NFL Tabs Bears-Giants On November 12 As First NBC Flex Game

Ebersol Happy With Start Of NFL’s Flex Schedule

The NFL officially announced that the November 12 Bears-Giants game will be played at 8:15pm ET on NBC and Saints-Steelers will move to 4:15pm on Fox as part of the first week of the league’s flexible scheduling. The Bears are 6-0, and the Giants are 4-2. While NBC makes requests to the NFL for the games it wants to air, it is ultimately the NFL’s decision (THE DAILY). NBC Universal Sports & Olympics Chair Dick Ebersol: “You couldn’t ask for a better start to this whole new policy” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 10/25). In N.Y., Andrew Marchand writes the game “was not ‘moved’ to accommodate NBC. Rather, the Giants and Bears knew for months that the game was headed for 8:15pm unless the teams faltered.” The NFL “didn’t acknowledge this starting time to avoid embarrassing the teams if they were removed from the prime slot” (N.Y. POST, 10/25). USA TODAY’s Michael Hiestand writes neither Fox nor CBS protected games in Week 10, “logically figuring NBC would stick with the Bears-Giants.” While Fox and CBS have complained about losing marquee games to the flex schedule, Ebersol said those networks “knew what they were buying into” when they made their NFL deals (USA TODAY, 10/25).

WORKING OUT THE KINKS: NFL Senior VP/Media Operations Howard Katz said of announcing games that will be played at 8:15pm on Sunday, “There may be some growing pains with respect to how we communicate everything. There may be some inconvenience initially, which we’re really going to be sensitive to with fans who have tickets to a noon game and now it gets changed.” Looking at other potential games that could be moved to NBC, Katz said, “There are probably three Saints games during the flex weeks were you could say right now they could be pretty interesting.” Katz pointed out Bengals-Saints on November 19 and Saints-Cowboys on December 10 (New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE, 10/25).

EBERSOL: In a phone interview with WFAN-AM’s “Mike & the Mad Dog” yesterday, Ebersol said, “The league would tell you ... the thing that will make them the happiest in flex is if it’s about teams that are surprises, like Cincinnati last year and New Orleans this year.” Ebersol added the NFL, not the networks, is benefiting the most from the new TV arrangement. Ebersol: “The cable package is way up. Our package is up. The Fox package is up; and CBS at this point is even, and they would be way ahead if they hadn’t had that one (Giants-Eagles overtime game) that ran dead against one of their doubleheader weekends unexpectedly. ... The league has to be over the moon. With everything else in the world getting smaller, they’re getting bigger.” WFAN’s Chris Russo said NBC’s “Football Night In America” seems to be “lacking something: slow paced, energy, whatever it might be. It doesn’t grab you.” Ebersol: “We’re on it. We’re working on it. ... I always think it can use more energy and that’s what we’re working on.” Meanwhile, with Turner paying a reported $40-45M for annual rights to an LCS, Ebersol said of NBC not bidding for package, “I really think that in baseball there is so much risk. There’s such a variance between what a rating can be (depending on) what market you have in and everything else. In the past, whoever had these things had all of it.” Ebersol added of TBS’ deal: “I think it hurts the sport to put its postseason so heavily in cable because it makes it that much harder for people to find it” (YES Network, 10/24).