title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The 2022 schedule was released on May 12, 2022. The Kickoff game was held on September 8, 2022 with the defending Super Bowl LVI champion Los Angeles Rams hosted the Buffalo Bills, which resulted in a 31-10 win for Buffalo. After six years of waiting to take over full-time, Mike Tirico replaced Al Michaels as lead play-by-play after the latter left for Amazon, while NFL Network's Melissa Stark replaced Michele Tafoya on the sidelines. However, Michaels will be on select SNF and playoff telecasts in an emeritus role and a fill in for Tirico.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: This season marked the first time that SNF did not go head-to-head with a World Series game as Major League Baseball scheduled a travel day for the American League's Houston Astros and the National League's Philadelphia Phillies on October 30, between Games 2 and 3. With Game 3 scheduled for October 31 postponed the following day due to rain in Philadelphia and every subsequent game pushed back by one day, the Week 9 SNF contest featuring the Tennessee Titans and Kansas City Chiefs would compete with Game 7 of the World Series should the latter game be necessary. However, the seventh game became moot when the Astros won the championship in six games.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Week 11, the NFL announced a scheduling change that flexed out a rivalry game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Pittsburgh Steelers in favor of a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers. As the Chargers had back-to-back games on Sunday night after the Week 10 game against the San Francisco 49ers, this was the first time in 4 years that a team has played back-to-back Sunday Night Football games since the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Rams.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Week 14, the NFL announced a scheduling change that flexed out a rivalry game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos in favor of the Miami Dolphins and the Los Angeles Chargers. This would be the Dolphins' second appearance on SNF after they beat the Steelers in Week 7. And this will also be the second time in 4 weeks that the Chargers will host a Sunday Night Football game.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Week 15, the NFL announced a scheduling change that flexed out a game between the New England Patriots–Las Vegas Raiders game that was flexed out in favor of the New York Giants–Washington Commanders. This will be marked the Commanders makes first appearance as a new name. This was also marked the Giants return to SNF in 2 years.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Thanksgiving Night featured an interconference matchup between Mac Jones and the New England Patriots against Dalvin Cook and the Minnesota Vikings.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Flexible scheduling rules went into effect in Week 5; the scheduled game will revert to the afternoon if a more compelling game arises as the season progress. The scheduled SNF game will revert to the afternoon the scheduled game could be swapped with the more competitive game's time slot. The final game of the season is Sunday January 8, 2023 likewise is a flex game the slot was left blank when the schedule came out. Games and times will be announced at a later date.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In addition, there are four Super Bowl rematches on Sunday Night Football for the 2022 season. The first one in Week 3 featured a rematch of Super Bowl XXIV between the 49ers and the Broncos. The second one in Week 4 was a rematch of Super Bowl LV between the Chiefs and the Buccaneers. In Week 10, the 49ers hosted the Chargers in a rematch of Super Bowl XXIX. Finally, Week 13 featured a rematch of Super Bowl V between the Colts and the Cowboys.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Much of NBC's "SNF" production crew comes from ABC/ESPN, including Fred Gaudelli and Drew Esocoff (who respectively serve as producer and director of the broadcasts), as ESPN moved most of its previous Sunday night crew over to "Monday Night Football". Michaels, Madden and Andrea Kremer also came to NBC directly from ABC/ESPN, and "Football Night in America"s Sterling Sharpe was a member of ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" in recent years (calling several Sunday night games for the network in 2005). With regard to using ABC/ESPN talent, NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said, "I was not interested in the quote, unquote vanity of starting anew ... There's not a lot of room for experimentation."


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In addition, NBC has the starters for each team introduce themselves on each side of the ball (though the strict "player name/position/playing college" introductions of the past have been relaxed, and now players can list their birthplace or high school in the last part rather than their playing college, or even their college's common nickname, such as Miami (FL)'s "The U"), much as ABC did in the last few years of its run, and the short post-game show (done to allow affiliates to start their late newscasts) follows a similar format to ABC's. As of Week 9 of the 2016 NFL season, this practice was also used on the NBC-produced "Thursday Night Football" broadcasts on NBC and/or NFL Network.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Michaels and Madden ended each telecast in the 2007 and 2008 NFL seasons by selecting an MVP for that night's game to receive the "Horse Trailer" award (with a photo of each recipient being affixed to the side of a production truck, also known as a "horse trailer"). This concept originated from Madden's days with "CBS", where he invented the similar "Turkey Leg Award" for the Thanksgiving Day game in 1989 (he later took the concept to Fox, then expanded it to every game of the year with the Horse Trailer Award when he joined ABC in 2002). In the 2006 season, the MVP concept was modified slightly, where the game's MVP was called the "Rock Star of the Game" and had his photo placed on a display at the "Top of the Rock" observation deck atop 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NBC's New York headquarters, in New York. When Madden retired following Super Bowl XLIII, the Horse Trailer Player of the Game award was discontinued.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The following local TV stations have carried both "MNF" and "SNF" during their histories. (Unless otherwise noted, these stations have been NBC affiliates for the entire run of "SNF".)


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Academy Award winner John Williams composed the instrumental theme music, titled "Wide Receiver," for "Sunday Night Football". For Super Bowl XLIII, NBC commissioned Joel Beckerman of Man Made Music to create new instrumental cues adding techno and rock elements around the main brass melody. These cues replaced the original Williams arrangements full-time at the start of the 2009 season. Singer Pink sang the theme song for the broadcast in 2006, a reworking of the Joan Jett song "I Hate Myself for Loving You" retitled "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night". Several alternative versions were used throughout the season, substituting different lyrics when appropriate (such as "Waiting All Year For Sunday Night" (During week 1 of each season) or "Waiting All Day For A Wild Card Fight").


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In 2007, country singer Faith Hill replaced Pink as the singer of the opening theme, and a new arrangement of the Joan Jett song coincided with her debut. The Faith Hill intro, in particular, was not without criticism and parody. The intro was lampooned in the October 9, 2010 episode of "Saturday Night Live", with host Jane Lynch as Hill (with Jason Sudeikis as Al Michaels and Bill Hader as Cris Collinsworth). In the "30 Rock" episode "Season 4", the character of Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) sings what appears to be an allusion to the Faith Hill intro for NBC's fictional "Tennis Night in America" program. In the "South Park" episode entitled "Faith Hilling", Eric Cartman sings an obvious spoof of Hill's actual "Sunday Night Football" song. On April 15, 2013, Hill announced that she would no longer sing the intro song for "Sunday Night Football".


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The use of the reworked Joan Jett song is another similarity to ABC's "Monday Night Football" coverage. From 1989 to 2011 and again beginning in 2017, Hank Williams Jr. opens "MNF" with a reworking of his song "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight" entitled "All My Rowdy Friends Are Back for Monday Night (Are You Ready for Some Football?)".


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: On October 7, 2012, The Soul Rebels had a featured performance on "Sunday Night Football", performing the show's theme song.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: A new Carrie Underwood-sung theme known as "Oh, Sunday Night", which takes elements from her 2014 duet hit with Miranda Lambert, "Somethin' Bad", premiered with the opening game of the 2016 season on September 11.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: For NBC's coverage of "Thursday Night Football" in 2016 and 2017, A capella group Pentatonix sung the opening theme song called "Weekend Go." The song is a reworked version of their original song "Sing." NBC also used the "TNF" main theme music called "Can't Hold Us Down," performed by members of the Broadway orchestra for "Hamilton."


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In 2018, Underwood, along with songwriters Chris DeStefano and Brett James, wrote and recorded a brand new song for SNF, called "Game On", replacing "Oh, Sunday Night," which had been the opening theme since 2016. In addition, Joel Beckerman, who had orchestrated the main theme since Super Bowl XLIII, reorchestrated the main theme, for the first time since Super Bowl XLVI. Underwood faced criticism over the song, which led to her, NBC, and the NFL being sued by singer Heidi Merrill for plagiarism.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The plagiarism lawsuit of "Game On" led to NBC bringing back "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night", which was the original opening song, until it was replaced in 2016. Underwood returned, and in 2019, the open featured Joan Jett, and her band The Blackhearts. The open was shot inside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which was the first time that the SNF open was shot inside of an NFL stadium, instead of a soundstage.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The song is at the centerpiece of the opening montage, which has changed several times over the years. Carrie Underwood's music has always played in the background over the official welcome after the opening is completed and the teams take the field.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: For the first season, Pink appeared to sing from the top of a skyscraper as a helicopter zoomed down on a city skyline with enlarged players Shaun Alexander, LaDainian Tomlinson and Tom Brady and the field, the results of computer-generated imagery. A television monitor, which resembles the monitor at Times Square leased at the time by NBC, showed game preview footage and opening credits.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Faith Hill, who replaced Pink as the theme song's performer, sang on a stage while some of the key players in the game and announcers Al Michaels and John Madden arrived in limousines and walk on a red carpet as they head to a simulated theater. The marquee outside the theater showed the logo of then-official NFL communications partner Sprint, which paid a product placement fee, and one of the "bystanders" recorded the red carpet scene on a Sprint camera phone. "Access Hollywood" co-hosts Shaun Robinson and Tony Potts also appeared in the opening. In addition, some of the lyrics were changed slightly and the musical arrangement tilts toward country more than rock, to reflect the change in singers.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The 2008 opening, which debuted on September 7, takes place in a stadium. Hill performed and danced surrounded by video screens with simulated game action, and the song ended with a computer-generated fireworks display. Once again, a Sprint camera phone was used, this time by a fan. Among the spectators were NFL stars Ray Lewis and Antonio Gates. Again, there were some lyrics changes, among them was the substitution of the lyrics "last one standing better turn out the lights."


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: A special intro sequence was used for Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009. Hill performed with CGI blue neon lights and video screens in the settings of the background and at the end of the video, the Vince Lombardi Trophy entered through pouring water, showing the trophy in front of the city of Tampa (the host city of Super Bowl XLIII).


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: For 2009, Hill appeared in the intro sequence performed in a closed-studio setting, surrounded by video monitors, neon lights and a message board that displayed the names of the production staff. Sprint returned for more product placement, as a branded cell phone appeared to give an alert that the game was about to start.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Hill was seen in front of a Ford Mustang convertible as the song began, overlooking a bluff; the scene was taped in the Hollywood Hills in California. A number of NFL stars appeared in front of various landmarks throughout the United States, including Peyton Manning at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Eli Manning at Times Square, DeSean Jackson at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Larry Fitzgerald in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Drew Brees on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Hill herself drove down a road with some simulated billboards with the opening credits and a product placement ad for Verizon (which replaced Sprint as the league's telecommunications sponsor) and was also seen at the Washington Monument. Some of the lyrics changed yet again; for example, the opening line once again asked, "Alright, Sunday night, where are you?" Hill gathered with the NFL stars on a football field inside a stadium at the end of the video.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Week 16, the introduction did not air due to the game moving to Tuesday night and time constraints.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: There were a few significant changes from the previous year, including Hill (who herself returned for her fifth year as part of the telecast's opening) arriving in a motorcycle. In addition, Verizon returned for more product placement. Most of the scenes, including the NFL stars' appearances in front of various landmarks throughout the U.S. and Hill at the Washington Monument (with the minor difference being her wardrobe), were repeated from 2010, however several new NFL stars appeared, including Adrian Peterson and Brian Urlacher; in the last few seconds of the sequence, all of them gathered on a computer-generated football field. In another notable change, the opening credits were dropped for the season. J. Ivy, a spoken word poet from Chicago who has worked with Kanye West and Jay-Z, also appears during the opening.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Hill performed another special Super Bowl version of the song at the start of the network's broadcast of Super Bowl XLVI on February 5, 2012. With computer-generated technology, this was filmed in a closed-studio setting, with her walking surrounded by video screens showing clips from past Super Bowl games. A Verizon smartphone (product placement) was seen at the beginning of the video sequence.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Some changes were made to the show's opening for the 2012 season, which included Hill walking through the tunnel towards the stage. She then performed with a rock band in front of a live audience, with video screens in the background. Shortly after the start of the song, guests appeared on the computer-generated video screens each week (such as three of the judges from "The Voice" for Week 1, the Chicago Fire Department for Week 3 and the girls Goldie Rocky and Shania from The New Normal for Week 5) singing the line, "We want it too!" The live audience used their smartphones to form the Verizon logo. NFL stars were also seen going through the tunnel with moving CG images of city landmarks, players and team logos. Initially, the stars presented were Aaron Rodgers (Green Bay Packers), Clay Matthews (Packers), Ray Lewis (Baltimore Ravens), Patrick Willis (San Francisco 49ers), Jimmy Graham (New Orleans Saints), DeMarcus Ware (Dallas Cowboys), Calvin Johnson (Detroit Lions), Larry Fitzgerald (Arizona Cardinals), Jared Allen (Minnesota Vikings), Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots), Darrelle Revis (New York Jets) and Eli Manning (New York Giants). The opening itself was remixed with Nick Mangold (Jets) and LeSean McCoy (Philadelphia Eagles) filling in for Ray Lewis and Darrelle Revis.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Beginning with this season, the opening title sequence was not used at the start of the "NBC Sunday Night Football Thanksgiving Special" broadcast. This opening was also not used on December 16, 2012, two days after the Sandy Hook shooting.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Carrie Underwood became the performer for the theme song for the 2013 season, replacing Faith Hill. Her intro debuted on September 8, with the theme arrangement itself tilted even more towards country to reflect the change in singers. In this animation sequence, Carrie Underwood performed on stage inside a computer-generated stadium. Verizon also returned for more product placement. Some of the NFL stars appearing in this opening included Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts), Eli Manning (Giants), Peyton Manning (Denver Broncos), Clay Matthews (Packers) and J. J. Watt (Houston Texans). The animation ended with the "NBC Sunday Night Football" logo written in laser lighting.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Beginning with this season, the opening was not used for any and all playoff games aired on NBC with the exception of the Super Bowl.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood continued her role as "Sunday Night Football"s show opener, which debuted on September 7. Once again, Verizon returned to provide product placement. Some of the NFL stars that were represented in the opening were Philip Rivers (San Diego Chargers), Luke Kuechly (Carolina Panthers), DeMarcus Ware (Broncos), Clay Matthews (Packers), Brandon Marshall (Chicago Bears), Jimmy Graham (Saints), LeSean McCoy (Eagles) and Colin Kaepernick (49ers). This time, she was seen performing on a computer-generated stage. In another major tweak, the lyrics toward the end of the song changed, with the commentators' first names (Al and Cris) being replaced with "come on along with the best on TV."


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood performed a special Super Bowl version of the song at the start of the network's broadcast of Super Bowl XLIX on February 1, 2015. In this version, she is performing with a rock band in concert with video screens showing scenes from past Super Bowl games inside a CGI rendering of University of Phoenix Stadium, the site of Super Bowl XLIX. The Patriots' Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Darrelle Revis, as well as the Seattle Seahawks' Russell Wilson and Kam Chancellor, appeared in the opening. Verizon provided product placement.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her third year as part of the show's opening on September 13. Once again, she was seen performing on a computer-generated stage. Product placement was once again provided by Verizon, which introduced its newest company logo that September.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her fourth season on September 11, with "Oh, Sunday Night" replacing "Waiting All Day For Sunday Night" as the new intro for "SNF". In this open, Underwood was seen at the stadium entrance in front of a bus. Upon entering the stadium, she goes into the "SNF" broadcast booth with Al Michaels (play-by-play) and Cris Collinsworth (color). She was then seen going down the steps before entering the locker room with the players and then walking past a row of cheerleaders. Michele Tafoya (sideline reporter) also appears in the open, as does product placement by Verizon. As Underwood left the computer-generated stadium at the end of the open, the "SNF" logo was lit up between the two computer-generated pyrotechnics displays and finally, the sliding doors seen above the logo slid open while going into a live shot.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her fifth season on September 10. The opening sequence began with a skyline and a Verizon logo (product placement) on the lower left of the screen. Underwood was seen wearing a red dress while walking down the street before performing on stage. Various NFL stars also appeared in the opening.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Rather than singing a special version of "Oh Sunday Night", done in previous years with "Waiting All Day for Sunday Night", Underwood recorded, and performed "The Champion" featuring rapper Ludacris as the opening sequence to Super Bowl LII, with product placement by Verizon.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her sixth season on September 9. "Game On" replaced "Oh Sunday Night" as the opening theme. In the open, she was singing into a microphone with video screens in the background. Underwood was joined by several NFL stars before the cheerleaders joined her. The open ended with Underwood on the rooftop of a skyscraper. In another significant change, the logo of Pepsi (the official soft drink of the NFL, which paid a product placement fee) was shown. It replaced Verizon as the product placement sponsor in the "SNF" open. Although the Kickoff Game had no intro, NBC used a snippet of Underwood's song The Champion, to commemorate the Eagles' Super Bowl Championship, which then led into the championship banner unveiling, the singing of "Fly, Eagles Fly", and the introduction of the Super Bowl Champion Eagles, all led by Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: As in recent years, the intro was not seen before the Thanksgiving game. However, NBC created a special intro featuring chef Emeril Lagasse and New Orleans-born jazz musician Trombone Shorty.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her seventh season on September 8, when her new intro for "SNF" debuted during Week 1. As previously mentioned, she teamed with rock music legend Joan Jett for the return of the original "SNF" opening theme song, "Waiting All Day For Sunday Night." Product placement was once again provided by Pepsi and the opening sequence was filmed inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, making this the first time the open was filmed inside an actual NFL stadium.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: As in recent years, the intro was not seen before the Thanksgiving game. However, like the year before, NBC created a special intro for the game. This year, the intro featured Atlanta-based country group Zac Brown Band performing a rewritten version of their song Chicken Fried.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her eighth season on September 13. This season's intro was very unique, as due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, an intro could not be filmed. Instead, the intro was filmed remotely, with players and fans making cameos from home.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC had also planned to air a special intro for the Thanksgiving game for the third straight year, this year, starring Milo Ventimiglia from NBC's hit show "This is Us". However, because the game was postponed to the Wednesday afternoon after Thanksgiving, the intro was scrapped altogether.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her ninth season on September 12. This season's intro was featured with NFL players along with reporters, fans tailgating in the parking lot and some of SNF's finest moments. Also, Uber Eats replaced Pepsi as the sponsor of the "Sunday Night Football" open. The intro ends with a computer-generated fireworks display, similar to that of 2008.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The Thanksgiving Night intro returned for 2021. This year featured New Orleans native Branford Marsalis narrating a special video essay.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC's opening started with an impromptu commercial for Visit California and features movie clips of famous football movies, clips from previous Super Bowl games and cameo appearances by Hollywood actors and Super Bowl luminaries, starring actress Halle Berry. Underwood did make a cameo in the commercial, singing a parody of her hit song "Before He Cheats" related to "The Blind Side" (acting as if it was a musical), with the title line being changed to "Maybe next time he'll beg before he calls a sneak".


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Underwood returned for her 10th season on September 11. This season's intro underwent an overhaul to match the new logo and package introduced for SNF. The intro starts with a computer-generated fireworks display before panning down towards a concert venue where Underwood performs, cutting between the performance and clips of the teams. Aspects of previous SNF intros made their return, with some melodies from previous years being reintroduced. The intro ends with a pan up towards the fireworks display with the new SNF logo.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The graphics, logos and scoreboard for NBC's "Sunday Night Football" telecasts were designed by Troika Design Group, along with the city skyline graphics used in the introductions to both "Football Night in America" and the games proper. It was effectively the first time the network used permanent time/score boxes throughout any of their sports broadcasts outside of Olympic Games broadcasts, where permanent scoring displays were compulsory; prior to 2006, the network continued the previous mode of presenting the scores on-screen for a short time every few minutes or so, a method common in American sports broadcasting until Fox introduced constant scoring displays in 1994.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC's game telecasts use the same type of horizontal bottom-screen scoreboard that "Monday Night Football" used in the 2005 NFL season (and was subsequently used by ABC Sports until its rebranding in August 2006). After its debut, the graphics also began to be phased in across other NBC Sports properties, including its coverage of Notre Dame football and the annual Bayou Classic game (which uses exactly the same graphics used on "SNF" broadcasts), National Hockey League coverage (which uses the "SNF" graphics but with a scoreboard on the top), and tennis and golf (which use a modified version influenced by the look, but with bolder text for readability purposes). NBC's Olympics coverage continues to use a different package mixed between NBC's graphics and those of the IOC's world feed. The NBC football graphics are also used, in some form or another, on certain locally produced preseason telecasts carried by NBC owned-and-operated stations and affiliates that serve as flagship outlets for NFL teams (such as New York Giants preseason games on WNBC, and the Minnesota Vikings on KARE-TV).


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC's bottom-line scoring banner underwent a significant revamp for the 2009 season, although it debuted during the network's Super Bowl XLIII coverage on February 1, 2009. The changes included presenting downs and yardage in a feather derived from NBC's iconic peacock logo in the colors of the team currently on offense. In addition, when a team scores a touchdown, the banner will open, the team's logo and initials will slide to the left of the banner and "TOUCHDOWN" is displayed in the remainder of the banner. After a few moments, the banner will show the drive information. Then the banner returns to normal and show the change in the team's score. Additionally (beginning with Week 9), timeout indicators were added below each team's respective scores. For the 2010 season, the timeout indicators were changed to three white trapezoids below the team abbreviations, and the play clock was moved from above the team in possession of the football to above the game clock (for the final two minutes of regulation and if necessary, overtime). The down markers also changed in 2010, which is now featuring the team logo next to the down marker.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: On January 2, 2012, during the NHL Winter Classic (with a sneak two days before during a Notre Dame hockey game on Versus), the graphics of all of NBC Sports' productions were updated to a new package intended to unify the graphical image between both the network and the rebranded NBC Sports Network, which relaunched that same day. Subsequently, on Wild Card Saturday (January 7), the network's NFL presentation was changed to the new graphical styling to match the style and layout of the then-recently christened NBC Sports Network. Most of the banner's styling remains the same, but with a cleaner and larger font for readability and a more neutral NBC logo to the left rather than the "aggressive peacock" used since 2006. Elements such as team and individual player stats take on team colors (main color as the background, secondary color as the accent), and the down/yardage/possession graphic also takes on team coloring, with neutral team comparison stats and other elements having a gold/blue/black coloring. Additionally, the play clock appeared directly above the game clock throughout the entire game.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Beginning with the 2014 Hall of Fame Game on August 3, 2014, the play clock was moved to the right side, next to the down/yardage graphic, of the bottom-screen score banner, which itself remained in the 4:3 safe area. In addition, beginning with the "NFL Kickoff Special" on September 4, 2014, an electronic green-colored line-of-scrimmage marker was added to the virtual on-field graphic. NBC's "Sunday Night Football" was also the last of the five NFL broadcast partners to switch to a full 16:9 letterbox presentation on its 4:3 standard-definition feed, a downscaled version of the HD feed's native 16:9 format (utilizing the Active Format Description #10 flag), following Fox (2010), ESPN's "Monday Night Football" (2011), NFL Network's "Thursday Night Football" (2012) and CBS (2013). Some of the graphics were also re-positioned.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: On January 3, 2015, during the Wild Card playoffs, NBC Sports debuted a revamped graphics package for its NFL coverage on "Wild Card Saturday Night", which is formatted for the 16:9 letterbox presentation. The package was part of a new graphics set introduced across NBC Sports' properties on January 1, 2015, during its coverage of the Premier League and the 2015 NHL Winter Classic.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: On November 3, 2016, during the Atlanta Falcons-Tampa Bay Buccaneers game on NFL Network, NBC Sports debuted a separate graphics package for their production of "Thursday Night Football", which is completely different from the CBS Sports version. The score bar, which is similar in design to the "SNF" version, is also seen at the bottom of the screen, with the NBC/NFL Network co-branding on the left side of the bar. However, the timeout indicators on NBC's "TNF" score bar are stacked to the right of the team's abbreviations, as opposed to underneath them on the network's own "SNF" score bar. For the 2017 season, "TNF" games produced by NBC but aired exclusively on NFL Network outside of team markets have the NBC logos removed but use the same graphics and theme music.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC debuted a new graphics package specifically for "Sunday Night Football" during Super Bowl LII, began to be used full-time 2018 season. Producer Fred Gaudelli stated that the network wanted "SNF" to have a more distinctive presentation to set them apart from other NBC Sports telecasts. For the 2018 season, NBC also debuted a new on-air feature known as the "green zone"; on third and fourth downs, the distance from the line of scrimmage to the first down line is digitally shaded on the field to be a darker shade of green. The feature received mixed reviews from critics and viewers, who considered it distracting and redundant to the existing yellow first down line that had historically been a standard feature of U.S. football telecasts. "The Ringer"s Rodger Sherman considered it "the ultimate conclusion of graphics creep". Gaudelli stated that the green zone was developed for when Skycam is used as a primary camera angle, but it was decided to use the effect on all games.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: NBC debuted a new on-air graphics package for Super Bowl LVI as well as the subsequent 2022 NFL season, including a "pod"-like scoreboard in the center of the screen (reminiscent of one introduced by Fox in 2020) anchored by a circular hub containing the game clock, and capable of retracting itself to the side of the screen to fit statistical graphics. Additionally, the aforementioned "green zone" graphic was dropped after four seasons and the electronic line-of-scrimmage marker is now shown in the NFL team's primary color. For the first time, NBC also introduced a new logo for "Sunday Night Football" and its associated programs, replacing the previous pentagon-shaped "shield" logo used since its premiere with a more minimalistic wordmark better-suited for multi-platform usage.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Canada, "Sunday Night Football" is aired by TSN, as well as CTV 2 for simsub purposes since the 2017 season under the NFL's current media rights. It is also aired in the UK by Sky Sports, corporate sibling to NBC since Comcast's acquisition of Sky, and in Australia by 7mate.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In Brazil, "SNF" is broadcast on ESPN Brasil, with the original English audio available as a separate feed via second audio program. Brazilian Portuguese audio is hosted by Fernando Nardini on play-by-play and Paulo Antunes as color commentator; Ari Aguiar/Renan do Couto fills in occasionally as play-by-play and Antony Curti as color commentator.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The "Sunday Night Football" telecasts are also aired in Latin America, ESPN Latin America, with Álvaro Martín as play-by-play announcer and Raúl Allegre providing color commentary.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: In the Philippines, TV5 (which partnered with ESPN) on October 12 announced that it would broadcast "SNF" starting with Week 6 of the 2017 NFL regular season between the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos.


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: Through the first four weeks of the 2010 NFL season, "Sunday Night Football" had an average total viewership of 22.9 million viewers, the most for the first four weeks of a prime time NFL package in 14 years (since ABC earned a 24.0 million average viewership in 1996 on four broadcasts of "Monday Night Football").


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: The Washington Redskins–Dallas Cowboys game on December 30, 2012 was the highest-rated "Sunday Night Football" broadcast ever, earning 30.426 million viewers (22.074 million during the period from 8:31 to 11:25 p.m. Eastern Time) and a household rating of 12.7. This also made it the most watched regular-season primetime game in 16 years, since a November 18, 1996 "Monday Night Football" game on ABC between the Green Bay Packers and the Cowboys (which was watched by 31.5 million viewers).


title: NBC Sunday Night Football

text: For the 2013 season, "Sunday Night Football" averaged 21.9 million viewers (for 15 broadcasts, as well as the Turkey Bowl) in 2013, up 5% versus its viewership in 2012, and an increase of 3% with a 12.9 household rating. In terms of sheer reach, this marked the highest average viewership for an NFL prime time package since 1996. Its highest rated game telecast was the Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts on October 20, 2013, which was watched by 26.9 million viewers.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Robert Tyre Jones Jr. (March 17, 1902 – December 18, 1971) was an American amateur golfer who was one of the most influential figures in the history of the sport; he was also a lawyer by profession. Jones founded and helped design the Augusta National Golf Club, and co-founded the Masters Tournament. The innovations that he introduced at the Masters have been copied by virtually every professional golf tournament in the world.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones was the most successful amateur golfer ever to compete at a national and international level. During his peak from 1923 to 1930, he dominated top-level amateur competition, and competed very successfully against the world's best professional golfers. Jones often beat stars such as Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen, the era's top pros. Jones earned his living mainly as a lawyer, and competed in golf only as an amateur, primarily on a part-time basis, and chose to retire from competition at age 28, though he earned significant money from golf after that, as an instructor and equipment designer.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Explaining his decision to retire, Jones said, "It [championship golf] is something like a cage. First you are expected to get into it and then you are expected to stay there. But of course, nobody can stay there." Jones is most famous for his unique "Grand Slam," consisting of his victory in all four major golf tournaments of his era (the open and amateur championships in both the U.S. & the U.K.) in a single calendar year (1930). In all Jones played in 31 majors, winning 13 and placing among the top ten finishers 27 times.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: After retiring from competitive golf in 1930, Jones founded and helped design the Augusta National Golf Club soon afterwards in 1933. He also co-founded the Masters Tournament, which has been annually staged by the club since 1934 (except for 1943–45, when it was canceled due to World War II). The Masters evolved into one of golf's four major championships. Jones came out of retirement in 1934 to play in the Masters on an exhibition basis through 1948. Jones played his last round of golf at East Lake Golf Club, his home course in Atlanta, on August 18, 1948. A picture commemorating the event now sits in the clubhouse at East Lake. Citing health reasons, he quit golf permanently thereafter.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Bobby Jones was often confused with the prolific golf course designer, Robert Trent Jones, with whom he worked from time to time. "People always used to get them confused, so when they met, they decided each be called something different," Robert Trent Jones Jr. said. To help avoid confusion, the golfer was called "Bobby," and the golf course designer was called "Trent."


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones was born on March 17, 1902, in Atlanta, Georgia, he battled health issues as a young boy, and golf was prescribed to strengthen him. Encouraged by his father, "Colonel" Robert Purmedus Jones, an Atlanta lawyer, Jones loved golf from the start. He developed quickly into a child prodigy who won his first children's tournament at the age of six at his home course at East Lake Golf Club. In 1916, Jones won his first major golf event when he claimed the inaugural Georgia Amateur Championship conducted by the Georgia State Golf Association at the Capital City Club, in Brookhaven, at age 14. His victory at this event put him in the national spotlight for the first time. The Georgia Amateur win caught the eye of the United States Golf Association which awarded Jones his first invitation to the U.S. Amateur at Merion near Philadelphia. Jones advanced to the quarterfinals in his first playing in the event.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: He was influenced by club professional Stewart Maiden, a native of Carnoustie, Scotland. Maiden was the professional at the Atlanta Athletic Club's East Lake Golf Club, who also trained Alexa Stirling, the three-time winner of the U.S. Women's Amateur, who was five years older than Jones but also a prodigy at East Lake. Jones also received golf lessons from Willie Ogg when he was in his teenage years. Jones played frequently with his father, a skilled golfer himself. The younger Jones sometimes battled his own temper on the course, but later controlled his emotions as he became more experienced. Jones toured the U.S. during World War I from 1917 to 1918, playing exhibition matches before large crowds, often with Alexa Stirling and Perry Adair, to generate income for war relief. Playing in front of such crowds in these matches helped him, as he moved into national competition a bit later on.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones successfully represented the United States for the first time, in two winning international amateur team matches against Canada, in 1919 and 1920, earning three of a possible four points in foursomes and singles play. In 1919 he traveled to Hamilton Golf and Country Club, for his first serious competitive action outside the U.S., while in 1920, Engineers Country Club, in Roslyn, Long Island, hosted the matches. Still a teenager, he was by far the youngest player in the series. Jones also played in the 1919 Canadian Open while in Hamilton, Ontario, performing very well to place tied for second, but 16 shots behind winner J. Douglas Edgar. Edgar had immigrated from England in 1919 to take a club professional's job in Atlanta at Druid Hills Golf Club; Edgar mentored and played frequently with Jones from 1919 to 1921. Edgar was credited by Jones with helping develop his game significantly.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones qualified for his first U.S. Open at age 18 in 1920, and was paired with the legendary Harry Vardon for the first two rounds. He won the Southern Amateur three times: 1917, 1920, and 1922.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones earned his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1922 and played for the varsity golf team, lettering all four years. Jones was a member of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and the Georgia Phi chapter house at Georgia Tech is named in his honor.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: He then earned an A.B. in English Literature from Harvard College in 1924, where he was a member of the Owl Club. In 1926 he entered Emory University School of Law and became a member of Phi Delta Phi. After only three semesters he passed the Georgia bar exam and subsequently joined his father's law firm, Jones, Evins, Moore and Howell, (predecessor to Alston & Bird), in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: As an adult, he hit his stride and won his first U.S. Open in 1923. From that win at New York's Inwood Country Club, through his 1930 victory in the U.S. Amateur, he won 13 major championships (as they were counted at the time) in 21 attempts. Jones was the first player to win The Double, both the U.S. and British Open Championships in the same year (1926). He was the second (and last) to win the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur in the same year (1930), first accomplished in 1916 by Chick Evans.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones is the only player ever to have won the (pre-Masters) Grand Slam, or all four major championships, in the same calendar year (1930). Jones's path to the 1930 Grand Slam title was:


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones made a bet on himself achieving this feat with British bookmakers early in 1930, before the first tournament of the Slam, at odds of 50–1, and collected over $60,000 when he did it.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones represented the United States in the Walker Cup five times, winning nine of his 10 matches, and the U.S. won the trophy all five times. He served as playing captain of the U.S. team in 1928 and 1930. He also won two other tournaments against professionals: the 1927 Southern Open and the 1930 Southeastern Open. Jones was a lifelong member of the Atlanta Athletic Club (at the club's original site, now the East Lake Golf Club), and the Capital City Club in Atlanta.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: In the first round of the 1925 U.S. Open at the Worcester Country Club near Boston, his approach shot to the 11th hole's elevated green fell short into the deep rough of the embankment. As he took his stance to pitch onto the green, the head of his club brushed the grass and caused a slight movement of the ball. He took the shot, then informed his playing partner Walter Hagen and the USGA official covering their match that he was calling a penalty on himself. Hagen was unable to talk him out of it, and they continued play. After the round and before he signed his scorecard, officials argued with Jones but he insisted that he had violated Rule 18, moving a ball at rest after address, and took a 77 instead of the 76 he otherwise would have carded. Jones's self-imposed one-stroke penalty eventually cost him the win by a stroke in regulation, necessitating a playoff, which he then lost. Although praised by many sports writers for his gesture, Jones was reported to have said, "You might as well praise me for not robbing banks."


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: A similar event occurred in the next U.S. Open, played at the Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio. In the second round, after his opening round put him in second place, Jones was putting on the 15th green in the face of a strong wind. After grounding his putter during address to square up the club face, the ball rolled a half turn in the wind when Jones lifted the club head to place it behind the ball. Although no one else observed this movement of the ball either, again Jones called a penalty on himself, but this time Jones went on to win the tournament, the second of his four U.S. Open victories.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones had a unique relationship with the town of St Andrews. On his first appearance on the Old Course in The Open Championship of 1921, he withdrew after 11 holes in the third round, when he failed to complete the hole (in effect disqualifying himself), and tore up his scorecard, although he finished the round and indeed played the fourth round as well. He firmly stated his dislike for The Old Course and the town reciprocated, saying in the press, "Master Bobby is just a boy, and an ordinary boy at that." Later, he came to love the Old Course and the town like few others. When he won the Open at the Old Course in 1927, he wowed the crowd by asking that the trophy remain with his friends at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club rather than return with him to Atlanta. He won the British Amateur over The Old Course in 1930, and scored a double eagle 2 on the fourth hole (then a par-5, now a par-4), by holing a very long shot from a fairway bunker. In 1958, he was named a Freeman of the City of St Andrews, becoming only the second American to be so honored, the other being Benjamin Franklin in 1759. As Jones departed Younger Hall with his honor, the assembly spontaneously serenaded him off to the traditional tune of Will Ye No Come Back Again? in a famously moving tribute. Today, a scholarship exchange bearing the Jones name exists between the University of St Andrews and Emory University, Queen's University, The University of Western Ontario and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. At Emory, four students are sent to St Andrews for an all-expenses-paid year of study and travel. In return, Emory accepts four students from St Andrews each year. The program, the Robert T. Jones Scholarship, is among the most unusual scholarships offered by any university.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: In September 1930, a month and a half after his final U.S. Amateur victory, Jones turned professional. Though he did not intend to earn money from playing golf in pro tournaments, Jones intended to make money from instructional films and books. According to USGA rules, only professionals were allowed to make money from golf in any form. In addition, Jones worked with J Victor East, an Australian of A.G. Spalding & Co., to develop the first set of matched steel-shafted clubs; the clubs sold very well and into the 1970s were still considered among the best-designed sets ever made.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones played in the first dozen Masters, through 1948, but only in the first as a contender. By then, his health at age 46 had declined to the stage where this was no longer possible. With his health difficulties, being past his prime, and not competing elsewhere to stay in tournament form, he never truly contended at the Masters, although his scores were usually respectable. These were almost all ceremonial performances, since his main duty was as host of the event. His extraordinary popularity, efforts with the course design, and tournament organization boosted the profile of the Masters significantly. The tournament, jointly run by Jones and Clifford Roberts, made many important innovations that became the norm elsewhere, such as gallery ropes to control the flow of the large crowds, many scoreboards around the course, the use of red / green numbers on those scoreboards to denote under / over par scores, an international field of top players, high-caliber television coverage, and week-long admission passes for patrons, which became extremely hard to obtain. The tournament also sought and welcomed feedback from players, fans, and writers, leading to continual improvement over the years. The Masters gradually evolved to being one of the most respected tournaments in the world, one of the four major championships.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Following his retirement from competitive golf in 1930, and even in the years leading up to that, Jones had become one of the most famous sports figures in the world, and was recognized virtually everywhere he went in public. While certainly appreciative of the enormous adulation and media coverage, this massive attention caused Jones to lose personal privacy in golf circles, and he wished to create a private golf club where he and his friends could play golf in peace and quiet. For several years, he searched for a property near Atlanta where he could develop his own golf club. His friend Clifford Roberts, a New York City investment dealer, knew of Jones's desire, became aware of a promising property for sale in Augusta, Georgia, where Jones's mother-in-law had grown up, and informed Jones about it. Jones first visited Fruitlands, an Augusta arboretum and indigo plantation since the Civil War era, in the spring of 1930, and he purchased it for $70,000 in 1931, with the plan to design a golf course on the site.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones co-designed the Augusta National course with Alister MacKenzie; the new club opened in early 1933. He founded the Masters Tournament, first played at Augusta in March 1934. The new tournament, originally known as the Augusta National Invitational, was an immediate success, and attracted most of the world's top players right from its start. Jones came out of retirement to play, essentially on an exhibition basis, and his presence guaranteed enormous media attention, boosting the new tournament's fame.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Later, in 1947, he founded Peachtree Golf Club in Atlanta and co-designed the course with Robert Trent Jones.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: National Amateur championships were counted as majors at the time. Jones' actual major total using the standard in place in his lifetime was 13.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: The majors of Jones' time (those for which as an amateur he was eligible) were the U.S. and British Opens and Amateurs.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones retired after his Grand Slam in 1930, playing only his own tournament, The Masters. As an amateur golfer, he was not eligible to compete in the PGA Championship.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Sources for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur, British Open, 1921 British Amateur, 1926 British Amateur, 1930 British Amateur, and The Masters.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones's four titles in the U.S. Open remain tied for the most ever in that championship, along with Willie Anderson, Ben Hogan, and Jack Nicklaus. His four-second-place finishes in the U.S. Open place him second all-time with Sam Snead and Nicklaus. Phil Mickelson holds the dubious record with six (1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2013) second-place finishes. His five titles in the U.S. Amateur are a record. Jones was ranked as the fourth greatest golfer of all time by "Golf Digest" magazine in 2000. Nicklaus was first, Hogan second, and Snead third. Jones was ranked as the third greatest golfer of all time in a major survey published by "Golf Magazine", September 2009. Nicklaus was ranked first, with Tiger Woods second, Hogan fourth, and Snead fifth.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones appeared in a series of short instructional films produced by Warner Brothers in 1931 titled "How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones" (12 films) and in 1933 titled "How to Break 90" (six films). The shorts were designed to be shown in theaters alongside feature films, whereby "would-be golfers of the country can have the Jones' instruction for the price of a theater ticket." Jones indicated at the time of the making of the 1931 series that the films would be "designed as instructive" but not "so complicated that a non-golfer can't understand them."


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: The films were popular, and Jones gave up his amateur status while earning lucrative contract money for this venture. These films were put into storage and were unavailable for decades, but a surviving print was located sixty years later and put into video format for preservation by Ely Callaway, a distant cousin of Jones's. All 18 shorts were subsequently preserved and released in a DVD collection by Warner Archive on November 6, 2012. They also air occasionally on Turner Classic Movies, usually in the space between features.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Actors and actresses, mostly under contract with Warner Brothers, but also from other studios, volunteered to appear in these 18 episodes. Some of the more well-known actors to appear in the instructional plots included James Cagney, Joe E. Brown, Edward G. Robinson, W.C. Fields, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Richard Barthelmess, Richard Arlen, Guy Kibbee, Warner Oland and Loretta Young. Various scenarios involving the actors were used to provide an opportunity for Jones to convey a lesson about a particular part of the game. The shorts were directed by the prolific George Marshall.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones was the subject of the quasi-biographical 2004 feature film "" in which he was portrayed by Jim Caviezel. The Jones legend was also used to create a supporting character in "The Legend of Bagger Vance" in 2000, portrayed by Joel Gretsch, and the event where he called his own penalty is used for the fictional protagonist, Rannulph Junuh.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones authored several books on golf including "Down the Fairway" with Oscar Bane "O.B." Keeler (1927), "The Rights and Wrongs of Golf" (1933), "Golf Is My Game" (1959), "Bobby Jones on Golf" (1966), and "Bobby Jones on the Basic Golf Swing" (1968) with illustrator Anthony Ravielli. The 300-copy limited edition of "Down the Fairway" is considered one of the rarest and most sought-after golf books by collectors. To keep this book readily available to golfers, Herbert Warren Wind included a reproduction of "Down the Fairway" in his Classics of Golf Library.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones has been the subject of several books, most notably "The Bobby Jones Story" and "A Boy's Life of Bobby Jones", both by O.B. Keeler. Other notable texts are "The Life and Times of Bobby Jones: Portrait of a Gentleman" by Sidney L. Matthew, "The Greatest Player Who Never Lived" by J. Michael Veron, and "Triumphant Journey: The Saga of Bobby Jones and the Grand Slam of Golf" by Richard Miller. Published in 2006, "The Grand Slam" by Mark Frost has received much note as being evocative of Jones's life and times.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Jones married Mary Rice Malone in 1924, whom he met in 1919 while a freshman at Georgia Tech. They had three children: Clara Malone, Robert Tyre III (1926–1973), and Mary Ellen (b. 1931).


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: During World War II, Jones served as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps. His superiors wanted him to play exhibition golf in the United States, but Jones was insistent on serving overseas. In 1943 he was promoted to major and trained as an intelligence officer, serving in England with the 84th Fighter Wing, which was part of the Ninth Air Force. While in England, he made the acquaintance of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Landing in Normandy on June 7, 1944, Jones spent two months with a front line division as a prisoner of war interrogator, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. During the war, Jones permitted the U.S. Army to graze cattle on the grounds at Augusta National.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: In 1948, Jones was diagnosed with syringomyelia, a fluid-filled cavity in the spinal cord that causes crippling pain, then paralysis; he was eventually restricted to a wheelchair. He died in Atlanta on December 18, 1971, three days after converting to Catholicism. Jones was baptized on his deathbed by Monsignor John D. Stapleton, rector of the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, and attended by the Jones family was buried in Atlanta's historic Oakland Cemetery.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: His widow Mary died less than four years later in 1975 at age 72, following the death of their son, Robert T. Jones III, of a heart attack in 1973 at age 47.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: Founded in 2013, Jones Global Sports designs, develops, and sells apparel, accessories and golf equipment. The company has an exclusive, worldwide license agreement with the family of Bobby Jones (known as Jonesheirs, Inc.) for the use of the Bobby Jones name.


title: Bobby Jones (golfer)

text: In 2019 the family of Bobby Jones partnered with the Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation to form the Bobby Jones Chiari & Syringomyelia Foundation (Bobby Jones CSF), a nonprofit which works to raise awareness of Chiari Malformation and syringomyelia and to search for a cure. The Bobby Jones Classic golf tournament is an annual fundraiser that supports research and education efforts.


title: Quantum state

text: In quantum physics, a quantum state is a mathematical entity that provides a probability distribution for the outcomes of each possible measurement on a system. Knowledge of the quantum state together with the rules for the system's evolution in time exhausts all that can be predicted about the system's behavior. A mixture of quantum states is again a quantum state. Quantum states that cannot be written as a mixture of other states are called pure quantum states, while all other states are called mixed quantum states. A pure quantum state can be represented by a ray in a Hilbert space over the complex numbers, while mixed states are represented by density matrices, which are positive semidefinite operators that act on Hilbert spaces.


title: Quantum state

text: Pure states are also known as state vectors or wave functions, the latter term applying particularly when they are represented as functions of position or momentum. For example, when dealing with the energy spectrum of the electron in a hydrogen atom, the relevant state vectors are identified by the principal quantum number , the angular momentum quantum number , the magnetic quantum number , and the spin z-component . For another example, if the spin of an electron is measured in any direction, e.g. with a Stern–Gerlach experiment, there are two possible results: up or down. The Hilbert space for the electron's spin is therefore two-dimensional, constituting a qubit. A pure state here is represented by a two-dimensional complex vector formula_1, with a length of one; that is, with


title: Quantum state

text: where formula_3 and formula_4 are the absolute values of formula_5 and formula_6. A mixed state, in this case, has the structure of a formula_7 matrix that is Hermitian and positive semi-definite, and has trace 1. A more complicated case is given (in bra–ket notation) by the singlet state, which exemplifies quantum entanglement:


title: Quantum state

text: which involves superposition of joint spin states for two particles with spin . The singlet state satisfies the property that if the particles' spins are measured along the same direction then either the spin of the first particle is observed up and the spin of the second particle is observed down, or the first one is observed down and the second one is observed up, both possibilities occurring with equal probability.


title: Quantum state

text: A mixed quantum state corresponds to a probabilistic mixture of pure states; however, different distributions of pure states can generate equivalent (i.e., physically indistinguishable) mixed states. The Schrödinger–HJW theorem classifies the multitude of ways to write a given mixed state as a convex combination of pure states. Before a particular measurement is performed on a quantum system, the theory gives only a probability distribution for the outcome, and the form that this distribution takes is completely determined by the quantum state and the linear operators describing the measurement. Probability distributions for different measurements exhibit tradeoffs exemplified by the uncertainty principle: a state that implies a narrow spread of possible outcomes for one experiment necessarily implies a wide spread of possible outcomes for another.


title: Quantum state

text: In the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, pure quantum states correspond to vectors in a Hilbert space, while each observable quantity (such as the energy or momentum of a particle) is associated with a mathematical operator. The operator serves as a linear function which acts on the states of the system. The eigenvalues of the operator correspond to the possible values of the observable. For example, it is possible to observe a particle with a momentum of 1 kg⋅m/s if and only if one of the eigenvalues of the momentum operator is 1 kg⋅m/s. The corresponding eigenvector (which physicists call an eigenstate) with eigenvalue 1 kg⋅m/s would be a quantum state with a definite, well-defined value of momentum of 1 kg⋅m/s, with no quantum uncertainty. If its momentum were measured, the result is guaranteed to be 1 kg⋅m/s.


title: Quantum state

text: On the other hand, a system in a superposition of multiple different eigenstates "does" in general have quantum uncertainty for the given observable. We can represent this linear combination of eigenstates as:


title: Quantum state

text: The coefficient which corresponds to a particular state in the linear combination is a complex number, thus allowing interference effects between states. The coefficients are time dependent. How a quantum state changes in time is governed by the time evolution operator. The symbols formula_10 and formula_11 surrounding the formula_12 are part of bra–ket notation.


title: Quantum state

text: Statistical mixtures of states are a different type of linear combination. A statistical mixture of states is a statistical ensemble of independent systems. Statistical mixtures represent the degree of knowledge whilst the uncertainty within quantum mechanics is fundamental. Mathematically, a statistical mixture is not a combination using complex coefficients, but rather a combination using real-valued, positive probabilities of different states formula_13. A number formula_14 represents the probability of a randomly selected system being in the state formula_13. Unlike the linear combination case each system is in a definite eigenstate.


title: Quantum state

text: The expectation value formula_16 of an observable is a statistical mean of measured values of the observable. It is this mean, and the distribution of probabilities, that is predicted by physical theories.


title: Quantum state

text: There is no state which is simultaneously an eigenstate for "all" observables. For example, we cannot prepare a state such that both the position measurement and the momentum measurement (at the same time ) are known exactly; at least one of them will have a range of possible values. This is the content of the Heisenberg uncertainty relation.


title: Quantum state

text: Moreover, in contrast to classical mechanics, it is unavoidable that "performing a measurement on the system generally changes its state". More precisely: After measuring an observable "A", the system will be in an eigenstate of "A"; thus the state has changed, unless the system was already in that eigenstate. This expresses a kind of logical consistency: If we measure "A" twice in the same run of the experiment, the measurements being directly consecutive in time, then they will produce the same results. This has some strange consequences, however, as follows.


title: Quantum state

text: Consider two incompatible observables, and , where corresponds to a measurement earlier in time than .


title: Quantum state

text: Suppose that the system is in an eigenstate of at the experiment's beginning. If we measure only , all runs of the experiment will yield the same result.


title: Quantum state

text: If we measure first and then in the same run of the experiment, the system will transfer to an eigenstate of after the first measurement, and we will generally notice that the results of are statistical. Thus: "Quantum mechanical measurements influence one another", and the order in which they are performed is important.


title: Quantum state

text: Another feature of quantum states becomes relevant if we consider a physical system that consists of multiple subsystems; for example, an experiment with two particles rather than one. Quantum physics allows for certain states, called "entangled states", that show certain statistical correlations between measurements on the two particles which cannot be explained by classical theory. For details, see entanglement. These entangled states lead to experimentally testable properties (Bell's theorem)


title: Quantum state

text: One can take the observables to be dependent on time, while the state "σ" was fixed once at the beginning of the experiment. This approach is called the Heisenberg picture. (This approach was taken in the later part of the discussion above, with time-varying observables , .) One can, equivalently, treat the observables as fixed, while the state of the system depends on time; that is known as the Schrödinger picture. (This approach was taken in the earlier part of the discussion above, with a time-varying state formula_17.) Conceptually (and mathematically), the two approaches are equivalent; choosing one of them is a matter of convention.


title: Quantum state

text: Both viewpoints are used in quantum theory. While non-relativistic quantum mechanics is usually formulated in terms of the Schrödinger picture, the Heisenberg picture is often preferred in a relativistic context, that is, for quantum field theory. Compare with Dirac picture.


title: Quantum state

text: Quantum physics is most commonly formulated in terms of linear algebra, as follows. Any given system is identified with some finite- or infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. The pure states correspond to vectors of norm 1. Thus the set of all pure states corresponds to the unit sphere in the Hilbert space, because the unit sphere is defined as the set of all vectors with norm 1.


title: Quantum state

text: Multiplying a pure state by a scalar is physically inconsequential (as long as the state is considered by itself). If a vector in a complex Hilbert space formula_18 can be obtained from another vector by multiplying by some non-zero complex number, the two vectors are said to correspond to the same "ray" in formula_18 and also to the same point in the projective Hilbert space of formula_18.


title: Quantum state

text: Calculations in quantum mechanics make frequent use of linear operators, scalar products, dual spaces and Hermitian conjugation. In order to make such calculations flow smoothly, and to make it unnecessary (in some contexts) to fully understand the underlying linear algebra, Paul Dirac invented a notation to describe quantum states, known as "bra–ket notation". Although the details of this are beyond the scope of this article, some consequences of this are:


title: Quantum state

text: The angular momentum has the same dimension (M·L·T) as the Planck constant and, at quantum scale, behaves as a "discrete" degree of freedom of a quantum system. Most particles possess a kind of intrinsic angular momentum that does not appear at all in classical mechanics and arises from Dirac's relativistic generalization of the theory. Mathematically it is described with spinors. In non-relativistic quantum mechanics the group representations of the Lie group SU(2) are used to describe this additional freedom. For a given particle, the choice of representation (and hence the range of possible values of the spin observable) is specified by a non-negative number that, in units of Planck's reduced constant , is either an integer (0, 1, 2 ...) or a half-integer (1/2, 3/2, 5/2 ...). For a massive particle with spin , its spin quantum number always assumes one of the 2"S" + 1 possible values in the set


title: Quantum state

text: As a consequence, the quantum state of a particle with spin is described by a vector-valued wave function with values in C. Equivalently, it is represented by a complex-valued function of four variables: one discrete quantum number variable (for the spin) is added to the usual three continuous variables (for the position in space).


title: Quantum state

text: The quantum state of a system of "N" particles, each potentially with spin, is described by a complex-valued function with four variables per particle, corresponding to 3 spatial coordinates and spin, e.g.


title: Quantum state

text: where formula_31 is the spin of "ν"-th particle. formula_32 for a particle that does not exhibit spin.


title: Quantum state

text: The treatment of identical particles is very different for bosons (particles with integer spin) versus fermions (particles with half-integer spin). The above "N"-particle function must either be symmetrized (in the bosonic case) or anti-symmetrized (in the fermionic case) with respect to the particle numbers. If not all "N" particles are identical, but some of them are, then the function must be (anti)symmetrized separately over the variables corresponding to each group of identical variables, according to its statistics (bosonic or fermionic).


title: Quantum state

text: Electrons are fermions with , photons (quanta of light) are bosons with (although in the vacuum they are massless and can't be described with Schrödinger mechanics).


title: Quantum state

text: When symmetrization or anti-symmetrization is unnecessary, "N"-particle spaces of states can be obtained simply by tensor products of one-particle spaces, to which we will return later.


title: Quantum state

text: As with any Hilbert space, if a basis is chosen for the Hilbert space of a system, then any ket can be expanded as a linear combination of those basis elements. Symbolically, given basis kets formula_33, any ket formula_34 can be written


title: Quantum state

text: where are complex numbers. In physical terms, this is described by saying that formula_34 has been expressed as a "quantum superposition" of the states formula_33. If the basis kets are chosen to be orthonormal (as is often the case), then formula_38.


title: Quantum state

text: Expansions of this sort play an important role in measurement in quantum mechanics. In particular, if the formula_42 are eigenstates (with eigenvalues ) of an observable, and that observable is measured on the normalized state formula_34, then the probability that the result of the measurement is is . (The normalization condition above mandates that the total sum of probabilities is equal to one.)


title: Quantum state

text: A particularly important example is the "position basis", which is the basis consisting of eigenstates formula_44 with eigenvalues formula_45 of the observable which corresponds to measuring position. If these eigenstates are nondegenerate (for example, if the system is a single, spinless particle), then any ket formula_34 is associated with a complex-valued function of three-dimensional space


title: Quantum state

text: This function is called the wave function corresponding to formula_34. Similarly to the discrete case above, the probability "density" of the particle being found at position formula_45 is formula_50 and the normalized states have


title: Quantum state

text: As mentioned above, quantum states may be superposed. If formula_55 and formula_56 are two kets corresponding to quantum states, the ket


title: Quantum state

text: is a different quantum state (possibly not normalized). Note that both the amplitudes and phases (arguments) of formula_58 and formula_59 will influence the resulting quantum state. In other words, for example, even though formula_34 and formula_61 (for real ) correspond to the same physical quantum state, they are "not interchangeable", since formula_62 and formula_63 will "not" correspond to the same physical state for all choices of formula_64. However, formula_65 and formula_66 "will" correspond to the same physical state. This is sometimes described by saying that "global" phase factors are unphysical, but "relative" phase factors are physical and important.


title: Quantum state

text: One practical example of superposition is the double-slit experiment, in which superposition leads to quantum interference. The photon state is a superposition of two different states, one corresponding to the photon travel through the left slit, and the other corresponding to travel through the right slit. The relative phase of those two states depends on the difference of the distances from the two slits. Depending on that phase, the interference is constructive at some locations and destructive in others, creating the interference pattern. We may say that superposed states are in "coherent superposition", by analogy with coherence in other wave phenomena.


title: Quantum state

text: Another example of the importance of relative phase in quantum superposition is Rabi oscillations, where the relative phase of two states varies in time due to the Schrödinger equation. The resulting superposition ends up oscillating back and forth between two different states.


title: Quantum state

text: A "pure quantum state" is a state which can be described by a single ket vector, as described above. A "mixed quantum state" is a statistical ensemble of pure states (see quantum statistical mechanics).


title: Quantum state

text: Mixed states arise in quantum mechanics in two different situations: first, when the preparation of the system is not fully known, and thus one must deal with a statistical ensemble of possible preparations; and second, when one wants to describe a physical system which is entangled with another, as its state can not be described by a pure state. In the first case, there could theoretically be another person who knows the full history of the system, and therefore describe the same system as a pure state; in this case, the density matrix is simply used to represent the limited knowledge of a quantum state. In the second case, however, the existence of quantum entanglement theoretically prevents the existence of complete knowledge about the subsystem, and it's impossible for any person to describe the subsystem of an entangled pair as a pure state.


title: Quantum state

text: Mixed states inevitably arise from pure states when, for a composite quantum system formula_67 with an entangled state on it, the part formula_68 is inaccessible to the observer. The state of the part formula_69 is expressed then as the partial trace over formula_68.


title: Quantum state

text: A mixed state "cannot" be described with a single ket vector. Instead, it is described by its associated "density matrix" (or "density operator"), usually denoted "ρ". Note that density matrices can describe both mixed "and" pure states, treating them on the same footing. Moreover, a mixed quantum state on a given quantum system described by a Hilbert space formula_18 can be always represented as the partial trace of a pure quantum state (called a purification) on a larger bipartite system formula_72 for a sufficiently large Hilbert space formula_73.


title: Quantum state

text: where formula_75 is the fraction of the ensemble in each pure state formula_76 The density matrix can be thought of as a way of using the one-particle formalism to describe the behavior of many similar particles by giving a probability distribution (or ensemble) of states that these particles can be found in.


title: Quantum state

text: A simple criterion for checking whether a density matrix is describing a pure or mixed state is that the trace of "ρ" is equal to 1 if the state is pure, and less than 1 if the state is mixed. Another, equivalent, criterion is that the von Neumann entropy is 0 for a pure state, and strictly positive for a mixed state.


title: Quantum state

text: The rules for measurement in quantum mechanics are particularly simple to state in terms of density matrices. For example, the ensemble average (expectation value) of a measurement corresponding to an observable is given by


title: Quantum state

text: where formula_78 and formula_79 are eigenkets and eigenvalues, respectively, for the operator , and "" denotes trace. It is important to note that two types of averaging are occurring, one being a weighted quantum superposition over the basis kets formula_80 of the pure states, and the other being a statistical (said "incoherent") average with the probabilities of those states.


title: Quantum state

text: States can be formulated in terms of observables, rather than as vectors in a vector space. These are positive normalized linear functionals on a C*-algebra, or sometimes other classes of algebras of observables.


title: Quantum state

text: The concept of quantum states, in particular the content of the section Formalism in quantum physics above, is covered in most standard textbooks on quantum mechanics.


title: Quantum state

text: For a discussion of purifications of mixed quantum states, see Chapter 2 of John Preskill's lecture notes for Physics 219 at Caltech.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Gold is a 2016 American crime drama film directed by Stephen Gaghan and written by Patrick Massett and John Zinman. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Édgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Craig T. Nelson, Stacy Keach and Bruce Greenwood. The film is loosely based on the true story of the 1993 Bre-X mining scandal, when a massive gold deposit was supposedly discovered in the jungles of Indonesia; however, for legal reasons and to enhance the appeal of the film, character names and story details were changed.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Principal photography began on June 29, 2015, in New York City, New Mexico and Thailand. The film had a limited release in the United States on December 30, 2016, before going wide on January 27, 2017. The film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: In 1981, Kenny Wells helps to run a prospecting company, Washoe, with his father whom he clearly admires. But seven years after his father dies, the business and Kenny are nearly broke after having lost the office, so Kenny and his colleagues now work from his girlfriend's bar.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny, now living with his girlfriend, Kay, has a dream that leads him to Indonesia where he meets up with geologist Michael Acosta. Both are struggling financially, but Kenny manages to convince Mike to go into business to acquire a gold prospect. Kenny then flies back to America and raises the promised money to finance their venture.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Unfortunately, the exploration program struggles and fails to show any gold, so the workers soon leave until Mike persuades them to come back with the promise of freshwater. Kenny contracts malaria and is bedridden for the next few weeks. When he finally wakes up, Mike reveals that they have had a strike and now have a huge gold deposit.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: After celebrating, Kenny goes back to America where he sets up a new office for Washoe and is approached by a major Wall Street bank. Mike accompanies Kenny to their meeting and, after a disagreement, decides to bring some of the bank associates to Indonesia in order to show them the mine. This wins the bank over and it invests $20 million in Washoe, leading the venture to become a public company. Washoe proves to be a huge success and increases 70 points in its first day on the stock market.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny's life becomes celebratory as he goes from one party to the next, but Kay, fearing that he will be tricked and cut out, argues with him and then leaves after seeing him flirting with another woman, Rachel Hill. He is interrupted by Mark Hancock, a high-profile executive of a major mining company, who approaches him regarding buying the company. Kenny meets with him the next day and is offered $300 million for a portion of the mine, but his company's name would be removed. Offended by this, Kenny declines the offer and storms out. The next day on his way into the office Mike phones to tell Kenny that the Indonesian Government has closed the mine; it is also revealed that a previous US President sits on the board in Hancock's company and that he is a friend of the Indonesian president Suharto.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny is disconsolate and seems to be defeated, but Mike flies to the US and offers a plan to win their mine back. They manage to convince the president's son to join them in business after Kenny proves himself by stroking a tiger. The mine is reopened with Washoe receiving 15% of what now is a $30 billion business.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny thinks of going back to Kay but, seeing her flirting with another man at her new job, decides against it. Kenny is then told that he has been honored with a golden pickaxe, the greatest prize for a prospector. The evening of the presentation comes, and he goes with Mike, who walks out during Kenny's speech.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: The next day something has gone wrong as Kenny drives to his office and has to push his way through an angry crowd of people. It is then announced that Mike had faked the whole mine as he planted gold in the samples using a method called 'salting'. The gold that he planted was in fact 'river gold' that had been seen earlier in the film. Mike had traded freshwater for the people's river gold so that he could fake the gold mine. Mike is reported to have fled.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny is then questioned by the FBI. He retells his story from a chair in his hotel room that he now cannot afford. The FBI agents seem to believe him and state that Mike was later captured by the Indonesian authorities while on the run and then possibly forced to jump out of a helicopter, some 1000 feet above the jungle. The corpse had its hands and face chewed clean off by wild animals, so Acosta's death is never proven. The agents also say that both the and Mike dumped their stocks before the scandal broke and that Mike possessed 164 million US Dollars when he fled.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Kenny returns to Kay's house where he apologizes and later looks through his mail received since they have been apart. He opens one envelope and finds the napkin Mike and he signed as a contract, reading "50–50". Beneath the napkin is a deposit slip for $82 million to First Bank of Gibraltar, Queens Lane Branch, United Kingdom.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: The project was first announced by "Deadline" on April 12, 2011, as a treasure hunt film titled "Gold" in the vein of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", written by Patrick Massett and John Zinman as a writing sample and developed by Paul Haggis, who showed it to Michael Mann. Mann liked the script and joined as director and producer for his banner Forward Pass, which Haggis would also produce along with Michael Nozik. Later in August 2011, "Variety" reported that Christian Bale was being eyed for the lead role, and it was one of several projects he had to choose among at the time.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: In March 2012, Mann exited the project due to his involvement in the development of the film "Big Tuna" and an untitled cyber thriller film (later titled "Blackhat"). On October 17, 2012, Black Bear Pictures came on board to fully finance and produce the film. Black Bear's Teddy Schwarzman and Ben Stillman would produce the film along with Haggis and Nozik through their Hwy61, and Massett and Zinman would also produce the film.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: On May 16, 2013, "TheWrap" reported that Spike Lee replaced Mann to direct the film when Mann left to start production on his untitled cyber thriller film that was eventually titled "Blackhat".


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: On August 22, 2014, "Deadline" confirmed that Matthew McConaughey would be next starring in the film "Gold".


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: On January 28, 2015, it was announced that the film would be directed by Stephen Gaghan, replacing Lee, and it would be shot in June 2015 in New York City, New Mexico and Thailand, while the film's foreign sales would be handled by Sierra/Affinity. Producers would be Schwarzman and Nozik, along with Massett, Zinman and McConaughey, while Haggis would executive-produce along with Richard Middleton. On February 12, 2015, Sierra/Affinity sold the film to international distributors at European Film Market in Berlin. Édgar Ramírez was added to the cast on March 18, 2015, to play the role of geologist Michael Acosta. On March 30, 2015, The Weinstein Company acquired the film's US distribution rights for $15 million, and the film would release domestically through company's TWC-Dimension label. On May 15, 2015, Michelle Williams was set to star alongside McConaughey, to play his character's wife. Joshua Harto signed-on on June 3, 2015, to play Lloyd Stanton, the businessman's bank account manager. Timothy Simons was added to the cast on June 12, 2015, to play a Wall Street banker who is coaxed by the duo to inspect the potential value of the company in the jungles of Borneo. Michael Landes also signed-on on June 29, 2015, to star in the film. On August 28, 2015, Bryce Dallas Howard was confirmed to cast in the film for the female lead role of Kay, Wells' longtime girlfriend, replacing Michelle Williams. The other cast added included Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bruce Greenwood, and Stacy Keach. Daniel Pemberton composed the film's score.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on June 29, 2015, in Thailand. From mid-August to mid-September, the film shot in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area, before moving on to Reno, Nevada for exterior scenes. Early October, filming began in New York City in Manhattan.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: Originally scheduled to open wide on December 25, 2016, it was pushed back to opening wide on January 27, with the December 25 release staying a limited release in order to qualify for awards. The film's limited release was then pushed back to December 30, 2016, four days after its presumed date. The Weinstein Company agreed to spend $20 million on marketing the film.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: The film was a box office bomb, it grossed $7.2 million in the United States and Canada and $7.6 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $14.8 million, against 20 million dollars budget.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "Gold" was released alongside "A Dog's Purpose" and "", and was projected to gross around $3 million from 2,166 theaters in its opening weekend. It ended up grossing $3.5 million, finishing 10th at the box office. The film dropped 60% in its second weekend, grossing $1.4 million and finishing 14th at the box office.


title: Gold (2016 film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 43% based on 185 reviews, with an average rating of 5.23/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Gold" boasts an impressively committed performance from Matthew McConaughey, but it's just one glittering nugget in an otherwise uneven heap of cinematic silt." On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 49 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave the film a 67% overall positive score.


title: Delphi method

text: The Delphi method or Delphi technique ( ; also known as Estimate-Talk-Estimate or ETE) is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The technique can also be adapted for use in face-to-face meetings, and is then called mini-Delphi. Delphi has been widely used for business forecasting and has certain advantages over another structured forecasting approach, prediction markets.


title: Delphi method

text: Delphi is based on the principle that forecasts (or decisions) from a structured group of individuals are more accurate than those from unstructured groups. The experts answer questionnaires in two or more rounds. After each round, a facilitator or change agent provides an anonymised summary of the experts' forecasts from the previous round as well as the reasons they provided for their judgments. Thus, experts are encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other members of their panel. It is believed that during this process the range of the answers will decrease and the group will converge towards the "correct" answer. Finally, the process is stopped after a predefined stop criterion (e.g., number of rounds, achievement of consensus, stability of results), and the mean or median scores of the final rounds determine the results.


title: Delphi method

text: Special attention has to be paid to the formulation of the Delphi theses and the definition and selection of the experts in order to avoid methodological weaknesses that severely threaten the validity and reliability of the results.


title: Delphi method

text: The name "Delphi" derives from the Oracle of Delphi, although the authors of the method were unhappy with the oracular connotation of the name, "smacking a little of the occult". The Delphi method assumes that group judgments are more valid than individual judgments.


title: Delphi method

text: The Delphi method was developed at the beginning of the Cold War to forecast the impact of technology on warfare. In 1944, General Henry H. Arnold ordered the creation of the report for the U.S. Army Air Corps on the future technological capabilities that might be used by the military.


title: Delphi method

text: Different approaches were tried, but the shortcomings of traditional forecasting methods, such as theoretical approach, quantitative models or trend extrapolation, quickly became apparent in areas where precise scientific laws have not been established yet. To combat these shortcomings, the Delphi method was developed by Project RAND during the 1950-1960s (1959) by Olaf Helmer, Norman Dalkey, and Nicholas Rescher. It has been used ever since, together with various modifications and reformulations, such as the Imen-Delphi procedure.


title: Delphi method

text: Experts were asked to give their opinion on the probability, frequency, and intensity of possible enemy attacks. Other experts could anonymously give feedback. This process was repeated several times until a consensus emerged.


title: Delphi method

text: A research protocol explaining the rigorous approach to applying the Delphi method were originally published in the "BMJ Open" in 2015. This research protocol is generally used and cited now by any research applying the Delphi method as it is the first time a clear protocol has been described for the application of the methodology in practice.


title: Delphi method

text: In 2021, a cross-disciplinary study by Beiderbeck et al. focused on new directions and advancements of the Delphi method, including Real-time Delphi formats. The authors provide a methodological toolbox for designing Delphi surveys including among others sentiment analyses of the field of psychology.


title: Delphi method

text: The following key characteristics of the Delphi method help the participants to focus on the issues at hand and separate Delphi from other methodologies: in this technique a panel of experts is drawn from both inside and outside the organisation. The panel consists of experts having knowledge of the area requiring decision making. Each expert is asked to make anonymous predictions.


title: Delphi method

text: Usually all participants remain anonymous. Their identity is not revealed, even after the completion of the final report. This prevents the authority, personality, or reputation of some participants from dominating others in the process. Arguably, it also frees participants (to some extent) from their personal biases, minimizes the "bandwagon effect" or "halo effect", allows free expression of opinions, encourages open critique, and facilitates admission of errors when revising earlier judgments.


title: Delphi method

text: The initial contributions from the experts are collected in the form of answers to questionnaires and their comments to these answers. The panel director controls the interactions among the participants by processing the information and filtering out irrelevant content. This avoids the negative effects of face-to-face panel discussions and solves the usual problems of group dynamics.


title: Delphi method

text: The Delphi method allows participants to comment on the responses of others, the progress of the panel as a whole, and to revise their own forecasts and opinions in real time.


title: Delphi method

text: The person coordinating the Delphi method is usually known as a "facilitator" or Leader, and facilitates the responses of their "panel of experts", who are selected for a reason, usually that they hold knowledge on an opinion or view. The facilitator sends out questionnaires, surveys etc. and if the panel of experts accept, they follow instructions and present their views. Responses are collected and analyzed, then common and conflicting viewpoints are identified. If consensus is not reached, the process continues through thesis and antithesis, to gradually work towards synthesis, and building consensus.


title: Delphi method

text: During the past decades, facilitators have used many different measures and thresholds to measure the degree of consensus or dissent. A comprehensive literature review and summary is compiled in an article by von der Gracht.


title: Delphi method

text: First applications of the Delphi method were in the field of science and technology forecasting. The objective of the method was to combine expert opinions on likelihood and expected development time, of the particular technology, in a single indicator. One of the first such reports, prepared in 1964 by Gordon and Helmer, assessed the direction of long-term trends in science and technology development, covering such topics as scientific breakthroughs, population control, automation, space progress, war prevention and weapon systems. Other forecasts of technology were dealing with vehicle-highway systems, industrial robots, intelligent internet, broadband connections, and technology in education.


title: Delphi method

text: Later the Delphi method was applied in other places, especially those related to public policy issues, such as economic trends, health and education. It was also applied successfully and with high accuracy in business forecasting. For example, in one case reported by Basu and Schroeder (1977), the Delphi method predicted the sales of a new product during the first two years with inaccuracy of 3–4% compared with actual sales. Quantitative methods produced errors of 10–15%, and traditional unstructured forecast methods had errors of about 20%. (This is only one example; the overall accuracy of the technique is mixed.)


title: Delphi method

text: The Delphi method has also been used as a tool to implement multi-stakeholder approaches for participative policy-making in developing countries. The governments of Latin America and the Caribbean have successfully used the Delphi method as an open-ended public-private sector approach to identify the most urgent challenges for their regional ICT-for-development eLAC Action Plans. As a result, governments have widely acknowledged the value of collective intelligence from civil society, academic and private sector participants of the Delphi, especially in a field of rapid change, such as technology policies.


title: Delphi method

text: In the early 1980s Jackie Awerman of Jackie Awerman Associates, Inc. designed a modified Delphi method for identifying the roles of various contributors to the creation of a patent-eligible product. (Epsilon Corporation, Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor) The results were then used by patent attorneys to determine bonus distribution percentage to the general satisfaction of all team members.


title: Delphi method

text: From the 1970s, the use of the Delphi technique in public policy-making introduces a number of methodological innovations. In particular:


title: Delphi method

text: Further innovations come from the use of computer-based (and later web-based) Delphi conferences. According to Turoff and Hiltz, in computer-based Delphis:


title: Delphi method

text: According to Bolognini, web-based Delphis offer two further possibilities, relevant in the context of interactive policy-making and e-democracy. These are: