Television
Madden joined CBS as a color commentator in 1979. After working lower-profile contests during his first years, he was elevated to CBS's top football broadcasting duo with Pat Summerall in 1981, replacing Tom Brookshier. Prior to teaming with Summerall on CBS, Madden was paired with a variety of announcers, such as Bob Costas, Vin Scully, Dick Stockton, Frank Glieber, and Gary Bender. The team of Madden and Summerall would go on to call eight Super Bowls together.
On occasions in which Summerall was unavailable (during the CBS years, Summerall was normally scheduled to commentate on the U.S. Open tennis tournament during the early weeks of the NFL season), Madden would team with the likes of Vin Scully and subsequently, Verne Lundquist. On their final CBS telecast together, the 1993 NFC Championship Game on January 23, 1994, Madden told Summerall that while CBS may no longer have the NFL, at least they have the memories. On ABC's final Monday Night Football telecast in 2005, Madden used a similar choice of words.
In 1994, when Fox gained the rights to NFC games, leaving CBS without an NFL television deal, CBS employees became free agents. Madden was the biggest star in football broadcasting. Fox, ABC, and NBC made offers higher than the $2 million a year maximum for sportscaster salaries. NBC's owner General Electric (GE) offered to make Madden its "worldwide spokesman", and GE Rail would build him a luxury train. After he almost joined ABC, Madden and Summerall, along with Producer Bob Stenner and Director Sandy Grossman—known as the football broadcasting "A Team"—helped establish Fox's NFL coverage, Madden and that group gave Fox credibility to broadcast what Rupert Murdoch called "the crown jewel of all sports programming in the world". Madden's contract paid him more annually than any NFL player. Toward the end of his tenure, Fox was reportedly losing an estimated $4.4 billion on its NFL contract for the eight-year deal it signed in 1998, and it had been trying to cut programming costs as a result. Madden's Fox contract would have been worth $8 million for 2003.
In 2002, Madden became a commentator on ABC's Monday Night Football, working with longtime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels. Madden reportedly made $5 million per year.
In 2005, Dick Ebersol, president of NBC Sports, announced that Madden would provide color commentary for NBC's Sunday night NFL games, beginning with the 2006 season, making him the first sportscaster to have worked for all of the "Big Four" U.S. broadcast television networks. On October 13, 2008, NBC announced that Madden would not be traveling to the October 19 Sunday Night Football Seattle Seahawks–Tampa Bay Buccaneers game in Tampa, Florida, marking the end of Madden's 476-weekend streak of consecutive broadcast appearances. Madden, who traveled by bus, decided to take the week off because he had traveled from Jacksonville to San Diego, and would have had to go back to Florida before returning to his Northern California home.
Madden was replaced by Football Night in America studio analyst Cris Collinsworth for the game, and returned for the following telecast on November 2, 2008, in Indianapolis. Until 2010 the NFL did not schedule Sunday night games for one week in October, so as not to overlap with the World Series taking place roughly around the same time. Madden called his final game on February 1, 2009, for Super Bowl XLIII between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Madden announced his retirement from the broadcasting booth on April 16, 2009. He was succeeded by Collinsworth.
