Thursday night flexing and the Panthers

[Carolina Disaster]

8 minutes ago, jfra78 said:

After the college football season is over

True.  But its not actually illegal for the NFL to schedule games on Friday and Saturday.  Its a broadcasting issue based off the law back in the 60's.  And I am not sure how that even applies to streaming services in todays world.

[Luciu5]

On 3/31/2023 at 12:02 PM, Mr. Scot said:

The reason this is being looked at is because Amazon got a lot of sh-tty games last year and they were none too happy about it.

So the question comes down to whether the NFL cares more about pleasing a streaming partner or their loyal fans.

Sadly, I think we all know the answer to that question

Someone called into the Moving the Chains show and made the point that the league makes way more money from fans at home (TV deals) vs fans at the games.

The fans watching these thursday night games tuned out because they sucked. The announcers on these games made fun of how bad they were. The point is, getting better games on Thursday night is best for most NFL fans.

I disagree with flexing Thursday games though.

[Mr. Scot]

Albert Breer's latest MMQB explains where David Tepper stood on the issue:

When it got there, Giants owner John Mara was first to speak—giving an impassioned, sometimes-angry speech about how there isn’t any need to do this, and how it’d only alienate the league’s most avid fans (those who actually attend games). Bucs owner Joel Glazer, a member of the broadcast committee, countered him, while Steelers owner Art Rooney II and Bears chairman George McCaskey spoke up to back up the points Mara made.

After that, Panthers owner David Tepper asked a simple question: Is Amazon complaining?

It was then explained that the league had seen the audience numbers during the season’s stretch run, and there were games where the ratings weren’t just low—there were games people weren’t tuning in for at all. Tepper then told the room that he’d vote for it if the league could promise 28 days’ notice not that a game could be moved, but that it would be moved (the proposal, again, only offered 15). NFL chief media officer Brian Rolapp responded that the league couldn’t promise that, because of agreements with Fox and CBS.

Broncos CEO Greg Penner then said he’d only vote for the proposal with 28 days’ notice. The Vikings’ Mark and Zygi Wilf then asked whether the league could guarantee that, with the changes, no team would be forced to play away on Sunday and again on Thursday. They were told that’d be a difficult thing for the NFL to promise.

After that, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt stepped in and offered another compromise: Instead of four weeks of TNF flexes in 2023, the league only do two weeks. Others then asked whether they could get 28 days’ notice and just two flexes for Year 1. That calmed the room down, and Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie proposed splitting the proposal apart and voting on the two aspects of it separately.

That left everyone where they are now—with the prospect of having to play on multiple short weeks in 2023, without knowing yet whether they’ll have to do it on the fly.

[Wes21]

I think there are a couple of different angles here.  One is of course pleasing Amazon.  But the NFL is interesting in how it conducts its business and what thought balloons it throws out there.  This includes the fact that they will sometimes throw out something more extreme to get people riled up about, so that something else seems more palatable than it would on its own.

Now that they have people thinking about how awful Thursday flex scheduling could be, the fact that they are going to start flexing Monday Night games in 2023 seems tame by comparison. 

[Mr. Scot]

The article goes on to explain that one of the reasons the league became beholden to Amazon in this issue is because nobody else wants the Thursday night package.

The inconvenient truth for the NFL is that Amazon stepped up for the league at a point when it was having trouble finding anyone willing to pay its price for TNF. (Fox willingly walked away from the package.) Likewise, selling off Sunday Ticket wasn’t easy, and it took a long time for the league to get to where it wanted to be with YouTube. And if the league believes these streaming partners are the future of broadcast media (and it does), it needs to make those partners happy, especially considering these packages are up for bid again in seven years.

Which means the NFL needs its product to be a needle-mover for streaming partners to get more services in and bidding on its different packages.

So on Tepper’s question, it’s not in Amazon’s best interest for the streaming service to get a game-changing boom for the many bucks it gave the NFL. It’s imperative for the league that Amazon receives that sort of impact too, to set up its future in that space, and to get companies like Apple—companies that weren’t all that enthusiastic the last time around—interested.

And then, on the other side of this, you’ve got the players, many of whom already consider playing on Thursday a heavy burden (older players especially, with some younger players liking the extra time off on the back end). McCourty told me that, just to get himself in position to play on a normal Thursday, he’d have to start planning for Sundays ahead of time. He was always worried about getting out of the previous Sunday’s game healthy.

[shaqattaq]

On 3/31/2023 at 12:14 PM, Smithers said:

Thursday games suck - the league is chasing revenue at the expense of players health and fans enjoyment.  

[Cullenator]

Growing up Thursday night was for Pop Warner/community based youth teams

Friday night was for High School

Saturday night was for College

and Sunday & Monday were for the NFL

 

 

The NFL would be wise to remember what made them them "America's Sport"

Edited April 3, 2023 by Cullenator