Donny Football talked to one of the main people behind the NFL Schedule and we learned a lot about how the Steelers 2025 schedule came to be.
Here are the biggest takeaways from NFL VP of Broadcast Planning Mike North on 93.7 The Fan.
Why the Steelers always start on seasons on the road:
We know officially know why the Steelers seem to always start their season on the road.
The Steelers have opened up the NFL season at home only one time in the past decade (2023 against San Francisco).
“It’s defiantly impacted by the Pirates’ schedule,” said North. “Constantly aware of it, certainly no surprises for Omar (Khan) and the guys over at the Steelers when the Pirates have a home game Sunday of Week One.”
North adds that he knows that the North Shore can do a day game and then night game, but it’s something they try to avoid in the regular season.
If the Pirates make it to the postseason again, North says they’ll figure out how to make it work.
Aaron Rodgers had little to no impact on making Steelers schedule:
North says they know what the public knows.
“We definitely didn’t build this schedule assuming he was going to be the quarterback,” said North.
If Rodgers was already signed, North says it’s very likely the Week One matchup against the Jets in New York would’ve been a primetime game.
They did pay attention to one game though, the October 26 game at Acrisure Stadium between the Steelers and Packers.
“Obviously if he’s playing quarterback for the Steelers, this would be the first time he’s playing against the Packers since he left,” said North.
That is a primetime game.
An 18-game season is coming, we just don’t know when:
“There certainly does seem to be a lot of conversation about it,” said North talking about an 18-game season.
What he doesn’t know is when that could happen, since it’s only been three seasons with 17 games and before that it was around 40 years of 16-game seasons.
“I’m not sure the second bye (week) is fait accompli, I’m not sure the 18 games is imminent, but there sure seems to be a lot of talk about it,” said North.
More international games on the horizon:
“Can we get to 10, 12, maybe someday 16 international games? The answer is yes,” said North.
North adds there will be a challenge with making an expanded schedule, but it will continue to grow and there are plenty of new markets that will be seeing games in the coming years.
Thursday Night Football Schedule is getting better:
North says when TNF moved to Amazon, it took some time for the number of people watching to get up to network-type ratings.
Now that it’s more established, they have seen more people watching TNF, meaning they are putting better games in that slot.
Majority of games will continue to air on network TV…for now:
North says the NFL is “all about reach” and network television is the still the best place to get eyes on their games.
While that could change as streaming becomes more popular, North doesn’t see that happening anytime soon, with over 85 percent of games still on network TV and streaming games available on local TV, in market.