How the NFL got the Pats-Giants Game on NBC and CBS and why!

The broadcast will air Saturday night at 8pm and it comes after a great

deal of public pressure came about when the game was slated to be seen

only on the NFL Network which covers about 35 million subscribers far less than half of the U.S. television homes.

NBC and CBS will carry the NFL Network feed of the game with their regular announce team of Bryant Gumbel and NBC Football Night in America’s Cris Collinsworth in the broadcast booth.

This will be the first three-network simulcast in NFL history and the first simulcast of any kind of an NFL game since Super Bowl I in 1967 when CBS and NBC both televised the first meeting of the champions of the newly merged National Football League and American Football League. CBS was the network partner of the NFL at that time and NBC televised the AFL. In that first Super Bowl – in which the NFL Green Bay Packers beat the AFL Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on January 15, 1967 – Ray Scott, Jack Whitaker and Frank Gifford called the game for CBS while Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman broadcast the game on NBC.

Why did CBS and NBC get the game?

CBS owns the AFC rights so when the NFL Network decided to bring the game to broadcast TV if fell to CBS. However another wrinkle in the plans came because the game is in primetime and due to flex scheduling clause in the leagues broadcast contract the game could have been claimed by NBC. So to avoid any problems in a true stroke of brilliance Steve Bornstein the president of the NFL Network offered the game to both CBS and NBC. He retained total control of the broadcast so CBS, NBC and the NFL Network will all air the game and the NFL gets the advantage of maximum exposure and all three networks make their sponsors happy.  

The big winner is the NFL Network with a massive national audience they can showcase their product and ad subs. The network is a football fans dream and those who have not seen the product will be impressed.

(All day today the NFL will have shows about the Pats-Giants game so check it out)

How
Washington
helped make this happen…

Much has been made of the
New York
and Connecticut congressional delegations voicing their opposition to the limited coverage of the game by the NFL Network. But for over two months the man who has been speaking to the NFL and the cable company’s has been Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) a life long New England fan. It was his voice that carried the most weight in the end. 

He made it clear that if the NFL and the cable companies did not resolve

their battle over distribution of the network he would call both parties

to
Washington
for a Congressional hearing on the matter. Kerry made it

clear that with so much local money going into the building of stadiums

the NFL needed to make their games available to as large an audience as

possible. Meanwhile on the cable side of the issue Kerry wanted the

industry to find a way to work with sports leagues to act in the best

interest of the fans.