What’s going on with the network lineups this year? I swore before it was cbs covering afc games except for when the visitor was nfc where Fox covered. Now I’m seeing afc matchups on fox and nfc matchups on cbs. Maybe I’m tripping. Why are we on fox?
The 2023 schedule will be the first one that wipes out the traditional connection between CBS and the AFC, and Fox and the NFC.
www.nbcsports.com
Basically with the new TV contracts kicking in this year, the NFL publicly has suggested that the whole NFC/FOX, CBS/AFC dynamic isn't a thing anymore. To be honest, its kind of like TV blackouts for local markets... it just never made any sense to begin with.
However, as noted by the actual schedule itself, its still largely a balance towards the traditional...
So much for every Sunday afternoon NFL game being a free agent between CBS and Fox.
www.nbcsports.com
What's funny is if you look at the schedule this week in particular, there's two games that are "misaligned":
Browns @ Ravens is at 1pm on FOX, where Atlanta @ Arizona is at 4pm on CBS. You would think they could just swap those networks, and then the "tradition" would hold.
However based on the time slots, if they did that, CBS would have four 1pm games, and FOX would only have two. Whereas FOX would then have three 4pm games, and CBS would only have one.
I would imagine the reason they're loosening is to avoid one network dominating the # of games within a certain time slot and within certain regions. By doing this, they now have six 1pm games, and four 4pm games, with each network splitting equally in each time slot.
bleacherreport.com
