CBS to Bring Thursday Night Football to Broadcast in 2014

CBS and Thursday Night Football, eight games in 2014

As a fan of NFL football and a thrifty consumer, I am glad to read the news today that CBS will be broadcasting eight Thursday Night Football games for the 2014 season. The games will be also air simultaneously on the NFL Network, as they have been  in the past, according to Fierce Cable.

This is a win-win both for the fan and the NFL because this means fans will not have to shell out the extra bucks just to pay for a bundle of cable channels just to watch Thursday Night Football (TNF) or go to the local sportsbar to watch their favorite team play on Thursday night. According to Zap2it, ABC also bid for the broadcast rights to eight TNF games. I think this is something that fans have been waiting for and demanding ever since the creation of TNF.

The NFL will see ratings increase for TNF which have been dismal for the NFL Network. Besides the games, I can’t imagine the casual fan tuning in to the network for much more so it is bizarre to even keep the network on-air. Its almost similar to Oprah starting the OWN network. Like football, she fairs better on broadcast.

Now if only we can get access to Monday Night Football on broadcast rather than ESPN. That is unlikely to happen due to the fact that ratings for Monday Night Football on ESPN seem to be doing very well. The highest rated TNF game was the Kansas City-Philadelphia game on September 19th, 2013 which averaged 9.4 million viewers, according to Zap2it. In comparison, the final Monday Night Football game of the 2013 regular season between the Atlanta Falcons-San Francisco 49ers on Decemeber 23rd averaged 14.1 million viewers, according to Zap2it.

According to Fierce Cable, CBS is contracted to produce eight TNF games for the 2014 season. This leaves the remainder of the games to broadcast elsewhere which will probably be the NFL Network. There were 14 TNF games during the most recent 2013 season, including the Chargers-Raiders game which aired late on the Sunday night of October, 6th, 2013. The upcoming 2014 season schedule will be announced in April.