Thursday Night Football

Thursday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of NFL games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights beginning on week 2 of the regular season, and occasionally on Saturdays in the later portion of the season. Most of the games kick off at 8:25 p.m. Eastern Time (previously 8:20 p.m. ET from 2006 to 2013).

Debuting on November 23, 2006, the telecasts were originally part of NFL Network's Run to the Playoffs package, which consisted of eight total games broadcast on Thursday and Saturday nights (five on Thursdays, and three on Saturdays, originally branded as Saturday Night Football) during the latter portion of the season. Since 2012, the TNF package has begun during the second week of the NFL season; the NFL Kickoff Game and the Thanksgiving primetime game are both broadcast as part of NBC Sports' Sunday Night Football contract and are not included in Thursday Night Football, although the Thanksgiving primetime game was previously part of the package from 2006 until 2011.

At its launch, the package proved highly controversial mainly due to the relative unavailability of NFL Network at the time; the league used the games as leverage to encourage television providers to carry NFL Network on their basic service tiers, rather than in premium, sports-oriented packages that required subscribers to pay a higher fee; although, as with all other national cable telecasts of NFL games, the league's own regulations require the games to be syndicated to over-the-air television stations in the local markets of the teams. These issues were magnified in 2007, when a game that saw the New England Patriots close out a perfect regular season was simulcast nationally on both CBS and NBC, in addition to NFL Network and the local stations that the game was sold to, following concerns from politicians and other critics.

In 2014, production of the Thursday Night Football games was taken over by CBS Sports under a one-year deal. As part of the deal, CBS would carry nine Thursday night games (which were simulcast on NFL Network) and lend its primary broadcast team, consisting of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, to cover the remaining Thursday telecasts airing exclusively on NFL Network. In addition, NFL Network extended the length of the Thursday telecasts to Week 16 of the season, and added a new Saturday doubleheader split between CBS and NFL Network. On January 18, 2015, CBS and NFL Network extended the same arrangement for a second season.[2] On February 1, 2016, the NFL announced that CBS and NBC would split the broadcast television portion of the Thursday Night Footballschedule beginning 2016, with both networks broadcasting 5 games in simulcast with NFL Network. CBS will air the first 5 games and NBC will air the other 5 games.

The games are broadcast on radio via Westwood One, which syndicates the broadcasts to its partner radio stations around the United States. It also airs on Fox Sports Latin America, ESPN Brasil and Esporte Interactive.

Early history
The NFL Network's coverage was not the first time that NFL games were covered on Thursday or Saturday. Prior to the new contract, ESPN carried a handful of sporadic Thursday night games (usually those displaced from Sunday night) and the broadcast networks used to air several national games on Saturday afternoons in mid-to-late December after the college football regular season ended, a practice which has since been discontinued. Incidentally, the only reason the league is even allowed to televise football games on Saturday night stems from a legal loophole: the league's antitrust exemption, the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, was written when the NFL regular season ended in mid-December, and as such, it contains specific language that prohibits televising NFL games in most markets on Friday nights and all day on Saturdays between the second week of September and the second week of December, to protect high school and college football. Since most high school and college seasons have ended by mid-December, other than bowl games, there has been little desire to close this loophole, even though the regular season has expanded well beyond mid-December since the law's passage.

In 2005, when the NFL negotiated a new set of television contracts, Comcast-owned OLN offered to pay $450 million for an eight-year contract to carry NFL prime time games. In exchange, Comcast planned to add NFL Network to its digital cable lineup. The channel was added, but NFL Network decided to air the games itself, foregoing a rights fee.[3] The other television deals generated $3.735 billion per year over an eight-year period for CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN and DirecTV (owner of the out-of-market sports package NFL Sunday Ticket).[citation needed]

Thursday Night Football debuted on November 23, 2006, with the Kansas City Chiefs handing the visiting Denver Broncos a 19–10 Thanksgiving defeat. Each of the game broadcasts were titled either Thursday Night Football or Saturday Night Football, depending on the night on which it aired. This format carried over to the 2007 season.

Starting in 2008, NFL Network eliminated all but one of the Saturday night games and started their Thursday night package three weeks earlier. This was done to accommodate the earlier schedule and the league's antitrust exemption that prohibits Saturday games from being held for most of the season. In the following season, all references to Saturday Night Football were dropped and any games that were not played on Thursday were referred to as a "special edition" of Thursday Night Football; since then, however, relatively few Thursday Night Football games have been played outside of Thursdays. Starting in 2014, when Saturday night games returned to the NFL Network after a two-year absence, games played on Saturday are now referred to as a "Saturday edition" of Thursday Night Football, and the NFL International Series game in the package in 2016 was branded as Thursday Night Special.

The Thanksgiving matchup was moved from NFL Network to NBC's broadcast package as part of the new broadcast contract after the 2011 season. During Super Bowl week in 2012, it was announced that the Thursday Night Football package would expand from eight to 13 games and air on NFL Network, again soliciting and rejecting offers from Turner Sports and Comcast.[citation needed]

2014–2015: partnership with CBS Sports
In January 2014, it was reported that the NFL was planning to sub-license a package of up to eight Thursday Night Football games to another broadcaster for the 2014 NFL season. The league had negotiated with its existing broadcast partners, along with Turner Sports. These eight games were to be simulcast by NFL Network, and reports indicated that ESPN planned to place the games on ABC in the event it won the rights, bringing the NFL back to the network for the first time since Super Bowl XL and the move of Monday Night Football to ESPN in 2006.[4][5][6][7] The remaining games would remain exclusive to NFL Network, due to carriage contracts with TV providers requiring at least eight NFL games to air exclusively on the channel per-season.[8] The decision came as the league wished to heighten the profile of its Thursday night games, which had suffered from relatively lower viewership and advertising revenue in comparison to other games.[9]

On February 5, 2014, the NFL announced that CBS had acquired the partial rights to Thursday Night Football for the 2014 season. Under the agreement, all of the Thursday Night Football telecasts would be produced by CBS Sports and called by the network's primary announcing team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms. The first eight games of the season were simulcast nationally on NFL Network and CBS; the remaining games in the package only aired nationally on NFL Network, but per league broadcast polices, were simulcast on local stations in the participating teams' markets. CBS affiliates were given right of first refusal to air the local simulcast before it is offered to another station (as had occurred in Cincinnati, Ohio where the market's NBC affiliate WLWT aired a game between the Bengals and the Cleveland Browns instead of CBS affiliate WKRC-TV). A Saturday doubleheader was also added on Week 16: NFL Network aired the early game, while CBS aired the second, prime time game.[10][11][12][13][14]

The NFL considered CBS's bid to be the most attractive, owing to the network's overall ratings stature (CBS had been the highest-rated broadcast network in the U.S. since the 2005-06 television season), a commitment to aggressively promote the Thursday games across its properties, and its plans to utilize CBS Sports' top NFL talent and production staff across all of the games in the package to ensure a major improvement in quality over the previous, in-house productions.[9] CBS staff also cited experience with its joint coverage of the NCAA Men's basketball tournament with Turner Sports as an advantage in its collaboration with NFL Network staff, as talent from both networks collaborate on pre-game, halftime and post-game coverage. During the games, a distinct graphics package co-branded with both CBS and NFL Network logos is used, certain players on each team wear microphones, and 4K cameras are used to allow zoom-in shots during instant replays.[13][15]

With the move of selected games to CBS, media executives expected more major match-ups to appear on Thursday Night Football than in previous years in order to attract better viewership; in the past, Thursday Night Football had been criticized for often featuring games between lesser and poorer-performing teams.[16][16][17][17] CBS and the NFL unveiled the games scheduled for Thursday Night Football in April 2014; CBS's slate of games featured a number of major divisional rivalries, including New York Giants–Washington, Green Bay–Minnesota, and its opening game on September 11, 2014, featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens.[12][18]

In the wake of the controversy surrounding Ravens player Ray Rice (who had been removed from the team and suspended from the NFL earlier in the week following the discovery of footage showing the player physically assaulting his wife, Janay, who was engaged to Rice at the time the security camera footage was recorded), changes were made to pre-game coverage on the first game in order to accommodate additional interviews and discussion related to the incident. Among these changes were the removal of an introductory segment featuring Rihanna (who was similarly assaulted by fellow performer Chris Brown in 2009) performing her song "Run This Town".[19][20] Following complaints by Rihanna on Twitter regarding the removal, the song was pulled entirely from future broadcasts.[21]

The rights were negotiated under a one-year contract valued at $275 million; on January 18, 2015, the NFL announced that it would renew the arrangement with CBS for the 2015 season, with its value increasing to around $300 million.[2][9][22]

2016: CBS and NBC
In November 2015, The Hollywood Reporter reported that in response to the success of the package under CBS, the NFL was planning to negotiate a long-term contract for Thursday Night Football, with CBS, Fox, NBC, and Turner Sports showing interest.[22] The New York Post reported that this deal would also include the sale of a stake in NFL Network itself.[8]

On December 16, 2015, it was reported that the NFL was shopping the Thursday Night Football package as a one-year deal with an option for a second year, similarly to the current arrangement with CBS; the league also requested that bidders outline goals for "growing" NFL Network. The league was also reportedly interested in selling non-exclusive digital rights to simulcast the games to another partner, such as Amazon.com, Apple Inc., Google, or Yahoo! (which exclusively streamed an International Series as part of a trial during the 2015 season, but would shut down its original video content service in January 2016).[23] In January 2016, it was reported that the NFL was considering splitting the Thursday Night Football package across multiple broadcasters in tandem with the possibility of expanding the overall package to 17 games. It was also reported that ESPN and Turner Sports were not interested in the package due to its short-term nature, and that Fox was attempting to outbid CBS.[24][25]

On February 1, 2016, the NFL announced that Thursday Night Football would be shared between CBS, NBC, and NFL Network for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. CBS and NBC will each air five games (resulting in a schedule of 10 games on broadcast TV in comparison to 8 under the previous deal), followed by an additional eight games exclusively on NFL Network to satisfy NFL Network's retransmission consent contracts with cable providers); the eight NFL Network-exclusive games will include six Thursday contests, a Sunday morning International Series contest, and a Christmas afternoon game. As with the previous contract, all games will be simulcast by NFL Network. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the league was "thrilled to add NBC to the Thursday Night Football mix, a trusted partner with a proven track record of success broadcasting NFL football in primetime, and look forward to expanding with a digital partner for what will be a unique tri-cast on broadcast, cable and digital platforms."[26][27] On April 5, 2016, it was revealed that Twitter had acquired non-exclusive worldwide digital streaming rights to the 10 broadcast television TNF games. The collaboration will also include streaming content on Twitter's Periscope service, such as behind the scenes access.[28]

Rogers Media, who owns television rights to the Thursday Night Football package in Canada through the end of the 2016 season but has not yet acquired digital rights (the majority of the NFL's media rights in Canada are owned by Rogers' rival, Bell Media), successfully forced Twitter to block the game streams in that country, overriding the league's insistence that the free stream be global.[29][30] Due to the streaming deal, over-the-top television providers PlayStation Vue and Sling TV are also required to black out the games on NFL Network.[31]

The first game produced by NBC Sports was broadcast on November 3, 2016, but the portion of the package simulcast on NBC will not begin until the November 17 game (though the two preceding games were carried by NBC stations in each team's market). A cappellagroup Pentatonix recorded a reworked version of their song "Sing" to serve as the opening theme song for NBC's games. [32][33] NBC also commissioned new theme music by Jimmy Greco, performed by members of the orchestra from the Broadway musical Hamilton.[34]

Game announcers
The initial NFL Network team consisted of HBO Sports' Bryant Gumbel as play-by-play announcer, NBC Sports' Joe Theismann as the color commentator for the Thursday telecasts, and Dick Vermeil replacing Collinsworth for Saturday telecasts. In 2007, Theismann replaced Vermeil alongside Gumbel for all games.

Gumbel left the network after the 2007 season and his then-HBO colleague Bob Papa, who is also the radio voice of the New York Giants, was brought in to replace him. Collinsworth stayed on until the end of the 2008 season, then left to take over for the retiring John Maddenas lead analyst on NBC Sunday Night Football. NFL Network replaced him with Matt Millen, who returned to broadcasting in 2009, and then added former ESPN analyst Joe Theismann for 2010.

For 2011, ESPN play-by-play man Brad Nessler took over the Thursday night broadcast. He was joined by NFL Network draft analyst and NBC Notre Dame color man Mike Mayock, and the pairing spent three seasons calling games.

As a result of CBS taking over production responsibilities for the Thursday Night Football broadcasts, its number one broadcast team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms took over the broadcast booth. With NBC adding games in 2016, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, the broadcast team of NBC Sunday Night Football, are required under league contract to do the same (NBC had initially hired former Monday Night Football play-by-play man Mike Tirico for Thursdays before the league nixed the idea of any separate broadcast teams for Sunday and Thursday nights).

Pregame, halftime and postgame coverage
Each game telecast is preceded on NFL Network by NFL Total Access Kickoff, which broadcasts live from the site of each game and currently features Rich Eisen as its host, with Steve Mariucci, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin and either Marshall Faulk or Kurt Warner as analysts. The show generally begins two hours before game time (6:00 p.m. Eastern Time). The same Total Access team hosts the halftime and postgame shows. In 2015, Kickoff was replaced with TNF GameDay, and is broadcast from the NFL Network GameDaystudios, instead of from the game site.

The game proper is preceded by a pre-game show; CBS games are preceded by Thursday Night Kickoff, hosted by James Brown, Bill Cowher, and Deion Sanders. NBC games are preceded by Football Night in America (renamed in reference of the host city of the game, such as Football Night in Tampa), hosted by Bob Costas, Tony Dungy, and Rodney Harrison. CBS joined Thursday Night Kickoff at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time during its games.[15] This resulted in some controversy among viewers and the producers of syndicated programming in the locally programmed timeslot before network primetime, where the pre-game affects programs such as Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and Entertainment Tonight (all distributed by CBS's sister syndication division CBS Television Distribution), along with several other programs, which then require pre-emption or slotting on lower-profile alternate timeslots or stations to air in markets where they are carried by CBS or NBC affiliates in order to accommodate the Thursday games.[36]

Radio coverage[edit]
Westwood One provides national radio broadcasts of the Thursday Night Football games, with Ian Eagle calling play-by-play, Tony Bosellihandling color analysis and Hub Arkush as the sideline reporter.[37] Boomer Esiason, the Monday Night Football analyst for Westwood One, is a regular substitute should Boselli be unavailable due to other commitments (in some cases, Esiason would call the Thursday night game if he is unavailable for the previous/next Monday night game and/or if the Thursday game is in close proximity to his New York home.)

Current

 * Primary
 * James Brown – CBS Host (2014–present)
 * Bill Cowher – CBS Analyst (2014–present)
 * Deion Sanders – CBS Analyst (2006–present)
 * Bob Costas – NBC Host (2016–present)
 * Tony Dungy – NBC Analyst (2016–present)
 * Rodney Harrison – NBC Analyst (2016–present)


 * Secondary
 * Rich Eisen – Host (2006–present)
 * Marshall Faulk – Analyst (2006–present)
 * Michael Irvin – Analyst (2011–present)
 * Steve Mariucci – Analyst (2006–present)
 * Game coverage
 * Jim Nantz – CBS Play-by-Play (2014–present)
 * Phil Simms – CBS Color Analyst (2014–present)
 * Tracy Wolfson – CBS Sideline Reporter (2014–present)
 * Ian Eagle - Fill in CBS Play-by-Play (2014–present)
 * Trent Green - Fill in CBS Color Analyst (2015–present)
 * Evan Washburn – Fill in CBS Sideline Reporter (2015–present)
 * Kevin Harlan – Fill in CBS Play-by-Play (2014); London, UK Special Play-by-play (2016)
 * Dan Fouts – Fill in Color Analyst (2014); London, UK Special Color Analyst (2016)
 * Stacey Dales – Fill in CBS Sideline Reporter (2014); London, UK Special Sideline Reporter (2016)
 * Al Michaels - NBC Play-by-Play (2016–present)
 * Cris Collinsworth - NBC Analyst (2006–2008) (2016–present)
 * Heather Cox - NBC Sideline Reporter (2016–present)
 * Mike Tirico - Fill in NBC Play-by-Play (2016–present)
 * Doug Flutie - Fill in NBC Color Analyst (2016–present)

Former

 * Fran Charles – pre-game host (2006-2008)
 * Jenny Dell – Fill in CBS Sideline Reporter (2014)
 * Alex Flanagan – sideline reporter (2010–2013)
 * Jay Glazer – pre-game analyst (2010–2011)
 * Bryant Gumbel – play-by-play (2006–2007)
 * Tom Hammond – substitute play-by-play (2007)
 * Scott Hanson – sideline reporter (2009)
 * Kara Henderson – pre-game host (2011)
 * Harry Kalas – sponsorship announcer (2006–2008; deceased)
 * Mike Mayock – color analyst (2011–2013)
 * Matt Millen – color analyst (2009–2010)
 * Jim Mora – pre-game analyst (2010)
 * Brad Nessler – play-by-play (2011–2013)
 * Bob Papa – play-by-play (2008–2010)
 * Warren Sapp – pre-game analyst (2008)
 * Adam Schefter – sideline reporter (2006–2008)
 * Sterling Sharpe – pre-game analyst (2010–2011)
 * Pat Summerall – sponsorship announcer (2009; deceased)
 * Joe Theismann – color analyst (2010)
 * Dick Vermeil – Saturday color analyst (2006)
 * Kurt Warner – analyst (2010–2011)

Current

 * Ian Eagle – play-by-play (2008–present)
 * Boomer Esiason – color analyst (2013–present) Select Games
 * Tony Boselli – color analyst (2015–present) Select Games

Former

 * Bonnie Bernstein – sideline reporter (2006–2007)
 * Randy Cross – color analyst

Results
Listed below are games and their respective results played from 2006 to the present.

2006 season
Main article: 2006 NFL season

Additional notes[edit]
According to Nielsen Media Research, the Broncos-Chiefs game that opened this package was the highest-rated program on cable/satellite TV in the United States on November 23, 2006, with a 6.8 rating (among available households) and an average of 4.2 million households. These numbers are especially remarkable, considering that millions of potential fans were unable to see the game due to their cable systems not making it available to them.

2007 season
Main article: 2007 NFL season

2008 season
Main article: 2008 NFL season

2009 season
The 2009 season featured a Friday night game on December 25, as the Thursday that week is Christmas Eve, and the NFL tries not to schedule games that night in deference to the holiday (a lone exception being a Monday Night Football game in 2007 due to scheduling conflicts caused by ESPN's broadcast contracts). Also, the start times were pushed back by five minutes, to 8:20 p.m. Eastern time (except for the December 25 game, starting at 7:30 PM EST/6:30 CST).

2012 season
Starting with this season, the NFL expanded to a full season Thursday Night Football schedule. But there were some changes with the biggest being that every team was guaranteed a primetime appearance. In addition to the Season opener, the primetime Thanksgiving game also aired on NBC.

2014 season
Starting with the 2014 season, the NFL and CBS signed a deal that would put part of the Thursday Night Football package on national primetime. CBS, with an NFL Network simulcast, would air eight games (mostly the first half and including Cowboys-Bears game on December 4), while the NFL Network would air the other eight games (mostly the second half) exclusively. The deal was for one year with the option of a second year in 2015, which the NFLchose to exercise.

2016 season[edit]
For the 2016 and 2017 seasons, a new Thursday Night Football deal takes effect. Thursday Night Football is now an 18-game schedule with CBS broadcasting 5 games, NBC broadcasting 5 games, and the NFL Network simulcasting the whole season with 8 games exclusively. CBS Sports and NBC Sports will each produce 4 NFL Network-only games.[3] The NFL also sold the digital rights to the package separately to Twitter. Due to Sceduling conflicts, NBC Sports had Mike Tirico team up with Cris Collinsworth for the Giants-Eagles game. Tirico also called Dolphins-Jets and Ravens-Steelers with Doug Flutie.