Folks in Seattle aren’t thrilled with the fact that their local team will be playing a game against the Buccaneers in Germany that starts at 6:30 a.m. PT. But that’s what happens when the NFL becomes determined to expand the number of windows for NFL games.
All four of the 2022 European games land in the 9:30 a.m. ET/6:30 a.m. PT time slot this year, an unprecedented number of Sunday mornings that feature football — and not pregame shows talking about football. While those shows will go on, most football fans will choose to watch, you know, football games.
It’s no surprise. The ongoing growth of legalized wagering, and the inevitable deployment of technologies that allow wagers to be made in real time prior to any and every play in a given game, will compel the NFL to spread a given weekend’s games out, as much as possible. That’s why Monday doubleheaders could eventually become a commonplace occurrence. Ditto for Tuesday and Wednesday night games.
Ideally, the league would play one game at a time. It will be virtually impossible, however, to pull that off.
The NFL nevertheless can stretch the current number of windows per week (five) into something more than that, with one on Thursday, four on Sunday, two on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday. That’s nine weekly windows for up to 16 games. Throw in the bye weeks, and there wouldn’t be many simultaneous games in the Sunday afternoon windows.
And don’t forget the seemingly inevitable Black Friday game on Amazon. With the broadcast antitrust exemption not jeopardized unless and until games after played after 6:00 p.m. ET on Fridays, the league could embrace a weekly “Football Friday” national broadcast, with a game that starts at 2:00 p.m. ET, and that people watch (and wager on) while at work or school or wherever on their phones.
Bottom line? A league that already has found a way to cram as much cheese as possible into the pizza will be looking for more nooks and crannies. The decision to cram four Sunday games into an early-season window — even if folks in Seattle will have to get up extra early to watch — underscores the commitment to spread the weekly games out as much as possible.
i already set an alarm for october 30th, personally
I really enjoy these morning games. Food prep the night before. Wake. Bake. NFL.
Having lived nearly all my life on the West coast, I know the NFL to be well-suites for Sunday mornings going back to the 60’s. It’s an excellent tradition.
But having lived nearly all my life on the West coast, I also know that booking West coast teams 9 time zones away from their normal body clocks and 9 time zones away from their fans is a ridiculous idea. It’s just as stupid as booking NY Giants games in Sydney, Australia.
The sound you hear is the first croak of a golden goose starting to die.
Serious over-saturation unfortunately……
I was in Hawaii a few years ago and watched an Eagles game starting at 8:00 a.m. local time. Coffee instead of beer; cereal instead of wings, no shouting (wife was still in bed). Weird
NFLs greedy owners always trying to squeeze just a little more money out. Because making several hundred million dollars a yr isn’t enough?! Just change the National in NFL to World. The loyal fans in Seattle get screwed because Germany is dying for NFL football?
then I want a discount on my season tickets.
The NFL is doing Seahawk fans a favor.
But they get to watch MNF during happy hour.
The NFL puts most of it’s games on at the same time Sunday and which means I always miss the games that are opposite the Packers (or any other game I wanna watch). These alternate time slots give me an opportunity to see a game I otherwise never would. Don’t have a problem with that one bit…and don’t understand why anyone else would.
It seems a little strange that the European games wouldn’t be scheduled at more like 6pm their time, so that they would air at noon or 1pm Eastern and 9-10am Pacific. Americans who travel to Europe for the games would probably appreciate having the day to do touristy things and then go to the game. Fans who stay home would see the games at about the same time as normal. I get the NFL’s interest in adding another window on Sunday, but much as I love football, watching three games on Sunday is already pretty overwhelming.
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