USATSI
“Thursday Night Football” could have extra compelling video games on its schedule subsequent season however we cannot discover out for positive till May. NFL homeowners on Tuesday on the league conferences tabled the vote on flexing ‘Thursday Night Football’ video games for 2023.
The essential function of passing the flex plan could be to remove Thursday evening video games between dropping groups. If the plan passes, the NFL could be permitted to shift Sunday afternoon video games to Thursday evening from weeks 14-17 with 15 days discover.
While that change remains to be being mentioned, the homeowners did approve a rule permitting groups to play two Thursday video games on quick weeks. That means the league is now permitted to schedule groups for Thursday evening video games after a earlier Sunday recreation on two events through the season. Previously, a crew might solely play one recreation on Thursday evening after taking part in Sunday.
While there’s optimism that the flex scheduling proposal will go, there are causes to imagine that it could possibly be voted down by the homeowners. NFL coaches, for one, usually are not followers of schedule adjustments, particularly through the season. Safety additionally turns into a priority as groups could possibly be requested to play extra video games on quick weeks.
Amazon’s first season with “Thursday Night Football” drew a mean viewership of 9.6 million, in accordance with Neilsen. While that may be a stable quantity, it was a 46 % decline from the earlier season when Thursday evening video games have been broadcast on Fox and NFL Network. Games that didn’t have important playoff implications could have contributed to the decline in viewership.
There’s additionally the problem of followers who buy tickets properly prematurely of their recreation. The chance of extra video games being flexed could trigger extra hesitation from followers who’re contemplating buying tickets forward of the sport they plan on attending.
For a proposal to go, it should obtain 75 % of the vote, that means that 24 of the NFL’s 32 homeowners should vote in favor of the proposal. Given the NFL’s dedication to producing income, the secure guess is that the homeowners will go the proposal, even when it goes in opposition to the needs of coaches, gamers and followers.
