tv football schedule

National Football League on television

The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. It was television that brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, NFL broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.

Since the 1960 s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. Currently, the terrestrial television networks CBS($3.73 B), NBC ($3.6 B) and Fox ($4.27 B) — as well as cable television's ESPN ($8.8 B) — are paying a combined total of US$20.4 billion to broadcast NFL games as per the current contract that ends in 2013. From 2014 to 2022, the same networks will pay $39.6 billion for the same broadcast rights. With the current concentration of media ownership in the U.S., the NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies (CBS Corporation, NBCUniversal, News Corporation, and The Walt Disney Company, respectively) that control a combined vast majority of the country's media. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. However, the league imposes several strict television policies to ensure that stadiums are filled and sold out,to maximize telecast ratings, and to help leverage content on these networks.

Under the current contracts, regionally shown games on Sunday afternoons are televised on CBS and Fox, which primarily carry games of AFC and NFC teams respectively (the conference of the road team determines the broadcaster of an interconference game). Nationally televised regular season games on Sunday and Monday nights are aired on NBC and ESPN, respectively, while the NFL Network televises Thursday night games during the regular season. During the postseason, NBC broadcasts the first two playoff games, while CBS and Fox airs the rest of the AFC and NFC games, respectively; the Super Bowl rotates annually between CBS, Fox, and NBC.

NFL preseason telecasts are more in line with the other major sports leagues' regular-season telecasts in that they are more locally-produced, usually by a local affiliate of one of the above terrestrial television networks. Some preseason games will air nationally, 

Overview of schedule

The NFL regular season usually begins in September, and ends in December or early January. Each team plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Traditionally, the majority of each week's games are played on Sunday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon games are televised regionally, where the particular game available on local television will depend on where the viewer is located, and begin at either approximately 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition, there are usually single nationally televised games each on Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night. These primetime games are broadcast across the country over one national over-the-air broadcast or cable network, where there are no regional restrictions, nor any other competing NFL contest.

All playoff games, the Super Bowl, and the Pro Bowl are nationally televised on either Saturday or Sunday in January/early February, and either in the afternoon or in primetime.

Scheduling during the NFL preseason is more lenient in that most games usually start based on the local time. Thus, games on the West Coast are usually played after 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern Time). However, the handful of primetime, nationally televised preseason games are still played at approximately 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

Current broadcasting contracts

The television rights to the NFL are the most expensive rights of not only any American sport, but any American entertainment property. With the fragmentation of audiences due to the increased specialization of broadcast and cable TV networks, sports remain one of the few entertainment properties that not only can guarantee a large and diversified audience, but a live one.

The Super Bowl often ranks among the most watched shows of the year. Four of Nielsen Media Research's top 10 programs of all time are Super Bowls. Networks have purchased a share of the broadcasting rights to the NFL as a means of raising the entire network's profile.

Under the current television contracts, which began during the 2006 season, regular season games are broadcast on five networks:CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, and the NFL Network.

As of the 2012 NFL season with the major networks investing more in audio description due to FCC guidelines ramping up the requirements of opening up the second audio program audio channel to access audio description (which is also used by some networks to provide Spanish language audio of their primetime programming), all of the NFL's broadcasting partners have added Spanish language audio commentary of games over the SAP channel, except for ESPN, which simulcasts Monday Night Football with Spanish commentary over ESPN Deportes and has since the move of MNF to ESPN in 2006.

NFL Sunday Ticket

Satellite broadcast company DirecTV offers NFL Sunday Ticket, a subscription-based package that allows all Sunday afternoon regional games to be watched. The only exception is that Sunday Ticket is subject to the same blackout rules as broadcast networks. This package is exclusive to DirecTV in the US. In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket is available on a per-provider distribution deal on both cable and satellite, because Canadian law generally prevents one provider from offering a package on an exclusive basis.

Television policies

Mid-game switches

During the afternoon games, CBS and Fox may switch a market's game to a more competitive one mid-game, particularly when a game becomes one-sided. For this to occur, one team must be ahead by at least 18 points in the second half.

Due to the "Heidi Game", a primary media market must show its local team's game in its entirety and secondary markets usually follow suit for away games. Also, secondary markets (for home games) or any others where one team's popularity stands out may request a constant feed of that game, and in that case will not be switched.

If the local team is scheduled for the late game of a doubleheader, it has importance over any early game. If 4:25 p.m. arrives, and the early game is ongoing, the primary affiliate (all games) and secondary affiliates (road games) are required to cut off the early game and switch to the start of the local team's game. Additional affiliates, including secondary affiliates for home games, may also request to cut off an early game for a nearby team's late start. This is common in Texas where many affiliates which are not considered secondary markets by the NFL still switch out of early games in order to get to the start of a 4:25 Dallas Cowboys game.

When a local team plays the early game of a doubleheader, that game holds importance over any late game. If the local team's early game runs beyond 4:25 p.m., the primary and secondary markets stay on until completion, and the late game is joined in-progress.

Shared media markets

For this reason, if two teams share a primary media market, their games are never scheduled on the same network on the same day (unless they play each other). Otherwise, the networks could theoretically have to cut away from one team's game to show the other. Currently, two pairs of teams are affected by this rule, and are subject to additional rules described below: