The 2020 NFL season marked the primary time in 11 years that there was a Friday recreation on the regular-season schedule and though the league has been hesitant to schedule Friday video games, there quickly might be an annual one added to the schedule.
Throughout a latest interview with Peter King of NBC Sports activities, Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft threw out the chance that the NFL may quickly begin scheduling a recreation on Black Friday. If that recreation had been to occur, it will be streamed by Amazon, which will likely be taking on the “Thursday Night time Soccer” bundle in 2023.
“Amazon needed extra from us, and so they’ll dedicate great sources to make this work for them and for us,” Kraft stated of the partnership with the tech big. “Who is aware of? Perhaps we’ll play a recreation on Black Friday, their greatest purchasing day of the 12 months.”
Though Kraft did not sound fully positive that the sport would occur, it seems that a Black Friday recreation is definitely written into Amazon’s new contract with the NFL. In accordance to Albert Breer of Sports activities Illustrated, the league has the choice to offer Amazon a Black Friday recreation, which suggests it is going to be as much as the NFL whether or not Amazon will get the sport. The choice was constructed into the contract as a favor to Amazon, who will not get to televise a Thursday recreation throughout Thanksgiving week. Though the tech firm will get to solely stream Thursday evening video games beginning in 2023, that will not embody any of the three video games on Turkey Day, which is able to air on CBS, Fox and NBC.
With Amazon being the odd man out on Thanksgiving, that left them with no recreation that week, so giving the corporate a possible Black Friday recreation turned an choice. Though a Black Friday recreation may not sound like an amazing thought — as a result of everyone seems to be out purchasing and never watching tv — the actual fact of the matter is that Black Friday is certainly one of Amazon’s greatest days of the 12 months and if hundreds of thousands of persons are on Amazon’s web site, there is a good likelihood they will cease to look at a couple of minutes of the sport.
Beneath regular circumstances, Friday has been the in the future of the week that the NFL has usually tried to keep away from. Beneath the Sports activities Broadcasting Act of 1961, the league is not allowed to televise any video games on Friday or Saturday from the second weekend in September via the second weekend in December (These two days have been earmarked for highschool and faculty soccer). It is unclear how the NFL would get round this, however it will probably have two choices: For one, Amazon could be an exception to the rule because the recreation would technically be streaming (and never televised). Additionally, beneath the present antitrust exemption guidelines, the NFL is ALLOWED to schedule a Friday recreation so long as it is over earlier than 6 p.m. native time, so a Black Friday recreation that kicks off someplace between midday and a pair of p.m. ET would seemingly work.
Since 1970, the NFL has solely performed a complete of 11 Friday video games, together with the the Vikings–Saints recreation that was performed on Christmas through the 2020 season. Earlier than that recreation, the final time the NFL performed on a Friday got here in 2009 (There have solely been 4 Friday video games this century).
If the NFL does transfer ahead with a Friday recreation, it would not occur till 2023 as a part of the brand new tv deal. If you need examine 10 extra large modifications that might be coming when the brand new TV deal kicks in, you should definitely click on right here.