0530 PT is awful early for a pregame show though, I wonder if they might just look to fit it around the London game. A little pre match then half time and there should be around half an hour after the game before the afternoon games start.


It will be their only nationally televised game that week though and you would imagine the NFL will lean on them to give it plenty of hype because this is an experiment and they would love to be able to have an extra time slot for nationally televised games. If this works you could see a game every week in this slot in future seasons.


Sunday afternoon game times aren't set that far in advance. All the games later in the season (outside the Thursday, Sunday Night and Monday national games) are just listed as 1ET if they are at teams in the Eastern or Central time zones and at 4ET if they are Western games. Fox won;t have selected which games they want to move for their double header yet (and as you say Flex scheduling will also apply by then). It is however very, very difficult to imagine that Cowboys @ Jags will be one of the top matchup in that early time slot though, whoever gets moved.

I can't see the NFL allowing the broadcasters to flex the London game, as it will be too late for us fans to get home after the game. A late afternoon game does not finish until 12:30am Sunday night / Monday morning UK time. The police and TFL London Underground would not allow it, as the underground would have closed for the night.

Even when they had the boxing at Wembley that was a Saturday night when the underground runs later, plus fans knew it could be a late finish so made plans to drive etc.

Yes, I wasn't suggesting the London game would be flexed to the late slot. I was saying that we don't know what other games will be in that early slot yet. The example of the 49ers/Saints game was given but that could well be chosen by Fox for the late afternoon slot (or flexed for the NBC Sunday night game).

All the games are broadcast regionally somewhere so there will have to be some sort of
pre-game coverage for those regions. ESPN's Monday night coverage has to
pre-empt abc programming in local markets where a local team is playing.

I'm pretty sure individual pre game coverage for the 1pm games is about 5 minutes long, they have a national pre game show covering all the games up until 1pm and then go to the announcers at the stadium to build up to the game for a couple of minutes until kick off.

Sky taking the full CBS pre-game show for Thursday Night Football, no studio coverage at all from London.

I thought it worked really well just taking the US coverage for the late night game. It helped that there was the huge Ray Rice story so it wasn't just the normal talking heads shouting at each other in between ad breaks that most US network coverage seems to be.

It must help with guest booking as well that they aren't covering Thursday games in studio any more. Now Shaun Gayle can just fly in for the one day on Sunday rather than having to be in the UK from Thursday through Sunday.

Yep, I agree with you. There's was a much better feel for what was going on in the Ray Rice story, that you wouldn't have got from a studio in London, with the CBS coverage. Will be interesting to see how next weeks pre-game goes as more of a normal guide.....an hour could be a bit long to have to listen to Cowher and Sanders spar with each other

With the way the NFL is at the moment I don't think we can count on a 'normal' show next week either. Adrian Peterson indicted for physically abusing his 4 year old son today, who knows what the breaking story will be next Thursday.

Apologies, I meant Eurosport, who have the Monday Night Football for this season. Not sure why I was thinking ESPN...!

Are there any radio stations covering the NFL this season? I know Radio 5 used to but not sure if they do any more...?

The lads in the studio are earning their money this evening. They have pictures but no audio from the stadium, so they are on commentary duties. Not doing too bad a job considering they wouldn't have prepared for it. Certainly getting on better than Mike & Nat did on C4 during their difficulties last week.

Normal service has been resumed.

Agreed. Considering it was an off tube commentary without preview graphics or stadium spotters it was pretty good.

Regarding the rest of tonight's coverage, I'm not a keen on interrupting the game for Redzone highlights. I'd prefer it if they would wait until commercials, injury timeouts etc. It's not conducive to absorbing yourself in the game when the host commentators are just cut off mid speech. I think Redzone is great but keep it on it's own channel and the game on another, interrupting it only when a natural break allows.

Think you've got it spot on, for me it's largely been unwatchable tonight. The constant flicking to red zone during drives, especially in the fourth quarter, has just wrecked the flow.

Tonight there have been points when they've shown the main game, times when they've cut away for red zone highlights, cut away and stuck with red zone for a couple of minutes, had red zone and the main game in a split screen, cut away to red zone for a couple of minutes but had Neil commentating and had a split screen with Neil commentating on both.

They need to go back to the tried and tested main game with red zone behind the red button and occasional updates during full breaks in play and tv timeouts

That's even without mentioning the time when they cut away after 2nd down to a break and missed 3rd down and the punt away!

Old format then switch to more redzone once the main game is no longer competitive; not rocket science.

I've been on RedZone the whole evening so haven't seen any of this but it sounds awful. I thought Sky would have learned from the last time they tried to experiment that RedZone on the main channel doesn't work.

I see they've now added the NFL Network pre-game show on Thursday at 11pm, to be followed at 12.30 by the CBS pre-game show.

Agree that Red Zone should only be used in the main game coverage where there are natural breaks.

I tend to find the whole Sky studio presentation tedious nowadays when compared to the College Football coverage on ESPN.

Is the Red Zone still not in HD, and when Sky was going from the studio to Red Zone was that in HD? They may be responding to fans who would rather watch as many games as possible (especially as they are finishing), rather than the guys in the studio. I don't hate the concept, so long as they can handle it fairly smoothly and don't miss anything from the main game they are showing. Unless it's a blowout, as someone else mentioned above.

The RedZone is on the red button and Sky don't seem (to be able?) to put HD on the red button.

t

and why do sky do their own studio update, when the main game cut back to 'the studio' for game break updates?

Because the alternative would be watching a camera fixed on nothing happening in silence.

Sky (and C4) take the same feed from the stadium that the US broadcast centres do, which is where they insert their studio coverage (as well as the tickers at the bottom of the screen, commercials, and the virtual first down line and graphics for CBS games other than their top one).

When you see a preview of the half time show on Fox games it is because it is prerecorded and played on site.

I understood the question to mean why, when in the Fox/CBS game we're watching, the commentators says, "Let's go to New York for an update", and they presumably show a just-happened highlight from another game, are UK viewers instead shown the Sky studio? I presume it's because Sky don't have the rights to the US studio coverage, or else there is a reason (e.g. product placement) why they don't.

So did I, which is why I thought I had explained why we do not see their updates, what we would see instead, and so why Sky have to add their own.

There are no rights issues; they are part of the broadcast whose rights are owned and sold by the NFL. Nor Ofcom ones; the undue prominence product placement rules do not apply on live imported broadcasts, and the NFL do not allow sponsorship of in-game elements anyway. It is because the feed does not include then.

Thanks for the explanation. Any idea why the UK feed excludes the gamebreak highlights?

I would guess because international broadcasters take the feed from the stadiums rather than New York (or wherever CBS/Fox are based)?

That's my understanding. Many years ago someone e-mailed in to the programme on this topic.

Nick Halling (shows how long ago it was) explained about stadium feeds etc