NFL Floats Idea of TWO Monday Night games a week?

[SirFozzie]

Gee, I thought the good thing about Sunday night games and Monday Night games was, it was NATIONAL. (and I use the words "Floats" because this idea is what floats in a toilet.


NEW YORK -- NFL owners may be asked to consider the possibility of two Monday night games each week to avoid the recurring problem of meaningless late-season games in the league's showcase telecast.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue floated the idea in the second of a two-part interview aired Thursday night on HBO's "Inside the NFL."

"We'd like to look to see if we could put more than one game in the prime-time window," he said. "The one that is more attractive would be telecast nationally; the other could be telecast regionally."

The Monday night schedule is released in early spring. Teams with winning records the previous year normally play in the majority of the prime-time games.

But salary-cap induced parity has led to drastic annual fluctuations. If this season ended now, nine of last season's 12 playoff teams would miss the postseason, including the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders, who played in the Super Bowl.

So, ABC has been asking the league for the flexibility to switch a Sunday game to Monday late in a season to avoid a meaningless matchup. Fox and CBS, which have the contracts for Sunday games, have resisted, suggesting that they would lose viewers if there was a late switch that took an attractive matchup from their schedule.

Tagliabue said a late switch also would inconvenience fans with tickets for a game. His alternative would be the two games.

That would have to be approved by the networks and the owners, perhaps at league meetings in March. He did not say what financial arrangements would be involved, although ABC would have to make a financial concession to the network that loses a Sunday game.

Last year, the owners discussed the possibility of switching Sunday and Monday night games. Because of opposition from Fox and CBS, no vote was taken.

[sabotai]

BOOOO!

[Draft Dodger]

I like the idea.

maybe they can start one a bit earlier, so that people on the East Coast can watch.

:)

[cthomer5000]

bad idea.

[FBPro]

Test it for a year.....

[bbor]

Who would be the back up commentators?

[Sweed]

This idea just plain sucks. They'd be better off to let cbs and fox move their best Sunday game to Sunday night so there'd be two Sunday night nationally televised games. This would put espn out of the mix and would of course cost the nfl money that would have to be made up for by cbs and fox for the ability to televise in primetime and choose the game they want to show.

[Draft Dodger]

Originally posted by bbor
Who would be the back up commentators?

well, I don't think Gifford and Meredith are doing anything.

[ISiddiqui]

Maybe they can hire Limbaugh and Miller for the reagional game ;).

[Taur]

All I can say is Thank you Jesus !!!!

The so called "Flexable" Monday night schedule that ABC was talking about last year had me scared to death.

I live 183 miles from Denver and about 2,000 miles from Pittsburgh. I manage to catch 2 games a year in Colorado and 1 game a year in Pittsburgh. Last year when ABC was talking about beeing able to swap their Monday night games I was scared to death. So many refund questions came racing to my mind. First there was the actual game tickets, then the hotel reservations and finally there was the Airline rescheduling tickets to Pittsburgh. Who was going to refund me for my losses?

I say bring on 2 monday night games. With the additional expansion teams in the league now, they have more games every week so FOX and CBS should not be able to complain that much.

[Greyroofoo]

I like the idea, why not have 2 sunday night games as well?

Gives me a better chance of seeing my Colts

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by ISiddiqui
Maybe they can hire Limbaugh and Miller for the reagional game ;).

I'd pay to see that for a couple of minutes! Then again, Miller has been running to the right quite a bit lately so maybe they'd get along just fine.

SI

[KevinNU7]

Sunday Night: CBS and Fox each have a game
Monday Night: ABC and ESPN each have a game

[B & B]

I have a hard time trying to watch nine games at one o clock.

[Craptacular]

Screw this. They would still pick two games that have the potential to be good matchups. So what if they both turn out that way? Then, we all miss one of them.

My other question is how this would affect Sunday Ticket. Wouldn't this take a game away from them? So, no one else would be able to watch the 2nd Monday night game.

[Pumpy Tudors]

Fuck, why not just have two games each on Monday through Saturday, and then have four on Sunday? Jeez, this could get out of hand.

[Tekneek]

Two on Monday Night, with one on ABC and one on NBC would be fine for me.

[GrantDawg]

Like it, as long as the alternate will be on ESPN (which it will be).

[JimboJ]

I don't think the alternate game would be on ESPN. Disney won't want ESPN taking away ratings from ABC. There is way more advertising money in network TV than cable. What if both games end up being important, and the audience is split 50-50? Then ABC takes a huge hit.

I heard the primary game would be televised nationally, and the secondary game would only be televised by the local ABC affiliates, just like Fox and NBC do on Sundays.

[Taur]

Or, would they have the ability to "Jump" between games?

I have never figured out why CBS or FOX never leave a game. Besides the local team fans why must the rest of the country sit and watch a blow-out?

[Buccaneer]

I think this is a great idea (for non-satellite viewers). Why would anyone think not? Isn't having more choices better? Right now we get two games early or late on Sundays. Sometimes we stick with one and sometimes we flip back and forth. I understand the logistical nightmare of moving a game from Sunday to Monday (which Fox and CBS were adamantly opposed to). So why not just go ahead and schedule two Monday night games to begin with?

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by Buccaneer
I think this is a great idea (for non-satellite viewers). Why would anyone think not? Isn't having more choices better? Right now we get two games early or late on Sundays. Sometimes we stick with one and sometimes we flip back and forth. I understand the logistical nightmare of moving a game from Sunday to Monday (which Fox and CBS were adamantly opposed to). So why not just go ahead and schedule two Monday night games to begin with?

Slippery slope. Where does it end? Why not just schedule games for Saturday, too? Or Friday?

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by Pumpy Tudors
Slippery slope. Where does it end? Why not just schedule games for Saturday, too? Or Friday?

A few years ago, didn't they used to have Thursday night games in the part of the season after Thanksgiving? And quite a few more Saturday games than they have now?

SI

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by sterlingice
A few years ago, didn't they used to have Thursday night games in the part of the season after Thanksgiving? And quite a few more Saturday games than they have now?

Absolutely. Since people want two Monday night games now, why don't we just do this stuff for the whole season? Personally, I like the two games Monday-Saturday with four on Sunday.

Or maybe I'm being facetious.

[JW]

A regional Monday night game? Bad idea. I could see having to watch the Aints in a meaningless late season game while most of the country gets an important game. Terrible idea. Better what has been suggested; two game, two networks, take your pick.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by Pumpy Tudors
Absolutely. Since people want two Monday night games now, why don't we just do this stuff for the whole season? Personally, I like the two games Monday-Saturday with four on Sunday.

Or maybe I'm being facetious.

Well, as much as you like this to be a slippery slope, captain facetious. You couldn't do it- it would be a scheduling nightmare. The NFL has a really rigid schedule as far as who you play each season and to keep the team from the previous Thursday from playing Saturday, a couple of days later, all season long...

SI

[Pumpy Tudors]

Originally posted by sterlingice
Well, as much as you like this to be a slippery slope, captain facetious. You couldn't do it- it would be a scheduling nightmare. The NFL has a really rigid schedule as far as who you play each season and to keep the team from the previous Thursday from playing Saturday, a couple of days later, all season long...

Well, even if I were being facetious (which I may or may not have been), I'll simply play devil's advocate now and argue it as if I really mean it.

Everyone says that scheduling is really hard to do right now anyway. Just ask Jim Gindin. So if people are paid to come up with schedules, they could come up with a way to have at least two games every day of the week. I believe in the NFL. Some people consider the NFL to be the greatest pro sports league in the world. Well, if they can't find scheduling experts competent enough to cater to MY idea of perfect scheduling, I'll just have to dump them down a couple of notches. Yes, I may even have to consider ABA 2000 as a better pro sports league.

*grumble* Can't schedule games every day of the week. What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this? *grumble*

[sterlingice]

Cute. Sorry, the "Mickey Mouse operation" quote made me laugh ;)

Well, I've tried to make a baseball schedule before. That's a total pain in the arse. But that's a lot more games and parameters to schedule around (ie 2-4 game series, keep series in close proximity or have an off day, etc).

There might be an easy formula (i.e. only teams who played on the Sundays the weeks before can play on the Thursdays the next week)- and I mean mathematical-style formula to try and make it work. But, I dare, you just try to sketch out a schedule where you try to keep the number of 3 straight home and road games to a minimum and also, make sure that every team is playing all the other right teams. I bet it breaks down because you start running out of teams to put in the correct slots.

SI

[Pumpy Tudors]

Hey, I'm not a scheduling expert. I don't have to come up with the details. The NFL hires people to do that for me. :)

[JimboJ]

Originally posted by JW
A regional Monday night game? Bad idea. I could see having to watch the Aints in a meaningless late season game while most of the country gets an important game. Terrible idea. Better what has been suggested; two game, two networks, take your pick.

Well the idea is to schedule two games that you think will be meaningful. I don't recall seeing the Saints on MNF too many times in the last few years anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem.

[sterlingice]

Originally posted by Pumpy Tudors
Hey, I'm not a scheduling expert. I don't have to come up with the details. The NFL hires people to do that for me. :)

Yeah, but to be kindof serious instead of our little flight of fancy, I think it's quite tough because you'd start getting teams that played Monday and then would get stuck playing Friday and the players union would get involved. Tagliabue could probably handle that but it would also be overexposure and they know that's not a good idea either (see: other sports).

I don't really have time with finals the next week to be working on it, but I could prove the math for you, if I had some time. Basically, think of it this way:

Teams Per Day
Sunday: 14
Monday: 4
Thursday: 4
Friday: 4
Saturday: 4

You have a limited pool of 14 who can play on Thursday and Friday and some weeks, 8 of those 14 teams won't have games left against each other or will have already played or will play later on in the season.

EDIT: One thing is clear now: I've thought way too much about this trying to avoid studying for finals. Off to the shower, a quick check of FOFC, and then time to hit the books for me.

SI