Fox NFL pregame show to originate from West Point on Sunday

Terry Bradshaw and the “Fox NFL Sunday” pregame show have gone around the world for their Veterans Day shows. But on Sunday the show will originate from one of the service academies for the first time.

This year’s show will be broadcast from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and will include a live audience of more than 1,000 cadets. The idea for taking the show to a service academy came from Bradshaw, who told Fox Sports CEO and Executive Producer Eric Shanks during last year’s show at Fort Benning, Georgia, that he had never been to West Point.

“It is the most important show we do all year and our way of being able to give back to those who serve for us,” Bradshaw said. “West Point has such an important place in American history and also with football that it is going to be a great weekend.”

Bradshaw and Howie Long will address the cadets in the mess hall during lunch Friday. They will then join Curt Menefee, Jay Glazer and Michael Strahan on Saturday to watch Army’s game against UMass before Sunday’s show.

Besides Fort Benning and West Point, the Veterans Day show has originated from locations such as Naval Station Norfolk (2017), Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (2015), Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan (2009), and the USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean Sea (2000).

“The bummer for us is that it is only a two-hour show,” Shanks said. “We could do eight hours on West Point, its history and its legacy to football. We’re not going to be able to tell every story, so we had to choose between modern ones and the history. When you have 1,000 cadets at one of the most important places in American history, just by turning on the camera it is going to be special.”

The show will open with a feature on West Point graduate and Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski as well as profiling Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva, who also graduated from West Point.

While there are logistical hurdles when broadcasting from a military base, this one should go much smoother compared to past trips. Long said he remembers being on a transport plane to Afghanistan and seeing air drops of supplies.

Shanks said future trips to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, are being considered.

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Joe Reedy, The Associated Press