James Brown to host a record 10th Super Bowl
James Brown during a CBS Sports panel discussion at the Winter TCA Tour at the Langham Huntington Hotel on January 12, 2016 in Pasadena, California. Credit: Getty Images/Frederick M. Brown
James Brown would be the last person to compare his record-breaking 10th time hosting a Super Bowl on television to Tom Brady’s record 10th time playing in one.
He was not even aware he was approaching the milestone until two years ago, when someone pointed out that his ninth such assignment would tie Brent Musburger’s mark.
But here we are. "I certainly would never have thunk it," Brown said in an interview with Newsday.
"J.B.," as he widely is known, hosted four Super Bowls during his years at Fox, and Super Bowl LV will be his sixth since rejoining CBS in 2006.
The job primarily means steering the famously excessive four hours of formal pregame show, then the halftime and postgame segments, always with the idea of setting up his analysts.
"The early parts of the pregame show, we know that we’re going to have tons of casual viewers who have not followed the league from tipoff to now," he said.
"So to set the stage for them, I just want to make sure I’m doing a good job of making it understandable and making sure my colleagues are the ones to shine."
Saying "tipoff" rather than "kickoff" hints at Brown’s sports origins. Basketball was his game as a player, and he starred in it at Harvard and later did his first TV work on Washington Bullets games.
"J.B. is the face of our show," analyst Boomer Esiason said. "He’s what I call ‘comfort food.' He’s our comfort food because we know we’re in good hands with maybe the best studio host in the history of the sport."
Brown learned early on to diversify his knowledge of different broadcast roles, and different sports.
That included hockey, which Fox carried in the mid-1990s, with Brown as host for two years. He recalled there was initial skepticism about his knowledge of the sport.
He felt validated when during a Devils home game during the 1995 Stanley Cup Final, "a group of young white kids came up and they were hoisting a sign over their head that said, ‘James Brown, Godfather of Goal.’
"That made me feel like I had arrived. I’ve got a picture of that, and it’s in my office here at home."
Things were not always smooth. He recalled an early NFL game he worked for CBS in which he proclaimed that former Buccaneers back James Wilder had been "tackled at the 60-yard line."
"The first game I did was thank God only being televised to the TV truck in Tampa Stadium and to the local Piggly Wiggly down the street," he said.
Brown said he will be unbothered by the massive audience for Super Bowl LV, because he treats every on-camera appearance the same.
"I know it’s a big game, but I don’t focus attention on that," he said, "because now my focus is on something that’s incorrect. My focus is on making certain that as far as the pregame show I’ve got it internalized, I know what I’m going to talk about.
"But more importantly, I love it when I’m engaging with my colleagues about various aspects of the game, and we’re setting the table for the viewing audience."
Brown believes he truly earns his salary when the game starts and he and his colleagues must react to what they have seen.
"That’s the exciting part," he said, "especially when something unexpected comes up – New Orleans, and the lights are out [in 2013]. I’ve got to be able to show some news chops."
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.