NBC will have Dale Earnhardt Jr. drive from Kansas Speedway to Arrowhead on Sunday

When the NFL flexed the Chiefs-Bengals game to Sunday night, it ensured that Kansas City would be in the national sports spotlight for most of the day.

On NBC at least.

The network will be broadcasting two sports events from the area: NASCAR’s Hollywood Casino 400 is Sunday at 1 p.m., and the Chiefs-Bengals game on “Sunday Night Football” kicks off at 7:20 p.m.

NBC Sports Executive Producer Sam Flood is excited about the dual sports day in Kansas City.

“I think it’s less about challenges and more about opportunity,” Flood said. “Each unit, the NASCAR group was obviously planning to be in Kansas for a long time because the race has been on the schedule forever, and then the ‘Sunday Night’ guys have been able to adjust and re-adopt the plan to the game here instead of out west in San Francisco.

“Other than rerouting a truck and rerouting some airplanes and some crew schedules, it works out great.”

The network will have 119 cameras, 39 miles of fiber cable and 15 broadcasters for the two events.

NBC also is planning to have its broadcasters cross over to other sports.

Sideline reporter Michele Tafoya, who will work her 255th NFL game, will join Jeff Burton for a spin around the Kansas Speedway track. And after the checkered flag is shown, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will hop on I-70 and race (under the speed limit, of course) across the state line to get to Arrowhead Stadium.

“As long as the race goes off without a hitch, we’re hoping that Dale Jr. can drive the car fast enough to get from the racetrack to the football stadium. We’re cautiously optimistic that he knows how to weave his way through traffic and win the race,” Flood joked.

“Dale is a Washington fanatic for the football team and definitely plays fantasy and definitely loves football. If we have a Saturday night race, his Sunday is spent consuming football ... so it works out perfectly, because the Sunday night game is always the big game.”