At a time when Sunday Ticket and Red Zone Channel make it possible to watch every NFL game, and big plays instantly get tweeted as GIFs, it’s easy to forget just how big an innovation NFL Primetime was.
Primetime, which aired Sunday evenings on ESPN beginning in 1987, was the one and only way for NFL fans to see all the best highlights from the day’s NFL action. Before Primetime, most fans only got to see a couple of games shown on their local network affiliates, and then maybe a few minutes of highlights from other games.