National Football League On Television - Sunday Regional Games

Sunday Regional Games

Under the current contracts, the regional Sunday games (1 p.m. "early" and 4 p.m. "late" games Eastern time) are split into AFC and NFC "packages". Each package is held by a single network; as of 2013, CBS holds the AFC package, and Fox holds the NFC package. These packages consist of Sunday afternoon games during each week of the regular season, a single game for each network on Thanksgiving, wild card games, divisional playoff games and the respective conference championship game for each network.

The "AFC package" for CBS is summarized as the following:

• All afternoon games in which the visiting team is from the AFC
• If there are not enough games to broadcast, then a game in which the home team is from the AFC will be played (against the NFC); this has never happened.

The "NFC package" for Fox is summarized as the following:

• All afternoon games in which the visiting team is from the NFC
• If there are not enough games to broadcast, then a game in which the home team is from the NFC will be played (against the AFC); this has happened only once (Denver Broncos–Minnesota Vikings during Week 13 of the 2011 season). The NFL permitted the game's move from CBS to Fox due to the fact that Fox initially had just two games in the early (1p.m./ET) time slot under the NFL's flex schedule scenario.

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 away games would be seen on the same network. The current package allows both CBS and Fox access to every stadium/market in the league for at least two games per season (unless an interconference game is chosen as a prime time national game). In 2003, both of the Miami Dolphins's home games against NFC teams were televised in prime time, a rare occurrence that prevented Fox from airing a game from Pro Player Stadium that season. This had also happened in 1997, though Fox was scheduled to broadcast the Chicago Bears' game from Miami until it was moved to Monday night due to its coverage of the World Series; ESPN was already planning to cover the Detroit Lions' game at Miami later on. In 2005, the Baltimore Ravens also had both of their interconference games aired in prime time instead, with the game against the Green Bay Packers on ABC and the contest against the Minnesota Vikings on ESPN. In 2013, the Atlanta Falcons will have both of their interconference home games aired in prime time instead, with the game against the New England Patriots on NBC's Sunday Night Football and the contest against the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.