Are you ready to see some more football? Due to the lack of viewers of Thursday night football games on the NFL’s cable channel, NFL Network, the league is considering adding additional Thursday night games in the future as a way to help increase viewership. Currently, the Thursday night games on the NFL Network are the least-watched nationally televised games of the week, but the NFL believes that double-headers will create more national interest in the Thursday night matches.
These additional games would be taken from the Sunday afternoon schedule, which currently air on CBS and Fox. It would not affect the deals the NFL has with NBC or ESPN. The additional Thursday night games may be shown on the NFL Network or on another channel.
At this time, the process is only in its preliminary stages. No package is currently being shopped, nor have any formal offers been received. However, potential buyers to air these additional games would most likely be national cable sports networks, but league officials are also considering selling the games to online media partners such as Netflix Inc. and Google Inc.
A deal between the NFL and Netflix would certainly be a valuable opportunity for Netflix since it could end up becoming a major sports destination. The change could also attract more customers, but the downside is Netflix presently does not offer live streaming.
As for Google, it may already be winning the NFL Sunday Ticket package. CEO Larry Page met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a couple months ago to discuss taking over the rights for the package once the NFL’s deal with DirecTV expires in 2014.
What do you think? Do you want to see more football on Thursday nights? And would you want to watch those games online?
