Mike Tirico, who is the play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Football on NBC is suggesting the NFL borrow some scheduling ideas from Soccer's English Premier League, where games beyond a certain point of the season are known for that week but are not given actual dates and times until a few weeks before they are played: 

https://awfulannouncing.com/podcasts/mike-tirico-nfl-schedule-premier-league.html 

I would do this starting with Week 9 or 10 (after the World Series has concluded) where the Thursday games (including Thanksgiving) would be known four weeks in advance and the rest known two weeks in advance.  This would likely maximize TV ratings if assured as much as possible the best games are in the best TV slots.  While some fans might be upset about not knowing when a game would be played until in some cases two weeks before, the Premier League has done this for years and there have been for years few if any complaints about that.

Isn't this already done in a way anyway with the flexing? Wasn't it an issue with an Eagles game late last season, or the season before, on a Sunday and flexed to a Monday, when people had airfare booked?

Dumb idea. 

On 12/19/2024 at 10:52 PM, xzmattzx said:

Isn't this already done in a way anyway with the flexing? Wasn't it an issue with an Eagles game late last season, or the season before, on a Sunday and flexed to a Monday, when people had airfare booked?

The idea here is the times and dates the first eight weeks would be known.  For as I would do it Weeks 9-17, the Thursday night game would be four weeks in advance with the rest 12 days in advance.  Week 18 would have all games in one conference at 3:30 PM ET and the other at 8:30 PM ET with all games in Week 18 airing between ALL of the NFL's broadcast partners, including where needed using digital subchannels or secondary stations of those who own the local network affiliate for simulcasts of games on cable.  

Premiere League takes place in a country smaller than Upstate New York, right? Changing a game a matter of days isn't significant when its a few hours drive in a car. Many NFL games have people flying thousands of miles to attend them, so changing schedules has a much higher likelihood of screwing with travel plans of attending fans.

8 hours ago, Agent23 said:

Premiere League takes place in a country smaller than Upstate New York, right? Changing a game a matter of days isn't significant when its a few hours drive in a car. Many NFL games have people flying thousands of miles to attend them, so changing schedules has a much higher likelihood of screwing with travel plans of attending fans.

England is about the size of Arkansas, or a little smaller than the land area of all of Florida

Terrible idea.

What is the upside for the fans?

I understand that this might help put even more money in the owner's pockets, but what is the significant benefit for the millions of fans?

The idea here is simple:

By not officially putting dates and times on the schedule for late season games until 12-13 days before the games are scheduled (excluding Thursday night football, which would be 4-5 weeks ahead and Thanksgiving and Christmas Day games) the NFL can usually have the best possible matchups in each time slot.

In the Premier League, initially all teams are scheduled for games at 3:00 PM London Time (10:00 AM Eastern Time) on Saturday. They are then scheduled to account for television needs plus any other commitments (UEFA Champions, Europa, Europa Conference League games as well as League/Carabao Cup and FA Cup matches). This also would eliminate the flex ins/outs since while the matchups would be known ahead of time, the start times would not be known until mostly 12-13 days before. As I would do it, initially all teams would be scheduled for 1:00 PM ET except for west coast games that would be at 4:05/4:25 PM ET.