NFL Planning Annual Live Awards Show Prior To Super Bowl

The NFL is packaging a live 60- to 90-minute TV show that it "plans to air on the Friday before the Super Bowl," according to Lefton & Ourand in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The program will originate next year and will be "set up as an awards show for some of the league's top individual awards."  The event will include musical acts and is being designed to "kick off Super Bowl weekend." Beginning with Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, the show will be produced from the Super Bowl host city and by the "broadcaster that holds the rights to the Super Bowl," which is NBC next year. Future events will "rotate annually among the networks with Super Bowl rights." Agency sources said that the league is "pushing the concept with hopes that its corporate sponsors will buy most, if not all, of the advertising" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/28 issue).