Originally Posted by : NFL owners to vote to start flexing 'Thursday Night Football' games for 2023, per report
"Thursday Night Football" may have more compelling games on its schedule next season. NFL owners will be asked during next week's league meetings to approve a flex plan for Thursday night games that go into effect for the 2023 season, according to the Sports Business Journal.
The main purpose of passing the flex plan would be to eliminate Thursday night games between losing teams. If the plan passes, the NFL would be permitted to shift Sunday afternoon games to Thursday night from weeks 14-17 with 15 days notice. The league would also be permitted to schedule teams for Thursday night games after a previous Sunday game on two occasions. Currently, a team can only play one game on Thursday night after playing a Sunday night game.
While there is optimism that the proposal will pass, there are reasons to believe that it could be voted down by the owners. NFL coaches, for one, are not fans of schedule changes, especially during the season. Safety also becomes a concern as teams could be asked to play more games on short weeks.
Amazon's first season with "Thursday Night Football" drew an average viewership of 9.6 million, according to Neilsen. While that is a solid number, it was a 46 percent decline from the previous season when Thursday night games were broadcast on Fox and NFL Network. Games that did not have significant playoff implications may have contributed to the decline in viewership.
There's also the issue of fans who purchase tickets well in advance of their game. The possibility of more games being flexed may cause more hesitation from fans who are considering purchasing tickets ahead of the game they plan on attending.
For a proposal to pass, it must receive 75 percent of the vote, meaning that 24 of the NFL's 32 owners must vote in favor of the proposal. Given the NFL's commitment to generating revenue, the safe bet is that the owners will pass the proposal, even if it goes against the wishes of coaches, players and fans.
Traditionally, the NFL stayed away from Saturday because of college ball.
However, because television viewing habits have changed so much, college ball is now on nearly every night of the week. I think the NFL can change with the times.
Of course, the broadcasters have paid a pretty penny to college conferences to air games too. [Reply]
If Amazon is paying for Thursday Night Football, players will have to put 2 quarters in the slot to use the locker room toliet during Thursday Night games. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Zebedee DuBois:
Traditionally, the NFL stayed away from Saturday because of college ball.
However, because television viewing habits have changed so much, college ball is now on nearly every night of the week. I think the NFL can change with the times.
Of course, the broadcasters have paid a pretty penny to college conferences to air games too.
The thing is college regular season and conf championship games will be over by NFL week 14 so NFL could just move all Thursday games to Saturday and not worry about the NCAA getting upset. [Reply]
NFLPA needs to demand a 2nd bye week. You can’t be having multiple TNF games and go to Europe.
You want your product to stop being shit? Well put a bye week before TNF so players aren’t racing to get on the field and coaches can get more time to gameplan [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
NFLPA needs to demand a 2nd bye week. You can’t be having multiple TNF games and go to Europe.
You want your product to stop being shit? Well put a bye week before TNF so players aren’t racing to get on the field and coaches can get more time to gameplan
That is probably coming along with another game.... [Reply]
Originally Posted by RunKC:
NFLPA needs to demand a 2nd bye week. You can’t be having multiple TNF games and go to Europe.
You want your product to stop being shit? Well put a bye week before TNF so players aren’t racing to get on the field and coaches can get more time to gameplan
It seems like there is an advantage in having extra days to prepare for your next game after the TNF appearance too. It should probably be a double-header so that the next week's game for those teams would be against one of the other teams that is also playing on TNF.
e.g. Chiefs play Broncos while Raiders play Chargers, then 10 days later Chiefs play Raiders while Broncos play Chargers.
That way none of the teams that plays on TNF gets a time advantage in preparation for the next game. [Reply]
Not sure I like this... they're not going to be able to get into a position that ensures every prime time game is the badass game of the week. Some games are just going to suck (enter obligatory Denver reference here... thank you).
They've done a whole lot of changing in recent years and now with the global game expansion, move to 17 games, this... at some point, you have to stop for a bit. [Reply]
Just a terrible idea. When this first was brought up the Giants owner mentioned that this screws the fans. Today they cast another vote without him around with the justification of "We have to think of the fans who only watch on TV". As if the fans eagerly want to pay Amazon for the right to stay up late on a Thursday to watch a game no one but the owners want. [Reply]
Jerry Jones providing some insight into their thinking.
On the Thursday night flex issue, #Cowboys owner Jerry Jones agrees that fan impact is an important issue — but also points out only 7% of NFL fans have ever been in a stadium. Like Fox getting a TV package in the 90s, important to make Amazon deal work as best it can.