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Would you watch early morning NFL games? Having lived in California for over 30 years I got used to starting my Sunday mornings watching the NFL at 10 am. Out here in Maryland the games don't start until 1 pm. Here's an article by Peter King on that topic.
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http://mmqb.si.com/2014/10/24/nfl-week-8-preview-london-morning-game/
Football for Breakfast
The Falcons-Lions game in London on Sunday will kick off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and be nationally televised by FOX. The NFL is curious: How many people will watch? Plus, the Week 8 spotlight player and 10 things to watch for on Sunday
By Peter King
I have no idea what’s going to happen Sunday when the NFL puts the Detroit-Atlanta game from London on national TV at 9:30 in the morning on the East Coast. No one does. But I do know a lot of important people are wondering about it.
“I am as curious as you are,” said Brian Rolapp, NFL’s executive vice president for media. “I may have to duck out of church a little early on Sunday.”
“It’s hard to predict,” said Eric Shanks, the president of FOX Sports, which is broadcasting the Atlanta-Detroit game Sunday morning. “Hopefully we’ll be on in every Waffle House in America.”
I don’t know why, but the earliest game in NFL history has gotten zero attention this week. Maybe it’s because the game itself isn’t very good; the Falcons are 6-18 in their past 24 games, and doing their best to make sure Mike Smith is a former head coach by the end of this season. Maybe it’s because the country doesn’t quite believe in the 5-2 Lions yet. There are sexier games this weekend, certainly. But there is no doubt that this is an interesting TV chemistry experiment.
Not only is the NFL watching closely, but FOX and CBS are keeping their eyes on the game. Sunday morning is a potential fourth window that day, and you can be sure that if viewers flock to this game, at least one game a year from London will start at this insane hour. (Worth mentioning that our Left Coast friends don’t think it’s insane; those in the Pacific time zone see games at 10 a.m. all season.) But the NFL is eyeing the massive TV audience east of the Mississippi—about 76 percent of all televisions in the United States are in the Eastern and Central time zones—to see if it has an appetite for an early game.
So, for this year, FOX will have a different day nationwide. At 9 a.m. ET, a half-hour edition of the pre-game show will air, with Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson and Curt Menefee previewing the Detroit-Atlanta game and not much else. Then after Lions-Falcons, an abbreviated FOX pregame show airs before the early-window games. After that, the late-window doubleheader game belongs to CBS; most of the country will see Indianapolis-Pittsburgh. But the game between 5-1 Philadelphia and 5-1 Arizona will be shown to about 40 percent of the country on FOX, including the New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix markets. Then, at 8:07, FOX has Game 5 of the World Series, which won’t approach the head-to-head ratings of Packers-Saints on NBC, but should be a factor anyway.
“This is the most consecutive live-sports hours in FOX history,” Shanks said.
Or, I would assume, in any network’s history. We’re talking 15 hours of live sports, and that’s not factoring in extra innings if there are any in the baseball game.
But about the 9:30 a.m. football game … I am fascinated to see if a throng gets up to watch. Both Rolapp and Shanks said there’s no measurement to determine if the NFL repeats this, but understand this: If Detroit-Atlanta was played at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, it would be a regional telecast, a fragmented audience. At 9:30 the audience in Detroit and Atlanta will be smaller, certainly—but those who never would have had the chance to see the game nationally, from Portland to Portland to Port Arthur, surely will grow the audience for the game.
“It makes an event of one of the London games,” said Shanks. “Gaining attention for big events is harder and harder in this media landscape. People say the NFL can’t grow any bigger. Well, we’re trying.”
Said Rolapp: “This is an experiment. At a certain point you don’t know until you try. In 2006, when we implemented the eight late-season Thursday games, it was pretty controversial. A lot of football purists wanted to burn us for witchcraft. But we were trying something new. It’s the same thing here: How do we make the London games more successful? Is there a market for an early game? I don’t think we’ve ever had a quadrupleheader.”
Believe me: If you watch this game, the NFL will bring a fourth-window game to the market in 2015 and beyond.
--------------------------------------------------------
http://mmqb.si.com/2014/10/24/nfl-week-8-preview-london-morning-game/
Football for Breakfast
The Falcons-Lions game in London on Sunday will kick off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern and be nationally televised by FOX. The NFL is curious: How many people will watch? Plus, the Week 8 spotlight player and 10 things to watch for on Sunday
By Peter King
I have no idea what’s going to happen Sunday when the NFL puts the Detroit-Atlanta game from London on national TV at 9:30 in the morning on the East Coast. No one does. But I do know a lot of important people are wondering about it.
“I am as curious as you are,” said Brian Rolapp, NFL’s executive vice president for media. “I may have to duck out of church a little early on Sunday.”
“It’s hard to predict,” said Eric Shanks, the president of FOX Sports, which is broadcasting the Atlanta-Detroit game Sunday morning. “Hopefully we’ll be on in every Waffle House in America.”
I don’t know why, but the earliest game in NFL history has gotten zero attention this week. Maybe it’s because the game itself isn’t very good; the Falcons are 6-18 in their past 24 games, and doing their best to make sure Mike Smith is a former head coach by the end of this season. Maybe it’s because the country doesn’t quite believe in the 5-2 Lions yet. There are sexier games this weekend, certainly. But there is no doubt that this is an interesting TV chemistry experiment.
Not only is the NFL watching closely, but FOX and CBS are keeping their eyes on the game. Sunday morning is a potential fourth window that day, and you can be sure that if viewers flock to this game, at least one game a year from London will start at this insane hour. (Worth mentioning that our Left Coast friends don’t think it’s insane; those in the Pacific time zone see games at 10 a.m. all season.) But the NFL is eyeing the massive TV audience east of the Mississippi—about 76 percent of all televisions in the United States are in the Eastern and Central time zones—to see if it has an appetite for an early game.
So, for this year, FOX will have a different day nationwide. At 9 a.m. ET, a half-hour edition of the pre-game show will air, with Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson and Curt Menefee previewing the Detroit-Atlanta game and not much else. Then after Lions-Falcons, an abbreviated FOX pregame show airs before the early-window games. After that, the late-window doubleheader game belongs to CBS; most of the country will see Indianapolis-Pittsburgh. But the game between 5-1 Philadelphia and 5-1 Arizona will be shown to about 40 percent of the country on FOX, including the New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix markets. Then, at 8:07, FOX has Game 5 of the World Series, which won’t approach the head-to-head ratings of Packers-Saints on NBC, but should be a factor anyway.
“This is the most consecutive live-sports hours in FOX history,” Shanks said.
Or, I would assume, in any network’s history. We’re talking 15 hours of live sports, and that’s not factoring in extra innings if there are any in the baseball game.
But about the 9:30 a.m. football game … I am fascinated to see if a throng gets up to watch. Both Rolapp and Shanks said there’s no measurement to determine if the NFL repeats this, but understand this: If Detroit-Atlanta was played at 1 p.m. Eastern Time, it would be a regional telecast, a fragmented audience. At 9:30 the audience in Detroit and Atlanta will be smaller, certainly—but those who never would have had the chance to see the game nationally, from Portland to Portland to Port Arthur, surely will grow the audience for the game.
“It makes an event of one of the London games,” said Shanks. “Gaining attention for big events is harder and harder in this media landscape. People say the NFL can’t grow any bigger. Well, we’re trying.”
Said Rolapp: “This is an experiment. At a certain point you don’t know until you try. In 2006, when we implemented the eight late-season Thursday games, it was pretty controversial. A lot of football purists wanted to burn us for witchcraft. But we were trying something new. It’s the same thing here: How do we make the London games more successful? Is there a market for an early game? I don’t think we’ve ever had a quadrupleheader.”
Believe me: If you watch this game, the NFL will bring a fourth-window game to the market in 2015 and beyond.
