For months - no, years - just about everybody involved with network television has insisted that there was no way that CBS could possibly win back any piece of the NFL broadcast rights.
And the argument made sense. Each of the current rights holders - ABC, NBC and Fox - have an exclusive bargaining period with the league. If those networks agree to whatever price the NFL sets, CBS doesn't even get to the bargaining table. And conventional wisdom is that the other three networks will ante up to any price the league asks.But . . . there's at least one person who was convinced that CBS would indeed get back in the NFL picture in some way or another. Jim Nantz, the top sportscaster at the network (and the prime-time host of CBS's upcoming coverage of the Winter Olympics) was confident - and admittedly somewhat nervous - here on Monday.
"I'm anxious for that word to come down, and it's a matter of hours now. I've got my sources and I like our chances," said Nantz, a former KSL sportscaster. "Everybody's been saying we have no chance, but I disagree.
"This is a big, big moment for us. If we don't get it, we're not devastated. But if we get it, it will make us whole again."
Moments later, he whispered, "It's going to happen."
And it did. CBS, which has not televised professional football for four years, agreed to pay $500 million a year for the rights to American Football Conference games beginning next season.
It's a gamble, but one Nance is glad his network was willing to take.
THE SYMBOL OF CBS: Jim Nantz - the same guy who used to anchor the weekend sportscasts on Ch. 5, who used to do play-by-play for the BYU football team, who used to team with Hot Rod Hundley on local Jazz broadcasts - is now the biggest gun there is at CBS Sports.
More than that, he is one of the symbols of CBS itself. When the network's parent company, Westinghouse, recently changed its name to CBS Inc. on the New York Stock Exchange, Nantz was one of three network personalities there ringing in the opening bell on the floor of the stock market.
The others? Bill Cosby and Dan Rather.
"I had phone calls from all over the world after that," said Nantz. "I had a friend in Hong Kong who saw the clip on CNN and called me."
Not only that, but he's the subject of an upcoming story in People Magazine.
"I'm a lot more comfortable being the storyteller than being the story," he said. "I didn't ask for it. I'm grateful, but it's not something I ever wanted to have happen."
So what's it like to be a network superstar?
"I don't think of it that way. But I'm very honored," Nantz said.
JIM AND DAN: CBS just announced that news anchorman Rather will co-host the network's coverage of the Nagano Olympics' opening ceremonies with Nantz. And, oddly enough, both started their broadcasting careers at radio station KTRH in Houston. (Rather, of course, started about three decades earlier than Nantz.)
"Jim has made himself the new American master of the sports microphone," Rather said. "He'll call the plays, and I'll do whatever I can to help."