Kenny Albert explains why he’s not worried about NFL diluting its schedule
· Yahoo Sports
On Thursday night, the NFL will play its second game of the season, with the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers facing off in Australia on Netflix. This game follows the season opener on Wednesday night, when the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots in a rematch of last season’s Super Bowl on NBC.
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That is just a sampling of how the NFL calendar has stretched its grasp to capture more and more of the week. There was a time when the concept of football on a Monday night was exotic and thrilling. Today, fans don’t go more than three days without professional football on their televisions.
The NFL’s expanded schedule has left some worried the league is diluting itself into a worse product. While one of the joys of NFL fandom is popping RedZone on for the 1 p.m. ET slot on a Sunday, the afternoon slot has gotten thinner and thinner over the past few years between the addition of Thursday night football, international games played on Sunday morning in the United States, and more and more holiday games getting their own windows.
Still, broadcasting legend Kenny Albert isn’t worried about it. Speaking with Front Office Sports, Albert explained that he believes the NFL is too strong, and features too many games, for the Sunday afternoon window to be truly left barren.
“With 32 teams you’re always going to have 13-16 games a week, depending on the bye, and I think the majority will always be on Sundays, at least in our lifetimes,” Albert said. “I would think that for the most part you’ll always have 8-10 games on Sundays. We’ve seen Amazon and Netflix and the streaming services come in, and they’ve all done a terrific job.”
Albert leaving at least eight games on Sunday feels about right. Between a day before Thanksgiving game, the Thanksgiving triple-header, a Black Friday game and a Monday night game, Week 12 of this year’s season is already down to 10 games on Sunday, and that’s with the league making sure that no teams are on a bye. That week, three games are slated for the Sunday afternoon window, with a Seahawks-49ers showdown being the main attraction.
But as Albert explains, even though it might feel like things are getting thinner right now, with expansion likely coming soon, there’s only going to be more games on the schedule, and they’ve got to go somewhere.
“It’s more rights fees for everybody—for the league and for the owners—and it keeps everybody working on the broadcast end of it. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more change over the next decade, two decades, as well. But as long as there are this many teams and possible expansion—sports is the best reality TV, so they’re going to need some place to put every game.”
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