New TV Quirks

This season will be the first under the NFL's new eight-year TV contract.  When the deal was first announced, we heard the highlights, but didn't really grasp how radically different some of the things they worked in would be.  Now that the schedule has been released and we know which networks have gotten certain matchups, though, we're seeing just how different things will look this upcoming season and beyond.

For starters, the NFL has gone all-in on streaming.  This will be the second year of Thursday Night Football being on Amazon, and ESPN+ will once again have the Jaguars' London game.  They've also added a Peacock exclusive game during the regular season and, as was announced today, a Peacock exclusive WILD CARD Game (we'll see how well THAT goes over)!  Plus, NFL Sunday Ticket is moving from DirecTV to YouTube.

Baseball fans aren't happy (and extremely critical) about the number of viewing options, many of which are exclusive, in MLB's TV contract.  Now the NFL is poised to give MLB a run for its money.  Because not only will all four broadcast networks have live games, so will ESPN and NFL Network.  And three streamers will have exclusive live games.  So, that's eight different places (not counting YouTube) to see NFL games this season.  Gone are the days when you know most of your team's games will be on either FOX or CBS.

Speaking of FOX and CBS, one of the most interesting quirks in the new TV contract benefits them greatly.  This is the first season of flex scheduling for Monday night, as well as the Sunday night flex scheduling.  ESPN and NBC's picks for games to flex into those national windows will be limited, though.  Because CBS and FOX get to keep many more games than before.

In the past, CBS and FOX were only able to protect a certain number of games each season, which was generally an exclusive national game in the late window on doubleheader weekends.  Otherwise, NBC pretty much got the pick of any game it wanted, which included some doubleheader games CBS and/or FOX couldn't protect.  It often resulted in a less-than-desirable doubleheader game because NBC took the game CBS/FOX wanted.

But now, with CBS and FOX each able to protect a game every week, they'll almost certainly choose to keep their doubleheader games.  That includes 1:00 games they move into the doubleheader window, which would then theoretically make the original 4:25 game available for NBC and ESPN.  It also means, perhaps more importantly for the two Sunday afternoon rights-holders, that CBS won't be at risk of losing the Chiefs and Bills and FOX will be able to showcase the Cowboys on America's Game of the Week as often as they like with no fear that NBC or ESPN will take it and leave them with only a random NFC West game to show nationally in the late window.

Take, for example, Week 8.  The Sunday night game is Bears-Chargers for some reason.  It's CBS that has the doubleheader that week.  But NBC won't be able to switch to Bengals-49ers, which will likely be the national doubleheader game.  They won't be able to take Rams-Cowboys or Vikings-Packers (whichever one FOX chooses to protect) that week, either.  Neither will ESPN.  So, the two primetime networks will essentially have to decide between their original game or the best of the remaining options.

What I think this will end up meaning is that, even with additional flexing options, we'll actually see less flexing this season.  Not more.  Because, barring the two best games of the week being on the same network, NBC and ESPN will only be able to move the third-best game of the week into primetime.  The NFL actually thinks that's a good thing.  Because teams like the Chiefs, Cowboys and Bills are already maxed out on primetime appearances.  This gives CBS and FOX a chance to know they'll get the marquee teams a certain number of times, as well, and it makes it more likely someone else will be the team that gets flexed into that spot.

That should make for a better Sunday afternoon slate, too.  With CBS or FOX (whichever has the doubleheader) able to protect its national late game, that guarantees a marquee matchup in the 4:25 slot leading into the Sunday night game, which is always the highest-rated broadcast window of the week.  That's before even taking into consideration the Monday night game.

They've also doubled down on the Monday night dual broadcasts.  This season, there'll be four weeks when ESPN and ABC air different games simultaneously on Monday night.  They're still trying to figure out how they want to work that, but it'll be a regular feature of the NFL schedule moving forward.  Especially now that ABC is back in the Super Bowl rotation, you know they'll want to make sure Joe & Troy are regularly seen by as many eyeballs as possible.

The week will begin with much better matchups, too.  Al Michaels was very vocal about the quality (or lack thereof) of last season's Thursday Night Football schedule on Amazon.  They had a bunch of stinkers and saw a bunch of bad teams.  This year's schedule is much better, which may simply be a response to that criticism.  Or it may be a reflection of the NFL's new-found commitment to streaming.

Amazon, of course, is the only streaming service to have a full season's worth of games.  They'll also get the annual Black Friday game, starting with this year's Jets-Dolphins matchup.  ESPN+, meanwhile, only has one--at 9:30 in the morning!  What's interesting about Peacock's, though, is that they're both on Saturday night.  And the fact that one of them is a playoff game is significant.  It'll be the first time that an NFL playoff game isn't available on traditional, linear television.  It's a sign of the times, to be sure, but also promises to produce significant backlash.

Another interesting thing that I noticed is every game in Week 18 is currently listed as "TBA."  Two games will be picked for ESPN's Saturday doubleheader and Sunday Night Football will be the final game of the regular season.  A bunch of games with playoff implications are also moved from 1:00 to 4:25.  None of that has changed.  The only difference is that no games will be "moved" from their original time since none of them have original times to begin with!

There are probably other quirks in the NFL's new TV contract that aren't as obvious.  For example, I know that there's really no longer an "AFC package" on CBS and an "NFC package" on FOX, and teams will have their games spread between the networks.  (Although, there definitely seems to be more NFC on CBS than AFC on FOX.)  One of the many things we'll have to get used to in the first season of this eight-year deal.