Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue credits ESPN with raising the "profile" of the league, by turning "a potential six- or seven-hour television experience into a twelve-hour television experience," factoring in both Sunday Night Football and the network's pregame show Sunday NFL Countdown.

The NFL thus became the last major North American professional sports league to begin airing its games on cable television.

During the inaugural season of ESPN Sunday Night NFL (as the telecast was then branded) in 1987, the network's announcing booth consisted of Mike Patrick, Roy Firestone, and a weekly "guest color commentator".

The WABC broadcasts involved play-by-play man (and WABC-TV sports director) Corey McPherrin and Frank Gifford and Lynn Swann (from Monday Night Football) on color commentary.

Also in 1998, Paul Maguire joined Patrick and Theismann in the booth after re-joining ESPN after several years as a color commentator for NBC.

After the 2005 season, ESPN ended this package in favor of picking up the broadcast rights to Monday Night Football from ABC.