By Daniel Kaplan and The Athletic Staff
May 22, 2023
NFL owners passed a resolution to allow games to be flexed between Sunday afternoons and Thursday nights. Here’s what you need to know:
- The resolution stated that flexible scheduling would be expanded to Thursdays “such that clubs may be required to switch Sunday afternoon regular season games, in Weeks 13-17, to approximately 8:15 p.m. ET on Thursday (and vice-versa)” upon at least 28 days notice from the league office.
- The resolution also noted that no club will be required to switch from Sunday afternoon to Thursday night more than once, or play more than two games on Thursday night in a season.
- Additionally, the NFL will not apply flexible scheduling to “Thursday Night Football” more than twice a season and it will only be in effect for the 2023 season unless it is not applied during the regular season, “in which case this Resolution shall remain in effect for the 2024 season.”
- The vote passed 24-8, according to a report by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
What they’re saying
Asked Monday what their message is to fans trying to plan to attend late-season games, the NFL’s chief operating officer of NFL Media Hans Schroeder said fans should be vigilant about the game times.
“I’d say continue to keep your eyes out, watch, know that there’s more and more NFL games, particularly later in the year, that (have the) potential to move,” Schroeder said. “And by the way, we also move a lot of games from one o’clock to four o’clock or four o’clock to one o’clock (on Sundays). … There (are) games that move around our schedule in our windows. And so just be very vigilant and look out and we’ll do our best to make sure we over-communicate that as well.”
Schroeder made several points to those who argue it’s too much to move a game from Sunday to Thursday, and vice versa. Since flexing began on “Sunday Night Football” in 2006, the average number of games flexed per season is 1.8. And the bar to flex to either Thursday or Monday night will be higher than for an intra-day flex. Also, the league changed the 15-day notice period contained in an earlier proposal to 28 days.
Brian Rolapp, NFL chief media and business officer, said, “This is not something that we expect will be commonplace. And part of that is a lot of reasons. A lot of our games, proud of most of our games that go on there. There (are) very few times where we have, as we say, a bit of a disaster. But second, we take the commitment to fans seriously. Both in the stadium and on TV.”
New York Giants owner John Mara, who blasted the idea of TNF flexing in March, was asked if he wanted to make a comment.
“No,” he said in an email. “I just stand by my previous comments.” — Kaplan
Backstory
At the March annual owners’ meeting, a proposal on allowing games to be flexed pushed by the league failed to win the necessary three-quarters vote of owners required to pass. It received 22 “yes” votes, two shy of the necessary 24 (eight owners voted no, and two abstained). The league’s push came after the first year of “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon Prime, which saw a fall in ratings on the streamer by roughly on average 4 million viewers for each of the 15 contests compared to 2021.
That was partly due to the move to digital from linear, but the matchups also drew criticism, including mocking lines at times from Al Michaels, who provided commentary for the contests.
The NFL has been flexing games from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night since 2006 during the latter part of the season and will have the mechanism available for the first time for “Monday Night Football” this upcoming season. But the concept of telling fans a game is switching days on just 15 days’ notice proved too much for enough owners to block the change.
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“At some point, can we please give some consideration to the people who are coming to our games?” John Mara told reporters in March, shortly after the failed vote. “People make plans to go to these games weeks and months in advance. And 15 days ahead of time to say, ‘Sorry, folks, that game you were planning on taking your kids to Sunday at 1, now it’s on Thursday night?’ What are we thinking about?”
Commissioner Roger Goodell, later that day defended the idea, saying, “There isn’t anybody in any of our organizations that doesn’t put our fans first. Providing the best matchups for our fans is what we do. That’s part of what our schedule has always focused on. Flex has been part of that. We are very judicious with it and careful with it. We look at all the impacts of that before a decision is made.”
Required reading
- Thursday Night Football flex scheduled for another NFL owners vote next week
(Photo: Cooper Neill / Getty)
