During the whole Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare, we get this strange news tidbit from the National Football League that changes things around for everyone.
The late Sunday afternoon national game which had been at 4:15 p.m. since 1998 will be moved ten minutes later to 4:25 p.m. This is being done to reduce the runovers of the early 1 p.m. contests. Fans had complained about watching bonus coverage of an exciting 1 p.m. game only to get cut off at 4:10 p.m. or 4:15 p.m. in order to join the late game on time.
With the new start time, the runovers get reduced and more fans can watch the end of the 1 p.m. However, on the back end, this ensures that 60 Minutes on CBS will never start on time at 7 p.m. on doubleheader Sunday. The network might as well push its entire primetime lineup back a half-hour so it starts at 7:30 p.m. or reduce 60 Minutes to a half-hour, but that kind of defeats the purpose of calling the show, “60 Minutes” if it’s only 30 minutes, right?
Fox doesn’t have to worry about starting its primetime late because it always runs “The O.T.” during its doubleheader Sundays and that runs to 8 p.m. so “The Simpsons” always begins on time.
The regional 4:05 p.m. game that runs opposite the late national game will remain unchanged
So this is a Brave New World for fans. Here’s the NFL’s announcement.
NFL SHIFTS CBS & FOX LATE DOUBLEHEADER KICKOFF TIMES TO ENSURE MORE FOOTBALL FOR FANS
4:25 PM ET Kickoff Time Reduces Overlap With 1:00 PM Games
The kickoff time for Sunday late afternoon doubleheader games on CBS and FOX will be moved from 4:15 PM ET to 4:25 PM ET, the NFL announced today. The 4:05 PM ET kickoff time for games not on the doubleheader network will remain unchanged.
The 4:25 PM ET kickoff time will reduce instances in which fans miss the end of a 1:00 PM ET game telecast because they must receive the opening kickoff of their home team’s late-afternoon game. In addition, fans not in the cities of the late doubleheader opponents will be less likely to miss the beginning of the late doubleheader game.
In researching the kickoff time shift, the NFL analyzed games from the 2009-11 seasons and found that 44 games required part of the audience to be switched to a mandatory doubleheader game kickoff. With a 4:25 PM ET kickoff time, that number that would have been reduced by 66 percent to only 15 games.
Approximately 40 games over the full 2012 season will be impacted by the 10-minute kickoff time shift – with half of those moves coming in games played in Mountain or Pacific time zones with 1:25 PM or 2:25 PM local starts.
And we have some more big news coming up in the next post. Keep it here.
