John Lennon Announced dead by Howard Cosell 1980 (during MNF)

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Vito Stellino's NFL Confidential: Don Meredith helped make "MNF" an event da jacksonville.com

The death of Don Meredith last week was another reminder of how the NFL and television and America have changed so much in the last four decades.
Looking back, it is almost hard to believe the impact that “Monday Night Football” had in the 1970s.
Back in the era before cable TV, ESPN and the Internet, “MNF” was an event. Now it’s another game on the crowded TV calendar and is on cable TV.
Because they were so few choices on TV back in the pre-cable days, even casual fans watched to see the byplay between the easygoing Meredith and acerbic Howard Cosell.
Roone Arledge, the head of ABC Sports, gets the credit for realizing what a good pairing they were and for sticking with the controversial Cosell when there was pressure to take him off the air.
To understand how big “MNF” was, the stories of the anniversary of John Lennon’s death 30 years ago last week noted that Cosell announced Lennon’s death to the world late in a Miami-New England game. He had also interviewed Lennon six years earlier.
The clip of Cosell’s announcement, which can be seen on YouTube, starts out: “We have to say it. Remember this is just a football game. No matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy. Confirmed to us by ABC news. John Lennon outside of his apartment building on the West side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all of the Beatles, shot twice in the back. Rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival. Hard to go back to the game after that newsflash.”
And even then, Cosell debated with Frank Gifford off the air whether they should make the announcement during a game and Gifford prodded him to do it.
While Cosell handled the serious stuff, Meredith added the light touch with his folksy ways and his signing of “Turn Out the Lights, the Party’s Over.”
Meredith, Cosell, Arledge and former commissioner Pete Rozelle, who conceived the idea of “MNF,” are now no longer with us.
The likes of those men in those times will likely never been seen again.

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