CBS flashes back to the 70s with ‘NFL Today’ anniversary show

To mark the 50th anniversary of “The NFL Today,” CBS Sports offered a throwback for viewers during Week 3 of the 2025 NFL season — a virtual retro-style set.

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The show, which was shot at the CBS Broadcast Center, combined the features of sets the show used from its debut in 1975 through 1980, J.P. LoMonaco, vice president of design for CBS Sports, told NCS. 

The virtual set also included a digital recreation of a common way to present on-screen information during the earlier days of television — a physical sign set up on-camera. Similar to an old-style stadium scoreboard, these installations typically included cutouts that allowed slide-out panels for changing information such as team names and data to show through while other elements, which would be used frequently, were directly applied to the surface of the board.

Brent Musburger, one of the cost-hosts of “NFL Today” from 1975 to 1990 joined present-day hosts and analysts James Brown, Bill Cowher, Nate Burleson and Matt Ryan, for the Sept. 21, 2025, anniversary show.

For good measure, the open also included a vintage clip of a Jeep driving across rugged terrain to acknowledge the show’s present-day sponsor.

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The show also featured retro graphics and the original theme music.

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This required Lomonaco and his team to build a complete set of animated and insert graphics inspired by the looks used in the late 1970s.

The rebuilds were notably done in 16:9 aspect ratio and were technically broadcast in high definition, though baked-in “filters” helped create the vintage look.

The open was also recreated, but with the names swapped out for the current talent roster (and Musburger’s name under a “featuring” credit). 

CBS also created a retro-style production card.