Bill Richards Guides FOX’s Five-Hour Super Bowl LVII Pregame Show

For FOX Sports’ 10th Super Bowl, it will broadcast its longest pregame show ever.

Prior to the Kansas City Chiefs-Philadelphia Eagles game, FOX NFL Sunday will last five hours, starting at 1 p.m. EST.

“This has just become all day,” said FOX NFL Sunday host Curt Menefee.

Spearheading the daylong production will be Bill Richards, executive producer of FOX NFL Sunday.

He has worked nine of the Super Bowls and been the one in charge for five of them.

For FOX’s last one — the Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers game in Super Bowl LIV — it broadcast an hour pregame show and then restarted it from the top for four more hours, but this one will be a continuous five-hour broadcast, something that Richards thinks will make for an even better narrative.

“Starting and stopping didn’t feel as good as just telling a story over five hours,” Richards exclusively shared.

To account for a show that’s five times longer than the usual hour-long pregame, 18 people — including recently-hired Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton — will talk live instead of the usual six-person grouping of Menefee, Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Jay Glazer.

As the executive producer, Richards is basically the Andy Reid of the show — a head coach who also calls the plays for the offensive skill players. He has to plan who will be talking and for how long and if they’re going with a deep dive on Xs and Os or delving into more of a human-interest piece.

The Super Bowl LVII version of FOX NFL Sunday will have a lot more of the latter with an emphasis on entertainment.

“So many more people watch … than any other Sunday,” Richards said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out they may not be on the inside world that we kind of live in.”

As part of that focus, many A-list celebrities — especially ones who grew up in Philadelphia or Kansas City — will appear on the show.

An ongoing gag will show myriad celebrities opening their refrigerator while getting ready for a Super Bowl party.

Another segment, which was also pretaped earlier in the season, focuses on the 50-year anniversary of the 1972 Miami Dolphins’ perfect campaign, including recreating the Dolphins’ locker room.

“That’s going to be a really special piece,” Richards said.

For the features on the teams in Super Bowl, FOX began filming in Philadelphia 36 hours after the Eagles won the NFC Championship Game. They finished with the Chiefs on Feb. 2, and further teases were shot during Media Night on Feb. 6.

Interviews with coaches and quarterbacks continued during the week in Arizona.

Strahan’s best career moment happened in the same stadium from which FOX will broadcast.

Super Bowl XLII represented Strahan’s last game for the New York Giants and a memorable upset of the undefeated New England Patriots that stunned viewers and the FOX NFL Sunday talent alike.

“All of them picked us to lose. It was kind of great to prove them wrong,” Strahan said while laughing. “I’m pretty sure they’re going to bring up my history here.”

When the Patriots were in the Super Bowl three years prior, Richards was second in command on FOX NFL Sunday, and one of his favorite pregame moments unfolded.

Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi was playing with his sons on the football field prior to the Patriots’ game against Reid’s Eagles. Viewers could see the pure joy on his face. It was so memorable that FOX even replayed it for the last Arizona Super Bowl in 2008.

That served as a lesson for Richards going forward: Leave time for impromptu, off-the-script moments.

“Those things are usually better than the things you plan for,” he said.

Richards had to improvise on a professional level, and it’s something that Long said “epitomizes” the executive producer.

Just before Super Bowl XLV featuring the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers, coordinating producer Scott Ackerson had a medical emergency. With only a few days notice, Richards was the substitute teacher asked to fill in and oversee the show.

“Bill stepped in and did it as well as anyone could possibly do it,” Long said. “Twelve years later, we haven’t looked back.”

Richards then assumed the reins of FOX NFL Sunday while Ackerson was promoted to executive vice president and executive producer of studio programming for all of FOX Sports’ networks and platforms.

Long said Ackerson was running a “day care center.”

“Bill’s job is a little more complicated,” Long said. “It’s more of a senior center and a childcare center.”

In part due to Long and Company’s ability to poke fun of themselves and each other, FOX NFL Sunday continues to be a hit. For the entire 2022 season, it averaged 4,542,000 viewers — up 2% over last year to rank as its best full season average since 2019. It marks the 29th consecutive season that it was the No. 1 NFL pregame show.

The network is slated to televise several more Super Bowls as part of the new TV deal that goes into effect next year and lasts until 2033. Through paying about $2.2 billion annually, FOX will have the rights to NFC games, something it has had since 1994, when FOX NFL Sunday debuted.

While producing FOX NFL Sunday, Richards’ tone was described by colleagues as sharp and witty while being a straight shooter, which meshes well with the gregarious personalities on the Super Bowl LVII set.

“I talk a lot. I won’t shut up,” said the self-deprecating Charissa Thompson. “And Bill’s a man of very few words, but the message is direct.”

That message comes via an earpiece, as Richards will be stationed in a production truck during the pregame show.

Meanwhile, his talent will have a unique perch.

For Super Bowl LIV, Richards found that starting the pregame broadcast on a set right next to Hard Rock Stadium worked well.

So they will have a similar setup for this Sunday’s game. A grass field will separate the set, which took a month to fully construct, from State Farm Stadium (until an hour and half before the game when they will relocate to the State Farm field.)

That pregame location encourages fans to stop by and observe the show.

“Hopefully, they hang with us for a while,” Richards said.

Of course, the majority — and millions — of viewers will be watching FOX NFL Sunday from the comfort of their own homes.

“There’s gonna be a ton of laughs” Richards said. “There’s going to be some tears. Hopefully, a little education but a lot of entertainment.”