Thursday Night Football: NBC Joins CBS in Broadcasting Games

Over the last two years, CBS has joined NFL Network in broadcasting early season Thursday Night Football games. The NFL announced NBC will join as another TV partner.

The National Football League will expand Thursday Night Football in 2016 and 2017, continuing its partnership with CBS while also adding NBC as a partner, it was announced today by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Leslie Moonves, President and CEO, CBS Corp., and Steve Burke, CEO, NBC Universal.

Both CBS and NBC will broadcast five Thursday Night Football games, growing the package to 10 broadcast games in 2016 and 2017 from eight in 2014 and 2015. All Thursday Night Football broadcast games will continue to be simulcast on NFL Network. NFL Network will also exclusively televise an eight-game schedule of regular season games comprised of Thursday Night Football, late-season games on Saturday, and additional games to be determined.

Both CBS and NBC will produce Thursday Night Football with their lead broadcasters and production teams, and both will contribute to the production of Thursday Night Football exclusively on NFL Network. CBS and NFL Network will televise the first half of the Thursday Night Football schedule with NBC and NFL Network televising the second half.

I am not a fan of the Thursday night games. The quality of the games isn't that good. The teams don't have enough time to prepare, and the players don't have enough time to physically recover from their last game. These games are here to stay, though, due to money.

As our friend Brian Bassett of The Jets Blog says, there are practical implications.

Salary cap is going to spike again in a few years. Nice. https://t.co/rRsQ4GCA6a

— Brian Bassett (@Brian_Bassett) February 2, 2016