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One of the most prominent broadcasters calling NFL games says he would like to see the league make far more extensive use of its flexible-scheduling policies.
Mike Tirico, the play-by-play announcer for NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcasts, told Front Office Sports that the league could choose the slate of games for particular weeks of the season and then assign specific time slots weeks in advance.
“I would lay it out like the Premier League,” Tirico told Ryan Glasspiegel at the FOS Tuned In summit Tuesday in New York. “Like, hey, ‘Here is match window 14 and here are the fixtures for that matchweek.’ And six weeks or so out, you start slotting them in. I think that would help leave good inventory for an early Sunday, have your best games late Sunday afternoon and Sunday night, and there is some flexibility with Monday, right? You can move somebody a day later on in the season. Thursdays are hard because you’ve got to do that puzzle very intricately and fairly for teams.”
NBC has extensive Premier League rights in the United States.
Tirico made his comments as part of a panel with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo in which Glasspiegel asked about the long-term prospects for the NFL to retain its perch as the nation’s most popular sport.
“I think if you did that,” Tirico said, “it gives you a chance to do better because at the end of the day, flex—whether it’s Monday night, Sunday night, Thursday has some flex opportunities as well for a few of their weeks—the person who wins in flex [is] not the networks. It’s the fan because after two games on Sunday, you want a good game when it’s standing alone. You want a good game at 4:25 Eastern time when it’s standing alone. So I think that could help a little bit of this as it gets spread out.”
The NFL currently utilizes flexible scheduling on a far less extensive basis to move games in and out of certain viewing windows.
