NFL On Television

The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.

Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. Since 1998, regionally shown games on Sunday afternoons have been televised on CBS and Fox, which primarily carry games of AFC and NFC teams respectively (the conference of the away team generally determines the broadcaster of an inter-conference game). Nationally televised regular season games on Sunday and Monday nights have aired on NBC and ESPN, respectively, since 2006. In addition, a "flexible scheduling" policy allows the league to reschedule Sunday afternoon and night games to different time slots and/or re-assign them to different networks regardless of conference (Monday Night games will not be subject to this policy until 2023, and therefore must be played at the same time and on the same network as originally scheduled). During the postseason, ESPN airs one game, NBC airs three, while CBS and Fox air the rest of the AFC and NFC games, respectively. The Super Bowl has then rotated annually among CBS, Fox, and NBC.

With games airing on CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN/ABC, the NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies (Paramount Global, NBCUniversal, Fox Corporation and The Walt Disney Company/Hearst Communications, respectively) that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. These four broadcasters paid a combined total of US$39.6 billion to air games from 2014 to 2022. They previously paid a combined total of $20.4 billion to air games between 2006 and 2013. They will then pay over $110 billion for the rights lasting from 2023 through 2033.

NFL preseason telecasts are more in line with the other major sports leagues' regular-season telecasts: preseason telecasts are more locally produced, usually by a local affiliate of one of the above terrestrial television networks. Some preseason games will air nationally, however. Under the NFL's anti-siphoning rules for cable games, these stations usually will air simulcasts of ESPN and/or NFL Network games in their local markets if the local team is playing.

Overview of schedule

The NFL regular season begins in the second weekend in September (the weekend after Labor Day in the United States) and ends in mid-January. Each team plays 17 games during an 18-week period. Typically, the majority of each week's games are played on Sunday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon games are televised regionally, where the particular game available on local television will depend on where the viewer is located, and begin at either 1:00 p.m., 4:05 p.m., or 4:25 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition, there are usually single nationally televised games each on Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night. These primetime games are broadcast across the country over one national over-the-air broadcast or cable network, where there are no regional restrictions, nor any other competing NFL contest.

All playoff games, the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl are nationally televised on either Saturday, Sunday or Monday in January and February, and either in the afternoon or in primetime.

Scheduling during the NFL preseason is more lenient in that most games usually start based on local time. Thus, games on the West Coast are usually played after 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (10:00 p.m. Eastern Time). However, the handful of primetime, nationally televised preseason games are still played at approximately 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Current broadcasting contracts

The television rights to the NFL are the most expensive rights of not only any American sport, but any American entertainment property. With the fragmentation of audiences due to the increased specialization of broadcast and cable TV networks, sports remain one of the few entertainment properties that not only can guarantee a large and diversified audience, but one that will watch live broadcasts.

The Super Bowl often ranks among the most watched shows of the year. Four of Nielsen Media Research's top 10 programs of all time are Super Bowls. Networks have purchased a share of the broadcasting rights to the NFL as a means of raising the entire network's profile.

The NFL distributes television revenue to all teams equally, regardless of performance. each team receives $255 million annually from the league's television contracts, up 150% from $99.9 million in 2010. Under the current television contracts, which began during the 2022 season, regular season games are broadcast on seven networks: Prime Video, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC and the NFL Network.

Since the 2012 NFL season, the major networks have invested more in audio description due to FCC guidelines ramping up the requirements of opening up the second audio program audio channel to access audio description, which is also used by some networks to provide Spanish language audio of their primetime programming. Therefore, all of the NFL's broadcasting partners have added Spanish language audio commentary of games, either through a separate channel or over the SAP channel.

ESPN simulcasts ''Monday Night Football'' with Spanish-language commentary and graphics over ESPN Deportes and has since the move of ''MNF'' to ESPN in 2006, though its ABC simulcasts of games does carry the ESPN Deportes commentary over SAP on ABC. In 2017 and 2018, the Spanish-language coverage was also simulcast on ESPN2 during the first two months of the season. In the 2020-21 playoffs and every playoffs since, ESPN Deportes also aired an AFC Divisional Playoff game and the AFC Championship Game.

NBC's sister Spanish-language cable network mun2 (which rebranded as Universo in 2015) began to simulcast select Sunday Night Football games in the 2014 season as part of the new television contract, while its Spanish-language counterpart Telemundo Deportes provides the branding for NBC's SAP Spanish commentary.

Fox's Spanish-language sports network Fox Deportes began broadcasting select Fox games, including the playoffs and Super Bowl XLVIII in Spanish during the 2013 season. Super Bowl LI for Fox featured Spanish audio exclusive to Fox Deportes, without a SAP component over-the-air.

CBS, which lacked any Spanish language outlets prior to the 2019 remerger ( Trés is legally part of the family, but is a cable channel), still uses solely SAP for its Spanish simulcasts. It relied on ESPN Deportes to simulcast Super Bowl 50, LIII and LV in Spanish, though it still carried Spanish SAP audio on the CBS broadcast of the game.

NFL finished new contract negotiations for its media rights deals for $110 billion over 11 years on March 18, 2021. In the new contracts, ABC will be eligible to air the Super Bowl for the first time since Super Bowl XL in 2006. Starting 2022, Amazon will be the new home for ''Thursday Night Football''. Amazon is now the first and only streaming service to own full rights over a package of NFL games.

Per Adam Schefter, the new 2021 contract also includes the agreement for ESPN+ to stream one exclusive national game each year starting with the 2022 NFL season. Starting in 2023 NFL Season, ESPN will broadcast a wild-card game and a divisional playoff game, flexible scheduling will also be added to ''Monday Night Football'' for Week 12 and beyond.

Sunday regional games

AFC and NFC packages

Since 1970, the regional Sunday games (1:00 p.m. "early" and 4:05/4:25 p.m. "late" games Eastern time) have been split into AFC and NFC "packages." Each package is held by a single network: CBS has held the AFC package since 1998, and Fox has held the NFC package since 1994. These packages include Sunday afternoon games during each week of the regular season, a single game for each network on Thanksgiving, wild card playoff games, divisional playoff games, and the respective conference championship game for each network.

In 1970, when the NFL and AFL merged, and home blackouts were put into place for AFC games (some AFL teams had lifted these during its run; as an example, most New York Jets' home games in 1968 and 1969 were telecast on WNBC-TV New York); this assured that all Sunday afternoon road games would be seen on the same network.

Classification as A, B, or C games

The Sunday games are classified as "A", "B", or "C" games. "A" games are usually the primary game for each network (1:00 ET for Eastern and Central time zone or 4:05 ET for Mountain and Pacific time zone games in a single-game week), and if the network has a doubleheader, is typically the 4:25 ET game. "B" games are typically the primary 1:00 ET game when the network has a doubleheader, or the secondary game if the network has a single game. "C" games are only shown in the playing teams' markets, and in some cases, markets where the game has playoff implications for the local team.

Market size and team success plays a huge factor in determining the level of games. For example, Green Bay has a city population of 105,000, one of the smallest for a city with a sports team. But the Packers usually have the "A" or "B" game because of their long history and almost unparalleled success. (The team is actually two markets for the NFL policy; Milwaukee is the other primary market for the team, as the team prior to played selected games in Milwaukee, including an NFL Championship Game held in the infield of the Milwaukee Mile.) The Dallas Cowboys (due to that team's national popularity regardless of on-the-field play) and a team or player that has had recent success (such as the New England Patriots due to that team's success since Bill Belichick took over in 2000, then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following Tom Brady's departure from New England in 2020) have typically been shown in the national doubleheader timeslot for ratings purposes, despite affiliate requests to show a team that may have more appeal locally; these games are typically decided by the NFL and CBS or Fox, depending on who has the doubleheader that week.

Interconference games

For interconference games, the visiting team generally determines which network is assigned for the game: an AFC team at NFC team game is typically assigned to CBS, and an NFC at AFC game is generally given to Fox. This allows both Fox and CBS affiliates in a team's primary market to carry games from the team during the season.

After a Broncos-Vikings game was moved to Fox in 2011 because of Fox having a lack of games as a result of an NFL flexible scheduling policy ('' see below''), the NFL permanently instituted a "cross-flex" policy in 2014, allowing Fox games to be moved to CBS and CBS games moved to Fox.

On occasion, both of a team's home interconference games are played in prime time, depriving the opposite conference's network of any games involving the team. This happened in to the Los Angeles Rams, to the Indianapolis Colts, to the Houston Oilers, to both the Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers, and to the Miami Dolphins, to the New England Patriots, to the Baltimore Ravens, to the Atlanta Falcons, to the Arizona Cardinals and to the New Orleans Saints. In the 1997 Dolphins' case, their home game against the Chicago Bears had been initially slated for Fox, but was moved to Monday night due to Game 7 of the World Series that was played in the previous night. In the 2015 Cardinals' case, their home game against the Cincinnati Bengals had been initially slated for CBS, but was moved to Sunday night on NBC via flexible scheduling.

The Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, all NFC teams, also had both their home interconference games in prime time, but aired at least once on CBS regardless: the Cardinals appeared on ''Thursday Night Football'' in Week 5 at the San Francisco 49ers, the Lions appeared in their traditional Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago Bears, the Saints had their games against the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers crossflexed from Fox, and the Giants had their games against the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys crossflexed from Fox.

The Seattle Seahawks did not appear on NBC in their inaugural season of , nor did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in , despite neither playing a single prime time game. In 1976, Seattle played in the NFC West and played their sole interconference game at Tampa Bay (thus on CBS), whereas in 1977, the teams swapped conferences, so Tampa Bay played in the NFC Central and played their sole interconference game at Seattle (thus on CBS). Seattle would later return to the NFC West in 2002.

In addition to the above, a few teams prior to the 2002 realignment had their sole home interconference game played in prime time. From 1978–2001, this happened in to the Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers, to the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys, to the Minnesota Vikings and to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The 1982 and 1987 teams all had one of their two scheduled interconference home games cancelled by a players' strike. Additionally, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team to complete a perfect season, did not appear on CBS; their lone interconference home game vs. the St. Louis Cardinals was broadcast on ''Monday Night Football'', and Super Bowl VII was broadcast by NBC.

In addition, the team's home stadium would not make an appearance on either CBS or Fox due to interconference home game being crossflexed, this happened in to the Oakland Raiders, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to both the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, to the San Francisco 49ers and to the Tennessee Titans. Intraconference games may be crossflexed to protect both networks.

Doubleheaders and single games

Three games (with some contractual exceptions, see below) are broadcast in any one market each Sunday morning/afternoon, with one network being allocated a "doubleheader" each week:
*A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) "early" game and a 4:25 p.m. ET (1:25 p.m. PT) "late" game

While the other network broadcasting ''either'':
*A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) game
*Or a 4:05 p.m. ET (1:05 p.m. PT) game

Start times

Since 1998, early games have the precise, official start time of 1:01 p.m. ET, which allows for one network commercial and the NFL broadcast copyright teaser animation. However, game times are generally advertised simply as 1 p.m. starts. In addition, the league revised the late games to start at 4:05 p.m. ET if it was the only game televised by the network that week and to start at 4:15 p.m. ET (moved to 4:25 p.m. ET in ) if it was part of a doubleheader. The additional 20 (10 prior to 2012) minutes for doubleheaders allowed the early games extra time to be shown to completion, and avoid continuing past the late game's scheduled kickoff. For single games, the start of 5 minutes past the hour allows the network time for a short introduction (as three hours had passed since the pre-game show has aired) and one commercial break before kickoff. In those cases there is no need to avoid early-game overlap as there is no early game shown. In addition, it allows those games to end earlier. This is especially important for CBS, which wants to air ''60 Minutes'' at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, or as close to that time as possible, in Eastern and Central time markets which receive only a single late game.

Time zone rules

Sunday afternoon games in the Mountain and Pacific time zones are always scheduled for 2:05 or 2:25 p.m. Mountain Time and 1:05 or 1:25 p.m. Pacific Time. No games before 12:00 p.m. MT (2:00 p.m. ET) are ever scheduled, partly to avoid conflict with religious services in those cities; Denver had three noon MT kickoffs at Mile High Stadium late in the 1972 season, but the experiment was never repeated.

Doubleheader allotments

Starting with the 2021 season with the introduction of the 17-game season, Fox and CBS each have eight doubleheader weeks during the season between weeks 2 and 17 with both networks having the doubleheader for weeks 1 and 18. These are not necessarily alternating weeks; one network may have two or rarely three consecutive doubleheaders; this only occurs when one network has a doubleheader weeks 2 and 3 after both networks had the doubleheader in week 1, or in weeks 16 and 17, and then both networks have doubleheaders week 18; has happened to Fox 2019 and CBS in 2018. Fox requests to carry a doubleheader on the Sunday it airs a World Series game (typically Game 5), and uses the featured 4:25 game as a lead in for the baseball playoffs (though in 1996, 2001, 2005, 2014, 2019 and 2020 Fox did not have a doubleheader on the day it broadcast of the World Series).

During weeks 1 and 18, both networks are given doubleheaders; this has been the case since 2021 for week 1 and 2006 for the final week of the regular season. From 1990 through 2005, one network received nine doubleheaders during the 17-week season, and the other network received eight (except 1993, when CBS and NBC each received nine in an 18-week regular season).

Doubleheader allotments were often assigned with restrictions because of other network commitments. This happened during Finals Sunday of the U.S. Open tennis championships (September) (CBS, week 1 1976, '82, '85-'87, '89-'90, '99 and again 2001–2014; week 2 1979-81, '83-'84, '88, '91-'93, '98, '00), or Major League Baseball playoffs in October (NBC, typically during League Championship Series from 1976 to 1989, and again in 1996 and 1997, World Series 1978 to 1984, when Sunday games were afternoon games, CBS, League Championship Series, 1990 to 1993 and Fox, League Division Series 2001 and League Championship Series from 2002 to 2006 and again in 2012). During these weeks, the restricted conference's teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones could not play at home during the weekend in question, unless they either hosted an interconference game, or were scheduled in prime time (regardless of opponent). The rule was effectively eliminated by the new cross-flex rule in 2014, meaning the NFL could apply the new rule and assign games that would be on the restricted network to the other network. In 1991 (Charleston, South Carolina market) and 1995 (Rochester, New York market), NBC did not allow their games to be played in the early slot (1:00 p.m. ET) in order to cover the final day of matches in golf's Ryder Cup (no restrictions in 1993 because the matches would end before 5:30 p.m. local time, or 12:30 p.m. ET).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the league had to accommodate similar broadcasting conflicts when two men's major golf championships were postponed to the fall. The league gave Fox one late game in Week 2, Washington Football Team at Arizona Cardinals, to allow viewers to see the conclusion of the U.S. Open on Fox Sports 1 September 20. Rights to the golf tournament were later transferred to NBC, whose single primetime window for football rendered the point moot. Similarly with final round of The Masters rescheduled for November 15, CBS was not given any early games in Week 10.

NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone

Satellite broadcast company DirecTV offers NFL Sunday Ticket, a subscription-based package that allows all Sunday afternoon regional games to be watched. The only exception is that ''Sunday Ticket'' is subject to the same blackout rules as broadcast networks. This package is exclusive to DirecTV in the US on Satellite and it is offered online as well. In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket is available via the streaming service DAZN as well on both cable and satellite providers, because Canadian law generally prevents one provider from offering a package on an exclusive basis.

Other cable and satellite providers in the United States, as well as several international services, have access to NFL RedZone, a premium service featuring whip around coverage of Sunday afternoon games in progress. The channel prides itself on showing "every touchdown from every game" using simulcasts from the relevant CBS and FOX feeds.

Sunday local market policies

Regular season Sunday afternoon games aired on CBS and Fox are distributed to affiliates by means of regional coverage. Each individual game is only broadcast to selected media markets. The NFL imposes several television and blackout policies to maximize ratings and optimize stadium attendances.

Primary markets

Several factors determine which games are carried in each market. Each of the 32 NFL teams is assigned a "primary market" which is the metropolitan area where the club is located. Most teams also have a selected number of secondary markets. Secondary markets - which are almost exclusively non-NFL cities and towns - can be of any size, and are typically defined by an area where any part of the market falls within 75 miles of an NFL stadium. Small markets that have no clubs tend to strongly associate with geographically nearby or particularly relevant teams, but may fall outside of a 100-mile radius, are not necessarily an officially designated secondary markets by the NFL. Generally, games are aired in the primary and secondary markets as follows:
* All away games are aired in the primary and secondary markets. This is a gesture to old policies based on the ability for fans to attend games. Away games were looked upon as too difficult to travel to and attend.
* All sold-out home games are aired in the primary market. Games that do not sell out at least 72 hours prior to kickoff are subject to local blackout in the primary and all secondary markets. ('' see below'')

Restrictions on other games when local team is playing

The NFL rules have traditionally prohibited other NFL games from being shown on local television stations while a local team is playing a sold out, locally televised home game. Under these rules, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL single game, the doubleheader station can only air one of its games. When this happens, there are only two games shown in the market. However, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL doubleheader, all three games can still air in the same market.

The rule was designed to encourage ticket-holders to show up at the stadium instead of watching another game on television. However, each network was guaranteed to have at least one game broadcast in every market, so some exceptions are granted to this rule, typically when one of the two Sunday game networks has a 1:00 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. live non-NFL event, such as golf, tennis, baseball, or drag racing.

Since 2014, this rule has not applied in Week 17 when both CBS and Fox have the doubleheader, so all markets receive four games that week. In 2019, this rule was loosened as a one-year test, allowing each market to air three games in some weeks regardless if the local team is playing at home.

Prior to the 2000 season, doubleheader rules were much more restrictive. Pre-2000, only one game from each network could be aired in a market where a home game was played, even if the home game was on the doubleheader network. Therefore, markets with two teams (such as New York) rarely got more than two games, since odds were that one of the two teams would be at home on any given Sunday. Consequently, the Jets or Giants were often scheduled on Saturday in the final two weeks of the season to free up Sunday for the other New York team.

Mid-game switches

During the afternoon games, CBS and Fox may switch a market's game to a more competitive one mid-game, particularly when a game becomes one-sided. For this to occur, one team must be ahead by at least 18 points in the second half.

Due to the controversial 1968 "Heidi Game" incident on NBC, a primary media market must show its local team's game in its entirety and secondary markets usually follow suit for away games. Also, secondary markets (for home games) or any others where one team's popularity stands out may request a constant feed of that game, and in that case will not be switched.

If the local team is scheduled for the late game of a doubleheader, it has importance over any early game. If 4:25 p.m. arrives, and the early game is ongoing, the primary affiliate (all games) and secondary affiliates (road games) are required to cut off the early game and switch to the start of the local team's game. Additional affiliates, including secondary affiliates for home games, may also request to pull out of an early game for a nearby team's late start. This is common in Texas, where many affiliates which are not considered secondary markets by the NFL still switch out of early games in order to get to the start of a 4:25 Dallas Cowboys game.

When a local team plays the early game of a doubleheader, that game holds importance over any late game. If the local team's early game runs beyond 4:25 p.m., the primary and secondary markets stay on until completion, and the late game is joined in-progress.

Shared media markets

For this reason, if two teams share a primary media market, their games are never scheduled on the same network on the same day (unless they play each other). Otherwise, the networks could theoretically have to cut away from one team's game to show the other. Since , two pairs of teams are affected by this rule, and are subject to additional rules described below:
* The New York Giants and New York Jets
* The Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers

Chargers and Rams

The Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams gained shared-marked status, after the Rams' returned to Los Angeles (from St. Louis) in 2016, followed by the Chargers (from San Diego) in 2017. After playing in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, they began sharing SoFi Stadium in 2020.

* Every season, the Chargers and the Rams play at least 22 combined games which cannot be scheduled in the Sunday early time slot because they and most of their respective AFC West and NFC West rivals are in the Pacific and Mountain time zones: nine home games for one team and eight home games for the other; the Chargers' away games at Denver and Las Vegas; and the Rams' away games at Arizona, San Francisco, and Seattle.
* During seasons in which the AFC West and NFC West play each other, this count increases to 24 or 25 total games. In addition to the games listed above, the Chargers will have two interconference away games in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones and the Rams will have one or two such games (depending on whether their game against Kansas City, located in the Central Time Zone, is away). However, one of these games is a head-to-head matchup between the two teams.
* During seasons in which the 17th game features an AFC West team at an NFC West team, this count increases to 23 games unless the Chargers and Rams play head-to-head in this game.
* The Rams' two interconference home games (with a visiting AFC team) are televised by CBS, and the Chargers' interconference home games (with a visiting NFC team) are on Fox, unless they are scheduled in prime time or are cross-flexed. This also limits the broadcast opportunities for the other team's game.
* When the Chargers and the Rams played in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, there were several times that both teams played late games on Sunday (including Week 2 of 2017 when both were at home), each of different networks. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Los Angeles Area at the same time. Although both teams now share SoFi Stadium, they can still play late games at the same time on Sunday, only that one of them can be at home. On weeks both teams play home games, the other game is played either on Thursday or Monday night.

For the 2017 season, the NFL arranged four weeks in which one network would carry both the Rams and Chargers in separate time slots while the other had the rights to a doubleheader, thus giving the Los Angeles market four games in those weeks. Fox split its coverage between its two Los Angeles stations, KTTV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KCOP-TV. Likewise, CBS split between KCBS-TV and sister station KCAL-TV. These instances required cross-flexing of one NFC game (the Rams hosted the Seattle Seahawks in Week 5 on CBS) and one AFC game (the Chargers hosted the Buffalo Bills on Fox in Week 11).

Giants and Jets

The New York Giants and New York Jets began sharing the New York City market after the Jets began play in 1960. Both teams played at Giants Stadium from 1984 to 2009 and MetLife Stadium since 2010.

Originally, the league almost never scheduled the Giants and the Jets to play their games at the same time. The league first allowed exceptions during the season due to unusual scheduling logistics. These exceptions marked the first times since the season that the Giants and Jets played games simultaneously. In the 2017 season, the teams were scheduled for the same time slot five times.

* The aforementioned Chargers and Rams' late time slot requirement does not exist for the Giants and Jets. Since all AFC East and NFC East teams are either in the Eastern or Central time zones, most of their games can be played in either the early 1:00 p.m. or the late 4:05 p.m./4:25 p.m. time slots.
* However, it is still impossible for both New York teams to play home games on the same day, because they share MetLife Stadium. Therefore, the other same conflicts still exists.
**As an example aversion, in , the Jets hosted the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams. The former game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Minnesota Vikings on ''Monday Night Football'', while the latter game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Cincinnati Bengals on ''Monday Night Football''. Conversely, the Giants' other interconference home game, vs. the Baltimore Ravens, was scheduled during the same week in which the Jets played on ''Monday Night Football''.

Week 14 of the 2021 season initially had one instance where Fox held the rights to both the Jets and Giants games despite CBS having the doubleheader (the Jets host New Orleans at 1:00 p.m., while the Giants play at the Los Angeles Chargers for a 4:05 p.m. contest). In such an instance, Fox would likely have split coverage between its New York properties, WNYW and WWOR-TV. However, the NFL later crossflexed the Saints-Jets game to CBS.

Primary/secondary market conflicts

Although in close proximity, the Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens are served by separate media markets, and so they can play at the same time and even on the same network. If both teams play at the same time on opposite networks with at least one at home, both games have aired in each market on a few occasions. Because Washington D.C. is an official secondary market for the Ravens but Baltimore is not an official secondary market for Washington, most cases involve a Ravens away game being aired in D.C. opposite a Washington home game.

In 2016, the same rule applied in Los Angeles, as Los Angeles was a primary market for the Rams and a secondary market for the Chargers (as the team was still playing in San Diego). However, no Chargers away games were scheduled opposite Rams home games.

Rams and Raiders in Los Angeles (1982–94)

When the Rams and Raiders shared the Los Angeles market from 1982 to 1994, the NFL was more lenient on its shared media markets policies, frequently scheduling home games for both teams at the same time. For example, during Week 17 of the 1994 season, their last respective home games in Los Angeles, both the Washington Redskins at Rams game and the Kansas City Chiefs at Raiders game were played at 1 p.m. PT. Likewise, the late Sunday afternoon games during Week 11 of the 1993 season included both the Kansas City Chiefs at the Raiders and the Atlanta Falcons at the Rams. Both the Rams and Raiders usually had trouble selling out their respective stadiums during their time in Los Angeles, thus their home games were frequently blacked out anyway.

49ers and Raiders in the San Francisco Bay Area (1960–1981 and 1995–2019)

When the 49ers and Raiders shared the Bay Area market from 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019, originally the teams were typically not scheduled at the same time. To alleviate conflicts, both teams were scheduled for at least one prime time game, regardless of their records during the previous season.

In , with the Broncos–49ers game being played in London, England during Week 8 of that season, the game occurred in the early time slot, something that would have been prohibited had the game been played in San Francisco. This allowed the Raiders to host the Seahawks on that day, marking the first time the 49ers played on CBS and the Raiders played on Fox on the same day, though the Raiders game was blacked out locally.

Starting in 2012, there were a number of times that the Raiders and 49ers both played late games on Sunday, often during Week 17. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Bay Area at the same time.

After the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, the schedule continues to be made so that the 49ers and Raiders are never scheduled to play at the same time on the same network so that all Raiders games can continue to air in the Bay Area market. With the Bay Area no longer being a shared market, it is now possible for one team to play the early game followed by the other team playing the late game on the doubleheader network.

Bonus coverage

When a media market's regionally televised game ends before the others, the network (CBS or Fox) may switch to "bonus coverage" of the ending of another game. However, the league imposes two restrictions that are designed to maximize the ratings of the late games on the doubleheader network, which tend to record the most NFL viewers during the day, often beating the audience for Sunday night games (these rules were changed in 2019, along with the singleheader rule, in an effort to keep viewers watching for longer periods of time.).

First, bonus coverage offered after any early time slot games cannot be shown past the start of the late time slot (either 4:20 ET for the doubleheader network or 4:25 ET for the single game network). This prevents people from continuing to watch the bonus coverage instead of seeing the beginning of the late doubleheader network's game (which is usually either their local team or the network's featured game). Networks may show highlights of the game, and usually will at the earliest opportunity. The network broadcasting the single game will sometimes show each play as soon as it ends as part of its post-game show. A station originally getting the game featured during bonus coverage will stay with it unless it is leaving to show a local team.

Second, bonus coverage cannot be shown after a late game on the single-game network because it will run in opposition to the ending of the late doubleheader network's game and ''Football Night in America''. However, the single-game network usually schedules most of its top games in the early 1:00 ET time slot (except for west coast teams' home games, and possibly either a Giants or Jets game), so this does not tend to be a major issue.

If the doubleheader network's games all finish before 7:30 ET, it is supposed to conclude the post-game show within 10 minutes to protect ''FNIA''. If any games finish after 7:30, the post-game program can run until 8:00 ET. However, this restriction seems to apply to game footage only; on several occasions Fox has run its post-game offering to 8:00, despite all games ending before 7:30, by airing only panel discussions and interviews in the latter portion of the show. On the other hand, CBS rarely airs any post-game show after its doubleheaders or 4:05 single-games. This is because ''60 Minutes'' is one of its signature shows, and CBS makes every effort to start it as close to 7:00 or 7:30—its traditional airtime—as possible.

National games

National broadcasts of marquee matches occur on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights. NBC has broadcast rights to the opening night kickoff game and to the Sunday night games. These are televised under a special " flexible schedule" that allows Sunday afternoon games to be moved to prime-time beginning with Week 5 of the season.

''Sunday Night Football''

NBC has broadcast the marquee "game of the week" nationally since 2006. Before 2006, the "game of the week" was considered to be ''Monday Night Football'' on ABC. However, ESPN previously aired games on Sunday nights from 1987-2005, and TNT aired games from 1990-1997.

Thursday night games

Since 2012, a Thursday night game went into effect during every week of the season with the exception of the final week. Each game is aired on the NFL Network (prior to 2021) or Amazon (2022 and on), with the exceptions of the Week 1 NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving Day games, which are aired on NBC. The season-kickoff game for the 2012 season was moved up a day — to a Wednesday, in order to avoid conflict with President Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Since the NFL tries to avoid scheduling Thursday night games during the season which would require the visiting team to travel more than one time zone (excluding the Week 1 Kickoff), the five teams in the Pacific Time Zone — the Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks — would have more limited scheduling options in years that the AFC West and NFC West divisions don't face each other in interconference play. There have been some notable exceptions: the Kansas City Chiefs, who are based in the Central Time Zone, have played both the Chargers and Raiders on Thursdays; the Rams, who were based in St. Louis until , played against the 49ers in . Since ''TNF'' started in 2012, the Dallas Cowboys of the Central Time Zone have occasionally hosted clubs from the Pacific Time Zone on Thanksgiving Day: Dallas hosted the Oakland Raiders in , the Los Angeles Chargers in , and hosted the Las Vegas Raiders in . The Detroit Lions, of the Eastern Time Zone, have not hosted a Mountain or Pacific Time Zone team during this time. Each year since 2014, the Thursday Night game the week after Thanksgiving has featured two teams that played on Thanksgiving, effectively giving both teams a full week of practice rather than the short week that most teams have for a Thursday Night game.

In 2014, CBS had simulcast Thursday night games between Weeks 2–8 and televised one of two Saturday games in Week 16, and each Thursday night game was an intra-division game, except for the Packers–Seahawks Week 1 NBC kickoff and the Cowboys–Bears game in Week 14. The two Saturday games in Week 16 — Eagles– Redskins and Chargers–49ers — aired beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET. The 4:30 p.m. ET game was televised by the NFL Network, while the other began shortly after 8:00 p.m. ET, and aired on CBS.

''Monday Night Football''

Between 1970 and 1977, and again since 2003, there has been no Monday night game during the last week of the season. From 1978 until 2002, a season-ending Monday night game was scheduled. The 2003 revision permits the NFL to have all eight teams involved in the Wild Card playoffs to have equal time in preparation, instead of the possibility of one or two teams having a shorter preparation for their playoff game if they were picked to play on Saturday, instead of Sunday. This scenario, in which a team finishing its season on Monday night had a playoff game the following Saturday, never occurred.

Between and , ESPN has opened the season with a ''Monday Night Football'' doubleheader, with a 7:00 p.m. game and a 10:30 p.m. both shown in their entirety nationwide. ESPN2 or ESPNEWS (only in 2012 because ESPN2 was airing an MLB game) started the second game if the game on ESPN was not over by the time the second game had started. However, in Week 1 of the 2018 season, the conclusion of the first game of the doubleheader, Jets–Lions, moved to ESPN2 in order to show the beginning of the Rams–Raiders game on ESPN.

Since , select Monday Night Football games have been simulcast on ABC, ESPN2, and ESPN+. While the ABC broadcast is a simulcast of the main ESPN feed, the ESPN2 and ESPN+ feeds have also featured alternate telecasts. The 2020 alternate telecast was hosted by Rece Davis and Kirk Herbstreit, while the 2021 version was hosted by Eli Manning and Peyton Manning and nicknamed the Manningcast.

Local syndication of cable games and anti-siphoning

To maximize television ratings, as well as to protect the NFL's ability to sell television rights collectively, games televised on cable or streaming are blacked out in each of the primary markets of both teams (the Green Bay Packers have two primary markets, Green Bay and Milwaukee, a remnant of when they played some home games in Milwaukee each season, see below) under syndicated exclusivity regulations as the league sells via broadcast syndication a package featuring that team's games.

This station does not need to have affiliate connections with a national broadcaster of NFL games, though owned-and-operated stations of ABC and Hearst Television (even those Hearst stations not affiliated with ABC, and including their one independent station in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market) have first right of refusal for ESPN games due to both ESPN and ABC's common ownership by The Walt Disney Company (Hearst holds a 20% stake in ESPN). In the past (until 2021), the ABC O&Os have passed on airing the game, opting instead to air the network's Monday night schedule which includes the successful ''Dancing with the Stars''.WGN-TV To Carry Monday Night's Bears/Cowboys Game, Plus Local Pre-Game Show
''Chicagoland Radio and Media''. Retrieved October 7, 2012. In other markets, stations who are the affiliates of MyNetworkTV or The CW (and, in at least one case, an independent stationKwiatkowski, Jane (June 13, 2012)
Murphy leaving channel 4 for Bills
''The Buffalo News''. Retrieved June 13, 2012.) have out bid more established local broadcasters in some markets. However, the home team's market must be completely served by the station (as opposed to a low-power station). With increasing consolidation of local broadcasters in the United States, larger station ownership groups (particularly Nexstar Media Group) have increasingly cornered the market for these simulcasts.

The NFL's anti-siphoning regulations affect all cable and streaming games. In the markets of the participating teams, the respective cable channel is blacked out. Cable and streaming games air via broadcast syndication to an over-the-air station. Typically, the team's flagship station for the preseason games will hold such rights, as teams will usually sell the preseason, local non-broadcast television games as one package. Only over-the-air stations in the market of the participating teams (with the Green Bay Packers having two such markets) may bid on this syndicated package. In 2014, CBS affiliates in the primary markets in question have the primary option to NFL Network-only games; if the local affiliate declines the option (as was in Cincinnati), the NFL will implement the same syndicated package rule. In 2016 and 2017, with the ''TNF'' package split between CBS and NBC, this depended on which network produces the game for NFL Network. With Fox taking over the ''TNF'' package in 2018, Fox affiliates will have the primary option of simulcasting NFL Network games. Starting in 2022, the Amazon Prime Video subscription service will hold the rights to broadcast ''TNF'' and because of this, the NFL will continue to require these games to be syndicated to the team's local markets.

This led to controversy in , when the New England Patriots were scheduled to play the New York Giants at Giants Stadium in their regular season finale on the NFL Network, in what was to be a chance to complete the first 16–0 regular season in NFL history. After the Senate Judiciary Committee threatened the NFL's antitrust exemption if it did not make the game available nationwide, the NFL relented and made the game the first in league history to be simulcast on three networks. The game aired on the NFL Network, as planned; on NBC, which would normally have the rights to prime time games; and, since the away team was an AFC team, on CBS. (WCVB in Boston holds the rights to the NFL's syndicated package for Patriots games, causing this game to be available on 3 over-the-air stations in the Boston TV market). This however, did not lead to the NFL offering this package to other channels; the games have remained on the NFL Network, although cable coverage of NFL Network has increased in the intervening period.

Under the agreement for the 2014 season between CBS and the NFL Network for ''Thursday Night Football'' simulcasts during the first half of the season, local rights to such games that are not carried by CBS are awarded to the markets' CBS affiliates, rather than syndicated. If the CBS affiliate opts out of the deal, the NFL will offer the package by syndication, typically with the Monday Night package. The CBS/NFL Network deal was extended for the 2015 season on January 18, 2015. For the 2016 season, two midseason ''TNF'' games were NFL Network-exclusive but produced by NBC; the NBC affiliates in those markets with teams competing carried those games in-market. With the 2018 move of the package to Fox, the two NFL Network-exclusive games produced by Fox actually varied between NBC and CBS affiliates rather than being exclusive to the Fox stations in each market.

On November 8, 1987, the very first NFL game ever aired on ESPN was played between the New England Patriots and New York Giants. Technically, the game was only simulcast in the Boston market, with a separate broadcast produced for the New York market by ESPN sister property WABC-TV – at the time, WABC's union contract prohibited non-union workers (like those of ESPN) from working on live events broadcast on the station. This marked the only time since the AFL–NFL merger that a regular season game was locally produced for TV. The WABC broadcast featured WABC's own Corey McPherrin doing play-by-play, and Frank Gifford and Lynn Swann from ''Monday Night Football'' doing color commentary (Gifford and Swann did not have to travel further for their Monday Night game, which was Seahawks at Jets.).

Saturday NFL games

Under the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, for the NFL to retain its antitrust exemption, professional games are not permitted to air on any television station within a 75-mile radius of any high school or college game from 6pm on Friday to midnight on Saturday evening until the second weekend of December; effectively, this prevents the NFL from scheduling any games on those days.

Since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger, the NFL has taken an informal approach to scheduling games on Saturdays after the end of the college football season, with the scheduling policy changing many times. From 1970 to 2005, both of the Sunday afternoon broadcast networks (CBS and NBC from 1970–1993, Fox and NBC from 1994–1997, and Fox and CBS from 1998–2005) were given at least two Saturday afternoon national broadcasts in December, with ESPN also airing one or two Saturday game in primetime from 1998 to 2005.

In 2006, the schedule was cut to three Saturday games, which aired in primetime and were televised on the NFL Network in December. In 2008, this was changed to only one Saturday game, still aired in primetime on the NFL Network, which was the policy through 2011. For the 2012 season, ESPN aired the lone Saturday game in primetime. No Saturday game was scheduled in 2013, the first and only time since the 1970 merger that the NFL did not play any regular season games on Saturday.

In 2014, the NFL returned to Saturdays with a Week 16 doubleheader, with the Saturday afternoon game airing on the NFL Network and a Saturday night game airing on CBS. CBS Sports produced coverage for both games. In 2015, this schedule was modified again to one Saturday night game during both Week 15 and Week 16, these games were cable-only and produced by CBS. In 2016, Christmas fell on a Sunday, so the regional slate of week 16 games aired on Saturday afternoon, with a national game also airing that night, along with a national week 15 Saturday game the previous week, with CBS and Fox producing the regional games and NBC producing the national games for cable.

Since 2018, NFL Network has exclusively aired three or four late-season Saturday games per season. When the schedule is released, five Sunday afternoon games in each of these weeks will be eligible to be moved to Saturday afternoon or evening. The games moving to Saturday are typically announced no later than four weeks prior to game day. Beginning in 2021, ESPN and ABC will air a Saturday doubleheader during Week 18 featuring games with playoff implications.

The 2021 season will feature six Saturday regular season games (two each in Weeks 15, 16, and 18), equal with the 2001 and 2003 seasons for the most Saturday games played in a season since the turn of the millennium (excluding years in which Christmas falls on Sunday, and thus the great majority of that week's games are moved to Saturday afternoon).

Several notable games have taken place on Saturdays, including the New England Patriots' historic comeback from a 22–3 deficit in the fourth quarter against the New York Giants in 1996, a game the same season between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Jets in which the Eagles won in dramatic fashion over the 1-13 Jets to keep their playoff hopes alive (they would eventually qualify), the final game at Three Rivers Stadium featuring the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins in 2000, another Patriots-Giants matchup in 2007 which saw the Patriots complete a 16–0 season and was simulcast on three networks, the last-ever match at Texas Stadium won by the Baltimore Ravens over the Dallas Cowboys in 2008, a 2012 game between the Detroit Lions and the Atlanta Falcons in which Calvin Johnson of the Lions set the NFL record for receiving yards in one season, and a 2015 game between the Eagles and the Redskins to decide the NFC East champion.

Flexible scheduling

Since the 2006 season, the NFL has used a "flexible scheduling" system for the last seven weeks of the regular season. This is because by week 11, there are a number of teams that have been eliminated or nearly eliminated from playoff contention. Flex-scheduling ensures that all Sunday night and on the doubleheader network, the late game that is designated as the national game (airs in the majority of markets nationally), have playoff significance, regardless of whether or not both teams are competing for a playoff spot. Two examples of this type of flexing involved the Carolina Panthers in 2008 and 2009. In the first instance, the Panthers and New York Giants saw a late season game flexed due to the winner of that matchup clinching the NFC's top seed and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. The next season, an out-of-contention Panthers team hosted the 11–2 Minnesota Vikings, who had a chance to improve their playoff positioning and take the top seed in the NFC playoffs; hence, this game was flexed despite Carolina's 5–8 record. Sometimes, games will be flexed due to a team's success; for instance, the 2007 matchup between the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium was flexed due to the Patriots' potential run at an undefeated regular season that they eventually completed.

This system also allows teams that enjoy unexpected success to acquire a prime time spot that was not on their original schedule. Thanksgiving games and all games airing on cable channels (Monday, Thursday, and Saturday games) are fixed in place and cannot be changed to Sunday night, as are games during Christmas weekend whenever Christmas Day falls on a Sunday, as it was in 2011 (most games are played on Christmas Eve Saturday instead). It also increases the potential for teams to play on consecutive Sunday nights, as the 2007 Patriots, 2007 Redskins, the 2008 Giants the 2012 49ers, the 2013 Broncos, 2015 Cardinals, the 2016 Cowboys, the 2018 Chiefs, 2018 Vikings, 2018 Rams, and the 2022 Chargers did (the Patriots hosted the Philadelphia Eagles the week following the second matchup with the Bills as scheduled, the Redskins were flexed into a matchup with the Giants and played the Vikings in a regularly scheduled matchup the week after, and the Giants hosted the Panthers one week after playing the Dallas Cowboys in Texas Stadium. The 49ers played the Seahawks in Seattle one week after playing at the Patriots. The Broncos were flexed into a matchup with the Chiefs and then playing on the road against the Patriots. The Vikings were flexed into a matchup with the Bears then hosted the Packers the next week. The Rams were flexed into a matchup also with the Bears then hosted the Eagles the next week.)

Under the system, Sunday games in the affected weeks in the Eastern and Central time zones will tentatively have the start time of 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 am PT). Those played in the Mountain or Pacific time zones will have the tentative start time of 4:05/4:25 p.m. ET (1:05/1:25 p.m. PT). Also, there will be one game provisionally scheduled for the 8:20 p.m. ET slot. On the Tuesday twelve days before the games (possibly sooner), the league will move one game to the prime time slot (or keep its original choice), and possibly move one or more 1:00 p.m. slotted games to the 4:00 p.m. slot.

Fox and CBS each may protect a total of five Sunday afternoon games, not more than one per week, during weeks 11–17 and NBC selects which game they want to air. For example, in 2011, NBC wanted a late season game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots which featured Tim Tebow as the Broncos quarterback. CBS protected the game and NBC got a game featuring the San Diego Chargers instead. Networks have the option of waiving protection to allow for a Sunday night airing, as happened with a game between the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs and one-loss Denver Broncos in Week 11 of the 2013 season. The contest was protected by CBS, which would have to air it in the regional 4:05 p.m. timeslot because the game was in Denver and the network did not have doubleheader rights that week. CBS thus allowed NBC to pick up the telecast for a nationwide broadcast.

Neither CBS or Fox can protect games in week 18. In years when Christmas falls on Sunday (like in 2016) or on Monday (like in 2017), the NFL schedules its main slate of afternoon games on Christmas Eve (which would fall on Saturday or Sunday) without a prime time game, as NBC's game would be moved to Christmas night ( see below). Thus, Sunday Night game flexible scheduling can not occur in week 16; NBC is then given flexible scheduling in week 10 instead. However, the other two types of flexible scheduling changes—moving a game from early to late, or changing networks—is still possible during such weeks. The NFL went around the flexible scheduling procedure prohibition in the 2016 NFL season where Christmas falls on a Sunday by scheduling two Sunday games at 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET, respectively.

During the last week of the season, the league could reschedule games as late as six days before the contests so that as many of the television networks as possible will be able to broadcast a game that has major playoff implications, and so that several division races or Wild Card spots are on the line at the same time. The week 18 game on Sunday night is decided exclusively by the NFL; networks cannot protect or choose during the final week. For this final Sunday Night contest, the league prefers to flex-in a matchup in which at least one team must win in order to qualify for the playoffs, regardless of what happens in the other week 18 games. Since 2010 when the NFL began scheduling only divisional matchups in the final week, it is possible an intradivisional game that appeared on national TV previously could be selected again. The NFL will only select such a game if there is no other suitable option. This example happened in the 2011 season concerning matchups between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants. In week 14, both teams played a game with major playoff implications that could have all but eliminated the Giants from playoff contention with a loss. Instead, that game marked the start of a four-game winning streak to end the season which included a game where the Giants eliminated the Eagles from playoff contention (despite a win over the Cowboys) with a win over the New York Jets. This win flexed the following week's matchup, where the Giants hosted the Cowboys, into NBC's slot, which determined the NFC East champion.

Individual teams may make no more than four appearances on NBC's ''Sunday Night Football'' package during the season. Only three teams may make as many as six prime time appearances (Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night, and Saturday night combined). The remaining teams may make a maximum of five prime time appearances. In addition, there are no restrictions amongst intra-division games being "flexed."

In the 2014 NFL season, a related policy known as "cross-flexing" became available, where games can now be swapped between CBS and Fox, regardless of conference, in order to improve balance between the two networks, and expand the distribution of noteworthy games. A notable example occurred in the final week of the season, where a game featuring the Atlanta Falcons hosting the Carolina Panthers playing to clinch the NFC South division (which was tentatively scheduled for Fox with a 1:00 p.m. kickoff) was cross-flexed to CBS and moved to a 4:25 p.m kickoff, in order to give the network a late-afternoon game with playoff implications (since Fox was also, by virtue of its package, to air a game between Detroit and Green Bay that would determine the NFC North champion, and the AFC North title game between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh had been flexed to ''Sunday Night Football'').

In the 2020 offseason, the NFL queried its teams on the possibility of expanding flexible scheduling to ''Monday Night Football''. No consensus was achieved on whether or not such an expansion would be viable, as travel and lodging reservations are set in advance and would require visiting teams to book hotels for an extra day because of the uncertainty such a flex option would entail. Flexible scheduling would not take effect until ''Monday Night Football's'' next contract begins in 2022.

In 2020, because of numerous pandemic-related issues that led to CBS losing a 1 PM (Pittsburgh vs Tennessee) and a 4:25 PM (New England at Kansas City) game during Week 4, the NFL used the flexible schedule rule to move Indianapolis at Chicago from 1 PM to 4:25 PM.

Holiday games

Thanksgiving Day games

Thanksgiving Day contests have been held since before the league's inception. The Detroit Lions have hosted a game every Thanksgiving since 1934 (with the exception of 1939–1944 due to the "Franksgiving" confusion and World War II), and they have been nationally televised since 1953. The first color television broadcast of an NFL regular season game was the 1965 Thanksgiving contest between the Lions and Baltimore Colts. In 1966, the NFL introduced an annual game hosted by the Dallas Cowboys, which has been played every year except in 1975 and 1977 when the St. Louis Cardinals hosted a match instead. However, fans both inside and outside St. Louis did not respond well to an NFL fixture on Thanksgiving, and thus Dallas resumed hosting the game in 1978.

When the AFL began holding annual Thanksgiving Day games, the league chose a different model, circulating the game among several cities. During the 1967–69 seasons, two Thanksgiving AFL games were televised each year.

After the 1970 merger, the NFL decided to keep only the traditional Detroit and Dallas games. Due to the broadcast contracts in place since 1970, three NFC teams play on Thanksgiving, as opposed to only one AFC outfit. During even years, the Lions play their Thanksgiving game against an AFC team, and thus are televised by the network holding the AFC package (NBC and later CBS since 1998); the Cowboys host an NFC team and are shown by the network with the NFC package (CBS and later Fox since 1994). During odd years, Dallas hosts an AFC team and Detroit plays an NFC opponent (usually another NFC North team, and often the Green Bay Packers, who draw high television ratings). Every decade or so, this even-odd rotation was reversed, Detroit hosting an NFC team in even years and an AFC team in odd years, Dallas hosting an AFC team in even years and an NFC team in odd years. Detroit is always the early broadcast and Dallas the mid-afternoon broadcast.

Following the introduction of ''Thursday Night Football'' in 2006, a third Thanksgiving game was added, a primetime game hosted by one of the remaining 30 NFL teams each year. While the first game featured two AFC teams, conference affiliation has varied since. Starting in 2012, the prime time Thanksgiving game has aired on NBC. In the future, the NFL may use flexible scheduling to allow the Lions or Cowboys to host a prime-time game, provided an Eastern time zone team is given the early (12:30 p.m.) slot.

Starting in 2014, changes to the NFL television contract allow either traditional Thanksgiving game to prime time (and NBC) and schedule an AFC game in either window to accommodate CBS, while Fox would get the other traditional game with Dallas or Detroit; to date, this has never happened. Cross-flexing also liberated CBS and Fox from their usual conference affiliation on Thursdays; thus Dallas and Detroit both hosted NFC opponents in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2018 (in 2014, 2015, and 2018, the prime time game also featured two NFC franchises, so the AFC was completely shut out of the holiday those years). Fox has yet to broadcast an AFC team on Thanksgiving.

Christmas and Christmas Eve games

In recent years, the NFL has generally scheduled games on Christmas only if it falls on a day normally used for games (Saturday, Sunday, Monday). If Christmas falls on a Sunday, most of the games are to be played on the preceding day, Saturday, December 24, with two games scheduled for Christmas Night to be broadcast nationally (which most recently happened in ).

The first NFL games played on December 25 came during the 1971 season. The first two games of the Divisional Playoff Round that year were held on Christmas Day. The first game that day was between Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings. The second of the two contests played that day, the Miami Dolphins versus the Kansas City Chiefs, ended up being the longest game in NFL history. The league received numerous complaints due to the length of this game, reportedly because it caused havoc with Christmas dinners around the nation. As a result, the NFL decided to not schedule any Christmas Day matches for the next 17 seasons.

In 1976 and 1977, the last two years before the advent of the 16-game schedule and expanded playoffs, the NFL came up with different approaches to avoid Christmas play. In 1976, when Christmas fell on a Saturday, the league moved the start of the regular season up one week to Sunday, September 12. The divisional playoffs were held on the weekend of December 18 and 19, leaving the conference championship games on Sunday, December 26. Super Bowl XI was played on January 9, 1977, the earliest it has ever been held. In 1977, with Christmas on Sunday, the NFL split the divisional playoffs, and for the only time since the AFL–NFL merger, each conference held both divisional playoff games the same day (AFC Saturday, December 24 and NFC Monday, December 26), ostensibly not to give one team a two-day rest advantage over the other for the conference championship games. Since two of the venues were in the Western United States, it was not possible to have regional coverage in both time slots on either day.

The NFL continued to avoid Christmas even after it started to increase the regular season and the playoffs. The league expanded to a 16-game regular season and a 10-team playoff tournament in 1978, but it was not until 1982 that the regular season ended after Christmas, due to the players' strike. In 1989, the NFL tried another Christmas Day game, with the Cincinnati Bengals hosted by the Minnesota Vikings, but it was a 9:00 p.m. ET ''Monday Night Football'' contest, thereby not conflicting with family dinners. In the years since, the NFL has played an occasional late-afternoon or night game on the holiday but there has not been a Christmas Day game starting earlier than 4:30 p.m. ET since 1971.

There have also been several games played on Christmas Eve over the years, including an Oakland Raiders–Baltimore Colts playoff contest in 1977 which culminated in a play known as "Ghost to the Post". These games have typically been played during the afternoon out of deference to the holiday.

The broadcasting contract to begin in 2022 will allow Fox to air games on Christmas Day if the schedule allows for it. However, the 2022 season is the only season when Christmas falls on a Sunday during the entirety of the media rights deal, so all three Sunday networks will have a single game each.

New Year's games

The NFL only stages games on New Year's Day when it falls on a Sunday or Monday. Historically, this was in deference to the numerous college football bowl games traditionally held on New Year's Day; in recent years, New Year's Day has consistently fallen in the last week of the NFL's regular season, and the league's policy is to play all of the last games of the week on one day (Sunday, which, if it falls on January 1, typically preempts the bowl games on that day, as well as the NHL Winter Classic, to be played on Monday, January 2) to ensure an equal amount of rest heading into the playoffs. In years when January 1 falls on a Monday, all 32 teams will play on New Year's Eve.

The AFL played its first league championship game on January 1, 1961. Thereafter, pro football has been played on New Year's Day in 1967 (the 1966 NFL and AFL Championship Games), in 1978 (the 1977 NFC and AFC Championship Games), in 1984 (the 1983 NFC and AFC Divisional Playoff Games), in 1989 (the 1988 NFC and AFC Divisional Playoff Games), in 1995 (the second half of the 1994 NFC and AFC Wild Card Games), and in 2006, 2012, and 2017 (the final weekend of the 2005, 2011, and 2016 regular seasons), with scheduling likely for 2023 and again in 2034.

Other holidays

*The NFL scheduled ''Monday Night Football'' games on Labor Day in the past, but has not done so since 2000, as it was determined that games during the Labor Day weekend were the lowest-rated of the season. Currently, Labor Day weekend serves as a league-wide bye week between the final preseason game and the start of the regular season.
*A ''Monday Night Football'' game is always scheduled on Columbus Day, a federal holiday not universally celebrated by all states.
*The NFL only plays on Halloween or Veterans Day if the holiday falls on a day in which football is normally played (Thursday, Sunday, or Monday).
*The NFL has one ''Monday Night Football'' game during the Wild Card round of the playoffs. This game would sometimes correspond with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Blackout policies

Since 1973, the NFL has maintained a blackout policy that states that a home game cannot be televised locally if it is not sold out 72 hours prior to its start time. Before that, NFL games were blacked out in the home team's market even if the game was a sellout. The NFL is the only major professional sports league in North America that requires teams to sell out in order to broadcast a game on television locally, after INDYCAR lifted the blackout of the Indianapolis 500 in the local market for the 2016 edition.

Before 1973, the lone exception to the blackout rule occurred in 1970 when the Giants and Jets played at Shea Stadium

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