Will The NFL Add MORE Thursday Night Games?

[Greg Ambrosius]

It's obvious that the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell are worried about player safety since they are now exploring ways to add more Thursday Night Games!! Did you see this latest story that the NFL wants MORE Thursday Night Games because ratings on the NFL Network are so bad for these current ones? That's right, they know there are new buyers for another game on Thursday to create doubleheaders and thus Roger Goodell will be entertaining Google, Netflix, CBS Sports Network, NBC Sports Network, FoxSports1 and others to bid on yet on more Thursday Night Game. See here:

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-foo ... sday-games

How crazy is this? At a time when the players and fans want to GET RID of Thursday Night Games, the NFL is thinking of adding more. At a time when most fans feel that playing NFL games in London is stupid, the NFL is ADDING MORE. It's all about the almighty dollar rather than football on Sundays. Crazy.

What do you think of this latest idea by the NFL?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here's the story from CBS Sports.com

Report: NFL exploring possibility of adding more Thursday games
By John Breech | CBSSports.com
October 15, 2013 10:37 pm ET

You want more football? Well, you might get it. The NFL is exploring the idea of creating a Thursday night doubleheader, according to the Wall Street Journal.

According to the report, the league is disappointed that the 13 Thursday night games on the NFL Network haven't been generating more viewers. Through five games in 2013, Thursday night football is drawing an average of 8.1 million viewers. If that average holds, it would set a Thursday night record for the NFL Network, but that number is far below what Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN draw on Sunday and Mondays.

The NFL's belief is that adding another Thursday game would generate more national interest, plus it would give the league a chance to sell rights to another round of games.

More games on Thursday would mean less games on Sunday.

In the most recently negotiated television contract -- finalized in December of 2011 -- the NFL was given the power to pull some Sunday afternoon games to create a new package of games. The NFL could also take the NFL Network's Thursday package and sell that as a package to a different provider.

Google and Netflix could both be potential buyers of a new package, according to the report. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell raised some eyebrows in August when he met with Google CEO Larry Page. Goodell and Page were believed to be discussing the Sunday Ticket package, a package that Directv currently owns the rights too, but Directv's rights expire after the 2014 season.

If the NFL does decide to move forward with the idea of more Thursday night games, it would have to get the approval of the NFLPA first. That might not be so easy considering several players have already gone on the record against having any Thursday night football at all.

San Francisco wide receiver Anquan Boldin would definitely be against more Thursday games, "If you're so concerned about player safety then why do you have every team in the league playing on Thursday night when they just competed on a Sunday, knowing how difficult it is for guys to get back to being healthy after playing on Sunday?" Boldin asked earlier this week.

It's not just players that don't like Thursday night football, some coaches don't seem to care for it much either. Cardinals coach Bruce Arians told Sirius XM NFL Radio on Tuesday that he's "not a fan of Thursday night football."

There's no time frame on when the league would add an additional Thursday game or if they'll even end up doing it. However, with talks heating up about expanding the playoffs, you have to figure Goodell and the league would like to get this Thursday night thing done and the sooner the better.

[SS]

If they were smart, they would add a Friday night game and forget the Thursday night games, except for Thanksgiving weeks or weeks that Holidays fall on Thursdays...

[King of Queens]

Here's The Wall Street Journal's take:

BUSINESS
NFL Explores New Slate of Thursday Night Games

By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN and SHALINI RAMACHANDRAN
Oct. 15, 2013 7:48 p.m. ET

The National Football League is considering selling another slate of Thursday games to a media outlet to increase the audience for football on one of television's most competitive nights, according to a person familiar with the league's strategy.

The NFL is disappointed its own cable channel, NFL Network, hasn't attracted more viewers for the 13 Thursday night games it airs each season, the person said. The league believes that adding a second game to create double-headers on some Thursdays could create more national interest.

The process is still in the preliminary phase, the person familiar with the league's strategy said. Executives have discussed the issue with media outlets but the league isn't shopping a specific package and no formal offers have been received, the person said.

Adding another several hours of football on Thursday nights would have significant implications in the TV industry. Thursdays have historically been a big night for advertisers like auto makers and movie studios looking to promote weekend openings. As a result broadcast networks put some of their best shows on that night.

The Thursday night NFL Network games have been closely followed in the markets of the participating teams but have not become must-see television in the same way that NBC's Sunday Night and ESPN's Monday Night Football games are. They are usually the least-watched nationally televised games of the week, in part because the NFL Network still isn't fully distributed.

Asked about the performance of the Thursday night games at last week's owners meetings, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said he was pleased with the growth of the NFL Network's ratings. He added, "People want to watch it and are excited about Thursday Night Football. It is our job to build Thursday Night Football and make it, 'This is where you want to be on Thursday.'"

The additional games would be taken from the Sunday afternoon schedule, now shown on CBS and Fox, and wouldn't affect deals the NFL has with NBC and ESPN. The league negotiated in its most recent TV agreements the rights to pull games from the Sunday afternoon schedule and use them to create another package of games.

The league also could move Thursday night games shown on NFL Network to another channel. The network may be able to drop some games without suffering a decrease in the affiliate fees it charges distributors to carry the network, the person familiar with the league's strategy said. If the NFL Network were to sell off all of its games, it would be forced to renegotiate its affiliate agreements.

Potential buyers of the games would likely be national cable sports networks. But league officials have also considered selling the Thursday night package to a nontraditional media partner, including online players like Netflix Inc. or Google Inc., the person said.

The league believes it can work with a new entrant just as it did in the 1990s when it joined with with satellite television provider DirecTV to create NFL Sunday Ticket, which gave subscribers the ability to view every NFL game throughout the season rather than limiting them to games in their market and those that are nationally televised.

[King of Queens]

What do you think of this latest idea by the NFL?

From a short-term money-making standpoint, makes complete sense.

From a fan perspective, horrible.

[Greg Ambrosius]

What do you think of this latest idea by the NFL?

From a short-term money-making standpoint, makes complete sense.

From a fan perspective, horrible.

If you want a diluted product and more injuries, keep adding Thursday Night Games. STUPID.

From a season ticket holder's perspective, HORRIBLE. I don't want to attend ANY Thursday Night home games.

[Tom Kessenich]

Pro Football Talk Tweeted last night that Friday and Saturday games are not possible. Broadcast antitrust exemption prevents it from early September to early December. I wasn't aware of that but it explains the Thursday night target by the NFL despite all the inherent issues it presents in terms of quality of play.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Here's the results of ProFootballTalk's survey on Thursday Night Games. Do you want more Thursday Night Games?:

Actually, I'm interested in less Thursday night games. 50.04% (11,148 votes)

No. 31.3% (6,973 votes)

Yes. 18.66% (4,157 votes)


Total Votes: 22,278

Here's another good point by PFT:

While the first Thursday night of the season is an obvious spot for a second game, it would be hard to sell more short-week games once the season has begun. From the 13 Thursday night games on NFL Network to the three Thanksgiving games on CBS, FOX, and NBC, each of the 32 teams plays one game on a Thursday after playing on a Sunday. For competitive reasons, it could be unfair to compel some teams to play a second short-week game.

Also, the NFLPA would have to agree to more Thursday night games. With player health and safety now receiving so much attention, it could be hard to sell the players on additional Thursday night games.

The better approach could be to sell all of the Thursday night games to the highest bidder. That would reduce the revenues of NFL Network by dropping advertising dollars and subscriber fees, but it could generate hundreds of millions of dollars via a tug of war between other cable networks.

That’s a drum the NFLPA should be banging. If the players are going to be playing one game per year with three days’ rest, the league needs to maximize the money that comes from it. By keeping the games on NFL Network, the league probably isn’t.

[Fourslot40]

Being an East Coaster and workaholic, I look forward to a full slate every Sunday. I just can't stay up for the second half of the Monday/ Thursday and Sunday games when the start close to 9pm EST. I'm already missing several games without this change.

[Tom Kessenich]

Bill Simmons mentioned this and I agree with him that maybe the way to go is to have a second Sunday night game. Yeah that Chargers-Raiders game got over somewhere around dawn on the East Coast but there was a novelty aspect to it that I thought was a lot of fun. I'd much rather watch a midnight special Sunday night game than two Thursday night contests.