Stadium, home of the Buccaneers. Some other Super Bowl LV-related notes:

○• NBC has broadcast a Super Bowl every three years since 2009, when the network broadcast Super Bowl XLIII, also in Tampa.

○• In 2011, NBC, alongside fellow NFL broadcasters Fox and CBS, extended their contract with the NFL through 2022 — giving NBC rights to Super Bowl LV.

○• NBC's NFL broadcast team is currently headed by veteran sportscaster Al Michaels, who spent 29 years with ABC before leaving for NBC in 2006 when the "Peacock Network" regained the rights to broadcast NFL games. Michaels' NBC contract expires at the end of the 2017 season, and at the age of 72 he may no longer be announcing games by 2021.

• Mike Tirico, formerly of ESPN, moved to NBC last year and served as the network's lead play-by-play announcer for Thursday Night Football for the 2016 season. Tirico also took over from Michaels for four late-season Sunday games, including three Sunday Night Football broadcasts. In addition, Tirico is set to host NBC's Football Night in America for next season, following the retirement of Bob Costas.

Other NFL announcers for NBC include Dungy, Cris Collinsworth, Michele Tafoya, Doug Flutie and Heather Cox. Dungy joined NBC in 2009 after his coaching career ended.

○• The last Super Bowl broadcast on NBC was Super Bowl XLIX, in 2015. The game, a 24-21 comeback victory for the New England Patriots over the Seattle Seahawks sealed with a Malcolm Butler goal-line interception, drew an average of 114.4 million viewers, the most of all time, though last year's Super Bowl LI on Fox eclipsed NBC's then-record 168 million peak viewers.

○• Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa also broke the record for viewing numbers when it drew 98.7 million average viewers, but remains the last Super Bowl to not average 100 million.

○• NBC also holds three of the four highest-rated Super Bowls in history, with Super Bowl XLIX averaging 47.5 percent of households — the highest figure of the 21st Century — while Super Bowl XVII and XX, in 1983 and 1986 respectively, both drew Nielsen ratings above 48.

○• The cost of a 30-second commercial for the Super Bowl reached $5 million in 2016 for Super Bowl 50, and increased slightly to $5,002,000 for Super Bowl LI. When the NFL's flagship event first came to Tampa, a commercial of the same length could be purchased for less than a tenth of the price, $368,200.