The NFL is taking over Thursday nights, shoving college football aside starting in 2012. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that the league will be scheduling an expanded slate of Thursday night football games in the 2012 season, with the NFL Network picking up the coverage responsibilities.
“We’re going to be playing Thursday night games from Week 2 to Week 15,” in addition to the annual Thursday night regular-season opener, Goodell said according to NBC's Pro Football Talk. The NFL has opened the season on a Thursday night for a few years and has played late season Thursday night games for a long time now. Up until Thanksgiving though, Thursday nights were known for college football games, offering an early kick-off to the college football weekend schedule.
This does not necessarily mean college football will be leaving Thursday night, but ESPN and any other networks with a game will have to work a little harder to promote whatever games they may have. ESPN still enjoys a massive advantage in households with access to ESPN, though. The NFL Network continues to be limited in availability depending on cable providers. Goodell hopes that this announcement helps sway some providers to easing up on their hesitation to add NFL Network to their offerings.
“The market for NFL Network is here,” Goodell said. “And it’s going to continue to grow.”
While Goodell and the NFL continue to make a push to increase its viewership, college football still has a grip on Friday nights, which have seen some entertaining games in recent years.
And of course, there is always Tuesday night and Wednesday night #MACtion (look it up on Twitter) for the hardcore college football junkies, but it may only be a matter of time before the NFL takes over those days too.
Kevin McGuire is a national college football writer for Examiner.com and the host of the No 2-Minute Warning podcast. He can be reached at cfbexaminer@gmail.com.
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