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League considers adding more Thursday games (1 Viewer)

netnalp

Footballguy
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/10/15/report-league-considers-adding-more-thursday-games/related/

Report: League considers adding more Thursday gamesPosted by Mike Florio on October 15, 2013, 9:18 PM EDT

Anquan Boldin and those who agree with him aren’t going to be happy.

According to Matthew Futterman and Shalini Ramachandran of the Wall Street Journal, the NFL is considering adding more Thursday night games to its current slate of 13 televised by NFL Network.

Per the report, the league could stage some Thursday night doubleheaders, with games being televised on networks other than the league-owned broadcast operation.

The NFL reportedly is disappointed that the present approach, which expanded last year to cover most Thursdays, hasn’t generated more interest. In addition to additional Thursday night games, some of the games currently televised by NFL Network could be sold to other networks.

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.

 
i'd be down for 2 monday night games, but don't like the thursday night idea at all.
West coasters generally are fine with this. As an East coaster, MNF ends late enough as it is. That first Monday night made Tuesday morning rough...can't do that regularly

 
I'm happy when there's football to watch, period... but that said, I agree that Thursday night games are generally not as good as Sunday/Monday games and expanding to more Thursday games is a terrible idea.

 
Why can't they just leave well enough alone and have football on Sunday and Monday with Thursday after Thanksgiving?

 
Aside from the horrible play and the potential for increased injuries on not yet recuperated bodies, Thursday Night Football kills one of the best aspects of the NFL in general. Other sports have games on every night of the week and that dilutes the product and lessens the anticipation for the next game. Part of the great charm of NFL is that it's one day a week (with the exception of the Monday Night game which is like the cherry on the top of the Sunday). That one day becomes like a mini-holiday for true fans where you look forward to the game, build up anticipation for it by discussing and dissecting the teams, and when the game finally comes it seems all that much more worth it. You start putting games on all the time and the specialness of NFL Sunday becomes lost.

 
Aside from the horrible play and the potential for increased injuries on not yet recuperated bodies, Thursday Night Football kills one of the best aspects of the NFL in general. Other sports have games on every night of the week and that dilutes the product and lessens the anticipation for the next game. Part of the great charm of NFL is that it's one day a week (with the exception of the Monday Night game which is like the cherry on the top of the Sunday). That one day becomes like a mini-holiday for true fans where you look forward to the game, build up anticipation for it by discussing and dissecting the teams, and when the game finally comes it seems all that much more worth it. You start putting games on all the time and the specialness of NFL Sunday becomes lost.
The fully extrapolated version of this concept is the NHL, where you can have Arizona v. Minnesota on a Wednesday night. This does not sell the sport...

 
I don't know what all of you are talking about, this is great.

The NFL does not need to expand the schedule, never did. What they needed to do was stop showing as much as 88% of their product in one 6-7 hour window. Never made sense to me and apparently it no longer does to them as well.

Best move of the Goodel in my opinion.

 
Why can't they just leave well enough alone and have football on Sunday and Monday with Thursday after Thanksgiving?
Because they will end up like Border's and others. They want more money, and they will water down the product so much that sooner or later no one care. First will be more expansion, then it will be more games, and games everyday of the week. This will take years and probably won't happen in our lifetime but if they keep it up it will happen.

 
It's hard to believe Goodell could be this stupid. Does he watch the games at all? Between this, the London fiasco he's jamming down everyone's throats, and pushing for a longer season, he's got to be the worst commissioner ever.

 
The NFL is losing in two ways if they do this:

- They continue to dilute the quality of the game.

+ They continue to denigrate the competitive balance of the games.

They continue to chip away at a once giant monolith.

Side question: Does this idea come from Goodell (or his marketing geniuses in the NFL HQ), or is this idea coming from the owners?

 
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Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That requires the two Thursday teams to share a bye, which may be problematic, but not impossible. So, they'd play Sunday, then have their next game 18 days later on Thursday. Then their next game would be 10 days later on Sunday. Three games in 28 days? For example, these two teams might have games this year on September 29th, October 18th and October 28th. That's five Sundays' worth of dates for three games, whereas we now get four (four games plus a bye over five Sundays, I mean).

I think it's a great way to reduce injuries and stress on the players, but is it viable? I'm not so sure. I think it's definitely worth investigating!

 
Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That is a great idea
This is the best idea from each individual team's perspective, and from the fan's perspecitve, but it is at odds with why the NFL suits in New York expanded the THU night schedule in the first place.

The motivation behind it was entirely to expand the pie. So once they came up with the idea that they could scrape another 8 or 9 games out of the Sunday schedule and simply "sell these games to ourselves" by broadcasting them on NFL Network, they ran with the idea and slotted every single team to play a Thursday game at some point, including the triple header on Thanksgiving.

This was done under the guise of 'parity in scheduling' so that every NFL team had to suffer through a short prep week, thus not disadvantaging only those few teams who were scheduled on Thursday. That was the official reason. Unofficially, it was all about greed, with the lucrative ad revenue generated from the TNF broadcasts all going directly to the owners, rather than going to a broadcast network in exchange for fixed broadcast rights fee.

Now that this money is flowing, this flow isn't about to be turned off or even turned down so that teams only play after their bye weeks in weeks 5 through 12, regardless of how poor the play is on Thursday nights.

The league and the owners realize that this is hurting the teams, and a sub-par product is being rolled out every Thu night, but they really don't care, because it is generating too much money to do anything about it.

 
Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That requires the two Thursday teams to share a bye, which may be problematic, but not impossible. So, they'd play Sunday, then have their next game 18 days later on Thursday. Then their next game would be 10 days later on Sunday. Three games in 28 days? For example, these two teams might have games this year on September 29th, October 18th and October 28th. That's five Sundays' worth of dates for three games, whereas we now get four (four games plus a bye over five Sundays, I mean).

I think it's a great way to reduce injuries and stress on the players, but is it viable? I'm not so sure. I think it's definitely worth investigating!
In the very least they should impose a few common-sense rules for Thursday night, such as:

- both teams should play home games the previous week.

- both teams should have played the early game the previous week.

- the visiting team should have a minimal amount of travel distance, preferably in the same time zone.

- neither team should have played on Monday night 2 weeks prior.

 
Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That requires the two Thursday teams to share a bye, which may be problematic, but not impossible. So, they'd play Sunday, then have their next game 18 days later on Thursday. Then their next game would be 10 days later on Sunday. Three games in 28 days? For example, these two teams might have games this year on September 29th, October 18th and October 28th. That's five Sundays' worth of dates for three games, whereas we now get four (four games plus a bye over five Sundays, I mean).

I think it's a great way to reduce injuries and stress on the players, but is it viable? I'm not so sure. I think it's definitely worth investigating!
It would be 11 days later, not 18.

 
The NFL reportedly is disappointed that the present approach, which expanded last year to cover most Thursdays, hasn’t generated more interest.
"People really haven't like it so far, so I propose we double it!!!"
Funny enough, i heard that that's how the subway sandwich chain got started (no joke). The first store was a complete failure and so they opened another one to get brand recognition. And it worked! That doesn't apply to this at all but an interesting story nonetheless.

 
i go to a bar every sunday morning for the free food. i have an idea of what games i want to watch but end up sitting with friends watching some dumb game like the raiders. the game(s) i want to watch are halfway across the bar and i can barely see them. then some other game is on with a bunch of screaming idiots that i end up looking at. so after a couple hours, my neck, eyes and brain are sore and i end up running to the internet for stats because im completely lost.

having 8-10 games on sunday morning at once is dumb. at least stagger them an hour apart so we can make sence out of the madness.

i love watching football but the current format blows.

 
Aside from the horrible play and the potential for increased injuries on not yet recuperated bodies, Thursday Night Football kills one of the best aspects of the NFL in general. Other sports have games on every night of the week and that dilutes the product and lessens the anticipation for the next game. Part of the great charm of NFL is that it's one day a week (with the exception of the Monday Night game which is like the cherry on the top of the Sunday). That one day becomes like a mini-holiday for true fans where you look forward to the game, build up anticipation for it by discussing and dissecting the teams, and when the game finally comes it seems all that much more worth it. You start putting games on all the time and the specialness of NFL Sunday becomes lost.
:nailonhead:

The NFL on Sundays, to me, is like the best day of the Thursday/Friday first round of the NCAA Basketball tournament. x17 weeks. Every fall.

Don't *#(@ with it any more, Goodell. Please.

 
If they want to add a game, make it during late primetime on Saturday. That shouldn't conflict with most of the college games.

 
Thursday night football is a debacle...hate it. I don't want more of it, I want none of it...with the exception of Thanksgiving.

My question is why don't they put more games on 4PM on Sundays? Why is there tons on games on at 1PM and then only 3 games on a 4PM? And why doesn't the league allow Fox and CBS to both have 2 games every Sunday?

 
dgreen said:
danielmclark said:
Mr. Retukes said:
Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That requires the two Thursday teams to share a bye, which may be problematic, but not impossible. So, they'd play Sunday, then have their next game 18 days later on Thursday. Then their next game would be 10 days later on Sunday. Three games in 28 days? For example, these two teams might have games this year on September 29th, October 18th and October 28th. That's five Sundays' worth of dates for three games, whereas we now get four (four games plus a bye over five Sundays, I mean).

I think it's a great way to reduce injuries and stress on the players, but is it viable? I'm not so sure. I think it's definitely worth investigating!
It would be 11 days later, not 18.
Ahhhh, maybe so. I took "skip the bye week" literally, so the teams wouldn't play that week at all. But you're saying that, for example, they would play Sunday, then be off the next Sunday for their bye, then play the Thursday of that week - I was putting them on the Thursday of the following week.

Your way makes a lot more sense, thanks for pointing that out!

 
Friday or Saturday night, please. Not sure why all primetime games have to be on nights where people have to go to work the next morning. As an east coaster that has to wake up at 5:30am every week day, it's not easy going to bed at midnight.

 
dgreen said:
netnalp said:
The NFL reportedly is disappointed that the present approach, which expanded last year to cover most Thursdays, hasn’t generated more interest.
"People really haven't like it so far, so I propose we double it!!!"
:lol: This was my thought when reading it.

 
If it ain't broke, keep ####### trying to break it...
Exactly.

I really feel like I'm starting to lose my connection with this league. From greedy owners watering down the product, to wearing pink for a month, to adding rule upon new rule EVERY offseason and to finally evolving the league to 2 hand touch. It's just not the same game I grew up loving.

 
Friday or Saturday night, please. Not sure why all primetime games have to be on nights where people have to go to work the next morning. As an east coaster that has to wake up at 5:30am every week day, it's not easy going to bed at midnight.
The league has always had policies against competing with college and high school football.

 
Friday or Saturday night, please. Not sure why all primetime games have to be on nights where people have to go to work the next morning. As an east coaster that has to wake up at 5:30am every week day, it's not easy going to bed at midnight.
The league has always had policies against competing with college and high school football.
Ya it makes much more sense to dilute your product, move it over seas, and endanger your players by adding games.

 
Friday or Saturday night, please. Not sure why all primetime games have to be on nights where people have to go to work the next morning. As an east coaster that has to wake up at 5:30am every week day, it's not easy going to bed at midnight.
The league has always had policies against competing with college and high school football.
Ya it makes much more sense to dilute your product, move it over seas, and endanger your players by adding games.
I agree. That's why they should go back to Sunday's, Monday's and Saturdays after the college season ends. But we all know that will never happen.

 
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Das Boot said:
Mr. Retukes said:
Thursday games should only be played after a team's BYE week.
That's an excellent idea.
Yep, and you make it work by extending the regular season to 18 weeks, but stay at 16 games. Now teams have two bye weeks, one earlier and one later (as best you can do), for which you can work around slotting these games.

People who have an issue with this point to how this pushes the Super Bowl further into February but I don't see the problem there. February is a dead sports month anyway. And I actually heard a great idea from Bill Simmons...do this and let's also move President's Day up a week and we finally have our national holiday the day after the Super Bowl.

 

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