NFL on DuMont The NFL on DuMont was an American television program that broadcast National Football League games on the now defunct DuMont Television Network . The program ran from 1951 to 1955 . History . DuMont ' s NFL coverage consisted of contracts the network signed with individual NFL teams . Only for the NFL Championship Game did the network actually sign a contract with the league . Some teams did not have deals with DuMont ; instead selling television rights to local stations , independent producers , or breweries who were major sponsors and who also packaged the telecasts . 1951 - 1952 . On December 23 , 1951 , DuMont televised the first ever coast - to - coast professional football game , the NFL Championship Game between the Los Angeles Rams and Cleveland Browns . DuMont paid $ 75 , 000 for the rights to broadcast the game . In 1952 , DuMont only aired New York Giants games before moving to a more national scope the following season . 1953 - 1954 . During the 1953 and 1954 seasons , DuMont broadcast Saturday night NFL games . It was the first time that National Football League games were televised live , coast - to - coast , in prime time , for the entire season . This predated " Monday Night Football " on ABC by 17 years . Several of the games in 1953 and 1954 originated in New York ( Giants ) , Pittsburgh ( Steelers ) , or Washington ( Redskins ) . ( All three of these cities had DuMont O & O s . ) In 1953 , DuMont became the first television network to televise a Thanksgiving Classic when it aired a game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers . They also broadcast the 1954 game as well . DuMont normally used a single announcer for its telecasts , a departure from modern practice where a play - by - play announcer is paired with a color commentator . Several of DuMont ' s championship game broadcasts did have color commentators . DuMont proved to be a less than ideal choice for a national broadcaster . The network had only eighteen primary affiliates in 1954 , dwarfed by the 120 available to NBC ( altghough a number of stations that had DuMont " secondary " affiliations did carry some NFL games , mainly on Sunday afternoons ) . Coverage of Canadian football ' s " Big Four " was more readily available on NBC than NFL games were in most markets on DuMont . 1955 . In January 1955 , DuMont obtained rights from the Los Angeles Newspaper Charities to cover the Pro Bowl only one week before the game date . As they had trouble lining up affiliates to cover the game on such short notice , the telecast was cancelled . By 1955 , the DuMont network was beginning to crumble . For instance , in 1955 , NBC replaced DuMont as the network for the NFL Championship Game , paying a rights fee of $ 100 , 000 . ABC acquired the rights to the Thanksgiving game . Meanwhile , most teams ( sans the Giants , Eagles and Steelers , who received regionalized coverage from DuMont ) were left to fend for themselves in terms of TV coverage . DuMont ceased most entertainment programs ( and a nightly newscast ) in early April 1955 . DuMont still broadcast some sports events ( a Monday - night boxing show and the 1955 NFL season ) until August 1956 , when the network as a whole shut down for good . Status of broadcasts today . It appears no copies of any of the DuMont Network NFL broadcasts survive today . It is reported that DuMont ' s entire programming archive was destroyed after the network ceased to exist ; even if DuMont ' s programming had been saved , the games were broadcast live and may have never been recorded in the first place , given the high expense of videotape at the time , and the high unlikelihood that they would have been recorded via kinescope for later viewing by their few sparse affiliates and stations in the west .