It looks like President Obama doesn’t want any drama on the football field competing with his next big speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Sept. 6, so the NFL is moving its regular-season opener (which has been scheduled on a Thursday night since 2002) between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants to Wednesday, Sept. 5 — so as not to take away from the president’s air-time.
Obama ran into problems last year when he scheduled a speech to the joint-session of Congress for the same time slot as a Republican debate, and was persuaded by House Speaker John Boehner to move his speech to the same night as the NFL’s season opener between the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints – a scheduling conflict he was hoping to avoid. In response, NBC had to shuffle its lineup by airing their pre-game kickoff on sister channels Versus, USA, Syfy and G4, and resuming their NFL coverage after the president’s speech. This year’s kickoff will be the first Wednesday opener since 1948.
