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Closing Bell

NFL Owners Decide To Drop "Single-Header" Broadcast Rule

NFL owners voted today to experiment with dropping broadcast exclusivity for home teams in their own markets, which if implemented fully, would guarantee at least three games in the traditional Sunday afternoon windows. Home teams for decades have had their home airwaves to themselves by league rule, which meant fans sometimes only got two games. For instance, if the Browns play in Cleveland at 1:00pm ET on CBS, but Fox has the doubleheader scheduled for that week, Fox had to stay off the air while the Browns played, leaving Cleveland fans with just two games. Under the experiment that will be tried up to twice for each team in '19, Fox will be permitted to show the first half of their doubleheader in Cleveland while the Browns are playing. This will not happen more than twice unless a team approves it.

This rule has been particularly frustrating for fans in two-team markets such as S.F./Oakland or N.Y., where at least one team is playing at home most weekends. "There was this conventional thinking that if you put a game in the market up against the home game, people wouldn’t buy tickets,” said NFL Exec VP/Media Brian Rolapp. “I think if you look at our ticket sales and fan behavior, that’s not really an issue.” League officials emphasized this is a one-year trial run. However, they predicted it will be well-received by fans and acknowledged it is part of a broader trend toward liberalizing distribution rules for the NFL.

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