We confess … we’re sports TV scheduling nerds. At CBS, the NBA, ESPN, and as consultants, we have advocated for NBA on NBC tripleheaders, playoff multiplex, extra weekends for tennis majors and combining the NCAA basketball men’s and women’s final fours. With the NFL starting, we salute these scheduling innovations that changed our industry:

Today, the NFL is linear TV’s only indispensable programming, generating $12.25 billion AAV rights fees; more if (when) it expands to 18 games and exercises its 2029 re-opener.

We see more “firsts” coming, reimagining how the NFL schedules its 272 (288?) games. However, major changes illustrate the league’s enviable dilemma — insatiable demand; its No. 1 position in TV, streaming and advertising; growing revenue versus its Sunday traditions; balancing rest, travel, weather and competitive fairness.

The NFL has scheduled its 16 maximum weekly games in essentially the same manner since the three-broadcast network era — before cable and streaming. Six windows: three single prime times, with the remaining 13 games mainly stuffed into 1 p.m./4 p.m. ET Sunday time slots, a vestige once necessary to televise every “away” game.

But that pattern is fading. Gone are AFC-/NFC-centric Sunday packages and blackouts........

© Sports Business Journal