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As the NFL wrapped its annual owners’ meetings down in Orlando earlier this week, Roger Goodell’s tailor began letting out the waist of the commissioner’s Grinch costume. On Tuesday, the man who fronts the sports monolith announced that the league will play a Christmas Day doubleheader, thereby spoiling the party for the happy denizens of Hoopsville® for a fifth consecutive year.
Goodell’s proclamation flew in the face of the NFL’s longstanding scheduling policy, which had established Wednesday as a no-fly zone for football. The last time the league suited up for a game that aired smackdab in the middle of the week was during the plague year of 2020, when a clubhouse COVID outbreak forced the Ravens and Steelers to shift their primetime Thanksgiving matchup on NBC to the dead center of the following week. Prior to that unorthodox move, the last time the NFL had set up shop on Hump Day was in 2012, when the Cowboys and Giants elected to accommodate President Barack Obama’s address at the Democratic National Convention by meeting up the day before the event.
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That marked the first Wednesday NFL game since 1948. Thus, despite having extended its tendrils to practically every other day of the week, the NFL’s anti-Wednesday stance seemed to be about as immutable as the ballast that prevents the officials’ penalty flags from floating goofily around on the breeze.
While the NBA had anticipated having the run of the place this Christmas—this year marks the 77th installment of the league’s Yuletide extravaganza—the NFL wasn’t about to pass up on yet another opportunity to throw its weight around over the ho-ho-holidays. Last year’s three-fer put up playoff-grade TV ratings, as the early Chiefs-Raiders upset averaged 29.5 million viewers on CBS (good for the No. 14 spot on the list of top 100 U.S. broadcasts), while the high-flying Giants-Eagles showdown scared up another 29 million Fox viewers. Rounding off the not-so-silent…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-christmas-takeover-puts-bow-182328119.html
Author : Sportico
Publish date : 2024-03-27 18:23:28
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