If you live on the east coast of the United States and are a fan of the Texans or the Seahawks, the NFL hates you.
How else do you explain not only running two games on Monday night, but starting the second game at 10 p.m. EDT?
Madness would be one possible answer. But I’m thinking that it’s just plain greed.
The marque matchup on Monday night kicked off at a more reasonable 7 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. for those of us here in the Central time zone.
Two of the top teams in the NFC, Detroit and Tampa Bay, wrapped up play just about the time the Seahawks-Texans game was kicking off.
If you are a normal human being, watching the second game meant a 1 a.m. bedtime. Unless you’re one of those people, you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.
You probably looked like Oscar The Grouch when you walked into work too.
And there’s your obligatory PBS programming reference for the season.
It Makes No Sense
A little more than 55 years ago, the NFL played its first ever game on Monday Night. September 21, 1970, to be exact, when the Cleveland Browns beat the visiting New York Jets, 31-21.
Check out the video in the link above at about the 1:50 mark as Namath throws a touchdown pass to George Sauer.
Then notice all the fans just casually sitting or lying on the grass on the hill a few yards beyond the back of the endzone at Municipal Stadium. I miss those stadiums.
Back then, the first year of the merger, CBS (NFC) and NBC (AFC) divvied up the Sunday game broadcasts, leaving ABC with the new concept of a single game on Monday.
It was an immediate success for ABC and the NFL.
It quickly became iconic too. But the NFL couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Broadcast Overkill
Eventually, the NFL decided a Sunday night game would just be the bee’s knees. Before long, the two Thanksgiving Day games in Detroit and Dallas were also deemed not enough.
A third game on Thursday night was added.
Then one game every Thursday night was mandated.
Now we have a Friday afternoon game the day after Thanksgiving, in addition to the three on Turkey Day, to contend with.
The NFL has in recent years scheduled games on Saturdays late in the year as well. That would leave Tuesday and Wednesday as the only NFL-free days of the week.
Madness.
Unhealthy Growth
The players have been complaining about the weekly Thursday games for some time. One week out of the year for four teams was fine.
But not every week.
Maybe that’s why we’re seeing an increase in player injuries as players try to recover in a short week?
Add in the travel to the International games, and it seems the NFL has one goal in mind. Chase down every penny they can squeeze out of its fanbase.
That’s eventually a model for growing your sport out of business via oversaturation.
A Possible Solution
Sometimes, the old way are the best ways.
Maybe it’s time for the NFL to look back at how it used to be done. After all, that is the foundation today’s NFL was built on.
Go back to every game played on Sunday afternoons, with the lone Monday Night game each week.
And the lone exception being the two Turkey Day games in Dallas and Detroit.
The NFL will be just as popular. And maybe half the country won’t be mistaken for zombies at work on Tuesday mornings, too.
Was this helpful?
4 Comments