We’ve seen Monday Night Football doubleheaders in recent years, with two games back-to-back on Opening Week to give a little extra national exposure – but why, this year, are there two games in Week 2 that are scheduled for a 7:15 and 8:30 kickoff?
Boomer & Gio were wondering on the first Football Friday of 2022, so Mike North, the VP of NFL Broadcasting, called into the show to explain what’s up with the schedule.
“When we did the new deal with ESPN and the Disney family – ABC has been getting back into things simulcasting the last few years, and they wanted some games of their own, so we discussed what the right way to do that was,” North explained.
So, this year, instead of an ESPN doubleheader with the late game going past midnight ET or later, the league decided to try something a little more similar to what Sundays can look like.
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“We’ve been doing the 7pm and 10:15pm start and that’s fun, six uninterrupted hours of football, but that late game gets pretty late on the East coast,” North said. “We talked to Disney this year about trying something different, a little overlap – try to time it so halftime of the early game coincides with kickoff of the late game.”
The idea, North said, is more fun for the fans.
“We’ll see what we’ve got, but just like on Sunday afternoons – a bunch of games going on, where you can flip back and forth, and it should be fun for the fans,” he said.
Weather, COVID, and other factors have forced the NFL into some bizarre start times and days over the last few years, but this is the first scheduled MNF overlap – and next year, there may be more.
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“Next year there will be three such occasions, so we’ll see how this works and what the fans say,” he revealed. “Maybe we’ll do them three different ways: one back-to-back, one current, and one overlap?”
North also discussed the NFL’s Thursday night move to Amazon Prime, how to get the NFL on the Amazon and NFL Plus apps, pressure about the ratings, and more – check out the full interview at the top of the 9 am hour from today’s show above.
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