How long until the NFL plays on Saturdays?

[cytor]

Or make Super Bowl Sunday a national holiday and give people Monday off.

That is already being looked at: Moving the Superbowl deeper into Feb, and have monday (president's day) be the holiday that people take off. That will require adding ANOTHER reg season game.

My opinion is that if you are going to an 18 games season, let the teams expand the rosters... by the end of the season, half of the league is on the IR already.

Bottom live is that the NFL is a money wh0re...... they will do whatever it takes to squeeze 1 more dollar out of the public.

 

[Tailg8er]

How about more college games being overseas? KSU fans are getting screwed out of a home game next year. I bet their season ticket price didn’t go down, right?

Looks like they have 6 home games this year, and 6 home games in 2025 - so no, highly doubt season ticket prices would decrease. Ticket prices don't decrease when we go from 7 home games to 6 (even when the lost home game is vs Iowa) - best we can hope is they stay the same.

 

[SolterraCyclone]

I can also see the unintended consequence of this having a minimal impact on the Big 10 and SEC, but it having an even more major impact on schools like ISU. If CBS and FOX only have 1 game they can easily schedule Big 10 games around it.

Yep definitely possible. But I do think it would hurt everyone. Media rights wouldn’t be as valuable because the college football games (SEC and B10 included) would lose casual viewers to the NFL game going on.

I’d love to see what happened to the Thursday night college football game TV ratings once the NFL started playing every Thursday.

 

[AuH2O]

Yep definitely possible. But I do think it would hurt everyone. Media rights wouldn’t be as valuable because the college football games (SEC and B10 included) would lose casual viewers to the NFL game going on.

I’d love to see what happened to the Thursday night college football game TV ratings once the NFL started playing every Thursday.

In the scenario discussed above, it would probably result in major networks carrying only the absolute blue blood games, and everybody else, even in the Big 10 and SEC, getting relegated to streaming and the FS2s of the world.

Not to mention I'm sure the networks would love to squeeze a few blue blood games on their subscription streaming component to drum up some new subscribers.

The big thing protecting CFB is there's not really a traditional media partner that has significant NFL rights without also a big investment in CFB. CBS would probably be the most likely to try to push that with their limited Big 10 broadcasting but huge NFL stake. In theory they could fulfill their college rights and still put at least one NFL game on every Saturday, and two in some weeks. But that's still a stretch given current contracts.

It's hard to imagine any of the other current media players making that move in a big way. Maybe a few more Sat games, but not to the point of eliminating multiple CFB slots each week.

 

[nfrine]

As soon as the SEC/B1G do their thing, the NFL "D league" will be playing on Saturday....

 

[SolterraCyclone]

In the scenario discussed above, it would probably result in major networks carrying only the absolute blue blood games, and everybody else, even in the Big 10 and SEC, getting relegated to streaming and the FS2s of the world.

Not to mention I'm sure the networks would love to squeeze a few blue blood games on their subscription streaming component to drum up some new subscribers.

The big thing protecting CFB is there's not really a traditional media partner that has significant NFL rights without also a big investment in CFB. CBS would probably be the most likely to try to push that with their limited Big 10 broadcasting but huge NFL stake. In theory they could fulfill their college rights and still put at least one NFL game on every Saturday, and two in some weeks. But that's still a stretch given current contracts.

It's hard to imagine any of the other current media players making that move in a big way. Maybe a few more Sat games, but not to the point of eliminating multiple CFB slots each week.

Agree with everything you said. Except the final paragraph. All of those media partners would gladly sacrifice some (all) of their college football content to get an NFL Saturday game.

The highest rated SEC and B10 regular-season football games were a little less than 10M. The average NFL regular reason game gets 18M viewers. So your typical NFL game probably gets 3, 4x the viewers than a typical B10/SEC game gets. Literally, the SEC/B10 is to the NFL as the MAC is to the SEC/B10.

I know someone listed all the states the P2 reside in to show it’s a national product. That’s really not the case though. The NHL has a larger geographic footprint than any other professional league, but does a fraction in TV viewership.

College football has relatively low (and dwindling) viewership in the two most populous areas of the country, the Northeast and West Coast. It does well in the south and Midwest. But, as a sport, it isn’t growing. It’s becoming more consolidated and regionalized by the day.

 

[AuH2O]

Agree with everything you said. Except the final paragraph. All of those media partners would gladly sacrifice some (all) of their college football content to get an NFL Saturday game.

The highest rated SEC and B10 regular-season football games were a little less than 10M. The average NFL regular reason game gets 18M viewers. So your typical NFL game probably gets 3, 4x the viewers than a typical B10/SEC game gets. Literally, the SEC/B10 is to the NFL as the MAC is to the SEC/B10.

I know someone listed all the states the P2 reside in to show it’s a national product. That’s really not the case though. The NHL has a larger geographic footprint than any other professional league, but does a fraction in TV viewership.

College football has relatively low (and dwindling) viewership in the two most populous areas of the country, the Northeast and West Coast. It does well in the south and Midwest. But, as a sport, it isn’t growing. It’s becoming more consolidated and regionalized by the day.

I think it depends on what level of games would be NFL on Saturday. But I generally agree that as long as NFL games are still split up to regional coverage then there’s money being left on the table.

 

[Al_4_State]

NFL ratings would go down if they played on Saturdays because a large enough chunk of college fans are more emotionally invested in their college than pro team. They took over Thursday because it only had a couple of college games. When you have the full college slate, they're going to take a hit, and the last thing they'd want to do is make a move that made this dominant product seem less, well, dominant.

 

[KnappShack]

NFL ratings would go down if they played on Saturdays because a large enough chunk of college fans are more emotionally invested in their college than pro team. They took over Thursday because it only had a couple of college games. When you have the full college slate, they're going to take a hit, and the last thing they'd want to do is make a move that made this dominant product seem less, well, dominant.

Like putting TNF on a streamer....

 

[SolterraCyclone]

NFL ratings would go down if they played on Saturdays because a large enough chunk of college fans are more emotionally invested in their college than pro team. They took over Thursday because it only had a couple of college games. When you have the full college slate, they're going to take a hit, and the last thing they'd want to do is make a move that made this dominant product seem less, well, dominant.

Maybe incrementally, but not by that much. The casual viewers by and large will always opt to watch an NFL game over a CFB game.

So, you’d lose the die-hard fans of CFB teams playing, but any casuals would still watch the NFL product.

I could see the NFL wanting to do it because you’re increasing exposure. IE, rather than 4-5 games sharing a time slot on Sunday and the audience segmented regionally, you add one or two nationally televised games on Saturday where your only competition is CFB.

I could see the networks (or certainly a streamer) wanting it because you can trade a game that would fetch maybe 5-6M, with a game that would conservatively fetch 10M and likely much more.

Literally, the only thing I think stopping this is that anti-trust law, not worry about TV ratings. When CFB doesn’t play later in the year, the NFL immediately puts 2-3 games on Saturday

 

[cyspy]

In the 70's and 80's the NFL played games on Saturdays after college football was over but the college football regular season at that time didn't run into the first part/middle of December. The famous announcer less game NBC tried between the Jets and Dolphins was played on a Saturday.

 

[isucy86]

I would absolutely love it if the NFL played Saturday games. It's not like you can watch more than 4 games on Sunday anyway. Give me 4 more on Saturday!!! Get rid of Thursday night and give that to College.

If the NFL goes head to head against college FB, then colleges should start having football games on Sundays. I would watch CFB before NFL if that is an option. IMO CFB needs to counter the NFL planting a stake on Thursday nights with making Friday night CFB a big deal with great match-ups.

But in the end, there is no incentive for the TV networks to cannibalize each others sports properties. When the MLB playoffs and WS are being played, it seems the other networks change their programing to not go head to head.

 

[HFCS]

Sometimes scarcity is what makes things valuable and increases passion about something.

 

[madguy30]

In the 70's and 80's the NFL played games on Saturdays after college football was over but the college football regular season at that time didn't run into the first part/middle of December. The famous announcer less game NBC tried between the Jets and Dolphins was played on a Saturday.

Don't they do that now or recently or am I only thinking of early playoff games?

 

[isucy86]

Sometimes scarcity is what makes things valuable and increases passion about something.

Agree, a product can be too saturated. And I feel like the NFL has hit that point:

• IMO going from 16 to 17 games was marginally OK, and definitely not a fan of 18 games. Maybe its my attention span, but having the football season stretch from Sep to late February is a turnoff for me. I tend to turn my focus to college hoops early January. I have the same issue with CFB. Having CFP run into late January is not attractive to me, I already find CFB Championship on Jan 10 anti-climatic.
• Historically, I watched 2 games on Sunday and MNF. When the NFL added a Sunday night game, I dropped MNF and get my NFL fill on Sundays. Especially after watch CFB on Saturdays. I have never picked up on watching TNF.

 

[isucy86]

Don't they do that now or recently or am I only thinking of early playoff games?

The NFL still does Saturday afternoon football once the Army/Navy game has been played. But I think some of the games are played on NFL Network or streaming which not the same as OTA game viewership.

 

[aeroclone]

I'd prefer the NFL stay away from Saturday since I have plenty of college ball to watch already. But I would be fine with either the NFL or the P4 getting more involved with Fridays. I don't have any kids in high school so I don't give a rip about HS FB right now, I need something good to watch after work on a Friday.

 

[fsanford]

When does collective bargaining kick in? Pretty much a version of NFL at that point

 

[NWICY]

Going to be real interesting to see just how much Congress and the courts feel the need to protect college football going forward. This isn’t the 1980s when it was amateurs playing and only the best of them were paid under the table. The NCAA in the last couple of years has effectively become a pro developmental league with television contracts that rival pro leagues and ADs across the nation are figuring out how they’re going to pay all players above the table going forward. Does CFB in this environment REALLY need protection from the big bad NFL, especially after the Big 10 and SEC just got done crippling more than half of other college programs financially across the nation?

Put the NFL on Saturday and the only college game I'll watch is ISU(and maybe Iowa if they are losing by a lot)

 

[clonedude]

Should be a free market, right? So if the NFL wants to play on Saturdays... so be it. Competition is good!

If the B1G and SEC split off and destroy college football.... then PLEASE give me the NFL on Saturdays!