A Lot of Sports On Fall TV

Last week, the four major broadcast networks announced their fall schedules.  This, in and of itself, is not news.  They do it every year.  The schedules themselves were particularly noteworthy, however.  Because they indicate a trend that network TV has been moving towards for a while.  Fewer nights of scripted shows, long the bread-and-butter of network television.  More nights of live sports.

Sunday Night Football is entering its 20th season on NBC, and it's long been the highest-rated program on TV.  That's not going to change anytime soon.  Not with how dominant the NFL is right now.  Not with NBC also having the Super Bowl this season.  But it's not just Sunday Night Football on NBC.

When they got the Big Ten contract last year, it included a Saturday night game.  Occasionally they'll swap out the Big Ten for Notre Dame, but the point remains, NBC will have a football game on both Saturday and Sunday nights in the Fall.  And now, with the NBA On NBC returning next season, you can add a third night of sports in primetime on NBC.  The NBA will get Tuesdays, then take over the Sunday night spot in February once football season ends and the Olympics are over.

So, to sum up, NBC is dedicating three nights of primetime to sports in the Fall: NFL on Sunday, NBA on Tuesday, college football on Saturday.  Then it'll become NBA on both Tuesday and Sunday in the Spring.  And, of course, it'll be the Olympics every night (and most of the afternoon each day) for two weeks in February.  So, yeah, there'll be a lot of sports on NBC.  But they're far from the only ones.

ABC has dedicated Saturday nights to college football for a while.  But, like NBC, they'll have two nights of football in the Fall.  Because Monday Night Football is coming home!  Monday Night Football moved to ESPN in 2006, but started simulcasting select games on ABC starting in 2020 (when they needed programming during the pandemic).  That gradually transitioned to ABC having the full Monday Night Football schedule, either as simulcasts or a handful of ABC exclusives, last season.  And, when the 2025 NFL schedule was unveiled earlier this week, it had a Monday night game on ABC every week.

That pretty much cements the NFL's presence on ABC moving forward.  All of ESPN's playoff games are simulcast on ABC, and the network will broadcast the Super Bowl for the first time in 21 years at the end of the 2026 season.  ABC also simulcasts that Week 18 ESPN doubleheader.  And that Saturday night block that goes to college football in the Fall is turned over to the NBA and NHL come January.  So, like NBC on Sundays, ABC will have sports on Saturday night every week in the Fall and Spring.

FOX's college football night is Friday, a previously untapped timeslot where they've found great success.  Saturday nights on FOX, meanwhile, are dubbed "FOX Sports Saturday" on their Fall schedule.  If what we've seen this year is any indication, we'll continue to see various sports on FOX every Saturday night (including IndyCar, which is in its first season on FOX, with a commitment for most races to be on the broadcast network).  And every Friday night, for that matter, even after college football season ends.

They're very committed to their college basketball schedule, and that college football spot typically gets handed over to Big East and Big Ten basketball come January.  They even show high-profile women's basketball games from those two conferences on the FOX broadcast network.  And, of course, they're the primary broadcast partner for MLB.  FOX's Baseball Night In America has become a Saturday night staple, and that'll take them all summer, leading right into college football in the Fall.  The Friday night gap, meanwhile, is filled by UFL games.

And, let's not forget FOX's commitment to soccer.  Don't be surprised if they sprinkle in some MLS (they're the secondary broadcaster behind that disastrous deal with Apple), but their rights include the MLS Cup.  It's all leading up to the World Cup in the U.S. in 2026.  Which means we can probably only expect to see more soccer on FOX.

CBS is the only one of the four networks that has what you'd consider a "traditional" schedule in the Fall.  While the other three are all dedicating multiple nights to sports, CBS won't have any.  Which isn't really by choice, though.  CBS doesn't have the rights to anything except the NFL, which pushes back to the start of 60 Minutes every week they have the doubleheader game, and the Big Ten.  Their Big Ten game is in the 3:30 window, but even they'll have the occasional Saturday night Big Ten game (when NBC puts Notre Dame in primetime, they'll just flip spots for their Big Ten game).

Even The CW has gotten in on the act.  The CW's sports offerings have gone from nonexistent to dabbling to pretty expansive.  It's a lot of "minor" sports, but it's still a committing airtime to sports programming rather than scripted content.  And, The CW broadcast football home games for Oregon State and Washington State last season, which they will do again in 2025 (along with ACC games).  So, you'd have to figure they'll be a major player for a likely expanded role once Oregon State and Washington State are joined by the rest of the rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026.

Simply put, there will be a lot of sports on broadcast TV in the Fall.  More than traditional, scripted programming in many cases.  Which isn't surprising with the way things have been trending in recent years.  In fact, it may have been inevitable.  For a few reasons.  And, now that "traditional" TV has made the transition to so much sports coverage, will it ever go back?  Or, will the networks double down and show even more sports?

As people have, by and large, begun to abandon linear TV for streaming, sports is the thing that's been immune.  Even though ratings for sports broadcasts are far lower than they were even a decade ago (levels that they'll realistically never approach again), they're still most of the highest-rated programs in a given TV season.  That's why the networks pay so much for sports rights.  And it figures that they'd want to maximize their potential audience by putting those games on the broadcast network (that far more people get) than cable or streaming.

It's long been known that sports rights are a valuable commodity.  Networks wouldn't spend so much for them if they weren't.  It makes sense that they want as many eyeballs as possible on those events.  And, if the 2025-26 Fall TV schedule is any indication, that likely won't be changing anytime soon.