The making of the NFL schedule may be more complicated than you think. All 32 teams play 17 games during an 18-week period with multiple television networks jockeying for specific matchups. The addition of Thursday Night Football and the increase in unusual timeslots also throw a wrench into things.
But there’s one thing the NFL is focused on when making the schedule: storytelling. It knows which games are the most compelling and does its best to present those matchups at the right time not only in the season but which day and time within that week’s slate of games.
NFL Vice President of Broadcasting Mike North explained how the league values different things in scheduling big games while appearing on the Audacy Sports Podcast “It’s Always Gameday In Buffalo” this week.
“Obviously every game has a story to it but some games have a bigger story than others. If there’s something that the fans are really interested in – this Buffalo - Kansas City game is a good barometer,” North said. “You put that game on Sunday Night Football and it probably does 23-25 million viewers. That’s an awful lot of people who are going to be willing to stay awake Sunday night until 11:30 at night on the East Coast, hopefully after watching the 1 o’clock window and the 4 o’clock window, maybe even the 9:30 a.m. window that day. You’re talking about 12 hours of NFL football, that’s asking a lot. So you put a game like Buffalo - Kansas City on Sunday night, that probably gives people a reason to stay and tune in and watch.”
A compelling matchup will always be reason enough for most football fans to stay up for that Sunday Night Football game. However, the league has to weigh different options with that matchup just as with any other.
“You put that game on Sunday afternoon – CBS, FOX, 4:25 – you actually probably beat that number. You probably get closer to 30 million,” North continued. “So is that a better use of that asset?”
The league also has the option of using a premiere matchup to grow a viewership base on a new service like Amazon Prime or Peacock, North explained.
“We’re trying to grow the Amazon brand and shift consumer behavior and help people find Amazon Prime on a Thursday night. You want people to find Amazon Prime? Put Bills - Chiefs there, people will find it,” he said. “Look at what we did with Peacock last year when we put a Chiefs playoff game on Peacock.”
Fans let the league know what teams and games they care about the most through different activities throughout the year.
“Our fans will find the games that they care about so we need to know which games they care the most about. And they tell us every day,” North said. “They tell us every time they interact with the league. Every time they call into one of your shows. Every time they post something on social media. Every time they change their quarterback on their fantasy team. Every time they buy a hat or a T-shirt or a ticket. Every time they follow somebody on Instagram. Every time they place a legal bet.
“Every time they interact with the league they’re telling us what’s important to them, and if we’re not listening then we’re not doing our jobs.
“If we took that Buffalo - Kansas City game and we put it on CBS at 1 o’clock eastern in a window with eight other NFL games, and that game might only be available in 28, 29, 30% of the country, that’s not the best use of that asset. That game belongs to our fans. We’re not doing our job to put it in a place where as many fans as possible can see it.”
It makes sense. Fans across the country want to be able to watch the high-profile matchups. They won’t be able to do that if it’s on at the same time as their local team.
The league factors in a variety of things when creating the schedule, including star players facing former teams, rookies debuting, playoff rematches, and more.
“What are those biggest games? What are the must-see TV games? And then can you spread ‘em out across all the partners, all the weeks? Can you have something every week that feels like a story game?” North said. “And then we, the NFL, have to do a good job, and our broadcast partners have to do a good job marketing it, promoting it, reminding people ‘this game is this week, tune in.’ Once the game starts, out of our hands. 21-0 at the end of the first quarter, maybe people are going to turn the TV off. But that doesn’t seem to happen that much in this league anymore.”
Ultimately, the league does everything it can to work with its partners and marketing teams to put the best games in the best timeslot to maximize that asset. That’s not as easy in today’s day and age with fans being able to track games, highlights, and controversies on their phones.
“We got to do everything we can to identify those storylines, work with our partners to promote them and market them, get people to the television at kickoff, and then hope the game is good enough to keep them there,” North explained. “What do we have to do to make you sit there and watch it for three hours? We got to make it compelling. We got to make the biggest storyline games in the biggest windows so the fans are going to get a chance to see the games they want to see.”