Are you ready for some more Thursday Night Football? NFL Network, the league’s own channel, will expand its Thursday Night Football coverage, and start broadcasting games in Week 2 beginning next season. That means there’ll be national Thursday night telecasts every week except the last two.
NFL Network will now air 13 Thursday Night telecasts, from Week 2 through 15, minus the Thanksgiving night game, in Week 11 this year, which moves to NBC. This is an increase from the eight it had been televising.
These additional contests would have aired on either CBS or Fox on Sundays. This move also reduces the number of matchups available on DirecTV Sunday Ticket.
While announcing the new NFL schedule, Commissioner Roger Goodell said "We're going to be playing Thursday night games from week two through week fifteen. This will result in every team appearing on a Thursday football game and every team having a primetime appearance throughout the season. We think that is great for the fans, we think it is great for the teams because everyone will get that primetime exposure, and we think it is great for the network."
It turns out he forgot that NBC’s season opener is on Thursday as well, so there’ll be games from the opening week through Week 15.
If there’s a downside, for teams, it’s the physical toll, traveling, and game-planning difficulties of finishing a contest on Sunday and then having to play again just four days later. For football widows it’s…well, it’s another night of being ignored.
NFL Network will continue the practice of brokering the telecasts to local stations in each featured city. That means when the 49ers or Raiders are on, the game will be on a local broadcast station, expected to be one of the CBS-owned outlets: KPIX or KBCW.
This new schedule may only last one year if the league decides to expand the season to 18 games, which could happen as early as the 2013 campaign. If and when that happens, it could result in the NFL selling the Thursday night TV package to another outlet, possibly FX, Turner Sports, or the NBC Sports Network, all of which have expressed interest. The 18-game season is still being evaluated.
The NFL also announced it will offer a Spanish-language version of the NFL Red Zone, its channel that shows all action when each team is beyond its opponent’s 20-yard-line during Sunday afternoon games. No one’s signed up for it yet, though Comcast is one of 125 cable/satellite companies that carry the English-language version.
Comcast has it on its sports tier. If it picks up the Spanish-language service, it’s not clear if it would be similarly situated, or become part of a Spanish-language package.
On that note, usted está listo para más fútbol norte-americano Jueves por la Noche? Muy bien.
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