A Christmas tripleheader, an ESPN+ game and other things to look for in NFL schedule
The NBA has enjoyed great success with its annual full day of games on Christmas, but it will face a battle for eyeballs this December.
Although the full NFL schedule won’t be released until Thursday night, we do know the league plans a tripleheader of games on Christmas Day.
Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcasting and scheduling, revealed that nugget last month on Sal Capaccio’s podcast. Most games will be moved up a day to Christmas Eve, which will be on a Saturday.
You can hold off on watching “It’s A Wonderful Life,” “Elf” or “Christmas Vacation” the night before Christmas, because there will be a football game on TV.
“We will play on Saturday night on the NFL Network on Christmas Eve,” North said on the podcast. “And then when we get to Sunday, Christmas Day, we’ll have a tripleheader. We’ll play one game on CBS in the afternoon, one game on Fox in the afternoon, and our regular Sunday night game on NBC. Christmas when it falls on an NFL game day, we’ve had a lot of success there, all due respect to our friends at the NBA.
“When we can play football on Christmas. It has proven to be something that our fans are interested in. ... So when we can, we will find games for windows on Christmas. Again, if it falls on a Sunday. That makes perfect sense. Next year Christmas, hits on a Monday, so I imagine we’ll do something pretty similar if not a tripleheader at least the doubleheader.”
Here are a few other things you can expect from the schedule release.
New Year’s Day
This is also a Sunday. so instead of a full day of college games, fans will get their NFL fix.
“As you look ahead to New Year’s (Day), we’ll stay as scheduled. We’ll play Sunday Jan. 1,” North said. “The bowl games, most of them are going to move. There’s gonna be a few on Saturday, a few on Monday. We’ve generally worked it out with college football folks and the bowl guys that when Jan. 1 falls on a Sunday, we’ll go ahead and play our regular schedule and they’ll just kind of slide around and move their games as necessary so that fans can watch both.”
ABC/ESPN changes
The NFL announced Monday there will be two Week 2 “Monday Night Football” games and they will overlap..
The Titans face the Bills at 6:15 p.m. Central on ESPN, and the Vikings take on the Eagles at 7:30 p.m. on ABC. NBC Sports’ Peter King said there will be three such doubleheaders coming in the 2023 NFL season.
North mentioned the side-by-side games, but also said fans will need ESPN+ to watch a game.
“We’ve got a game on ESPN+ next year, probably one of the European games,” North said. “We’ve got side-by-side Monday night games one week next year where we’re going to have one game on ABC and one game on ESPN, two different games. So a bit of an overlap there, not one after the other. So there’s a lot of new wrinkles that are coming in this year’s schedule.”
There will be three games in London and one in Germany, and the game on ESPN+ will feature the Broncos and Jaguars in England.
More on Amazon
By the time of the ESPN+ contest, NFL fans will be used to streaming games. Starting with the Chiefs-Chargers game at Arrowhead Stadium in Week 2, all “Thursday Night Football” contests will be on Amazon Prime (and a local market for the teams involved).
North believes fans eventually will become accustomed to the new home for the games.
“Amazon has a lot of experience in sports. ... They know what they’re doing,” North said. “And they’re going to be a good partner for us. There’s definitely going to be a learning curve. There’s going to be a transition for our fans.”
Having the Chiefs kickoff Amazon’s coverage is no coincidence. The Thursday night games will feature star power.
“I don’t know that it’s going to be an instant adaptation by our fans. I’m sure there’s gonna be some slow growth and I’m sure we have to amplify for everybody,” North said. “And you do that by putting good games on, right?
“With all due respect to some of the teams that haven’t had a lot of success the last few years, you probably have to go with some of your bigger brands, your bigger teams, your bigger names, your bigger stars, and put them on Amazon and force fans to realize, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I can’t just turn on my television, I need an Amazon subscription.’ Most people have one already anyway, right? Like 200 million people or more have a prime account.”
Prime-time rules
North was asked if each team is required to play at least one prime-time game, and he said that’s not a rule. But it works out that way because of the sheer volume of night games.
There are night games on Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights, and there will be a few Saturdays in the mix, too. That could lead to a team playing on prime time quite often.
“You can appear in prime time, I think six times as scheduled. Seven if we need you for flex,” North said. “And then if we really needed you, if you get into week 18, you might even find half your games on a national television window in quote/unquote prime time. You can discuss/debate whether a Saturday afternoon at 4:30 should count as prime time. It’s less about in prime time for your television as much as it is for your fans.
“There are definitely teams particularly out West, where they’d play every home game in prime time if they could. But obviously back here in the East, particularly as it gets later in the season and the weather turns a little colder, I’m not sure it’s right to ask the fans to turn out for half the games or more at night in the cold. So trying to balance not so much the television partners as it is really the fan friendliness aspect. The good news is if you’re in prime time, whether you’re scheduled there or flexed into it, it’s because you’re good, right? It’s because your game matters because there’s playoff implications.”
This story was originally published May 9, 2022 at 10:09 AM.
