You’ve got to hand it to the NFL; the league rings every last droplet of value out of its product. It was announced on Tuesday that the defending champion Los Angeles Rams will host the Denver Broncos on Christmas Day. The NFL has released the dates and times of nine games for the upcoming season so far. (Give it five minutes and two more games might be unveiled.) The gradual striptease is leading up to the full schedule release on Thursday, May 12.
Think about this for a second. Let’s start with the fact that the full NFL schedule reveal is an event. It partially makes sense (because the NFL is so popular). At the same time, it makes no sense whatsoever (because it’s a freakin’ schedule release for crying out loud). What’s important is that the NFL doesn’t think, “Hey, this is great for us,” and leave it at that. The league thinks, “How can we get even more value out it?”
That’s winning thinking.
It reminds me of something sports radio veteran Rick Scott once told me. He said, “You know, Brian, you make a little tweak here, a little change there, and pretty soon you’ve got a great radio station.” It works the same way with the NFL. The league certainly doesn’t get everything right, but it doesn’t leave any meat on the bone when it comes to maximizing value.
The NFL will offer five international games this season, including the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Germany. Not only has the league committed to playing more games in new places, but it also released the dates of those games prior to the full schedule reveal. That’s a double dose of maximizing value.
| 2022 NFL International Games | ||||
| Week 4 | Oct. 2 | Vikings-Saints | London | Tottenham Hotspur Stadium |
| Week 5 | Oct. 9 | Giants-Packers | London | Tottenham Hotspur Stadium |
| Week 8 | Oct. 30 | Broncos-Jaguars | London | Wembley Stadium |
| Week 10 | Nov. 13 | Seahawks-Buccaneers | Germany | Allianz Arena |
| Week 11 | Nov. 21 | 49ers-Cardinals | Mexico City | Estadio Azteca |
We also know that the Chiefs will host the Chargers on Sept. 15 to begin the new era of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video. In Week 2, there will be a Monday Night Football doubleheader featuring Titans-Bills followed by Vikings-Eagles on Sept. 19. No word on the date of that monstrous Jags-Lions tilt yet. We’ll have to wait until Thursday.
What the NFL is doing with its gradual schedule release is actually work and life advice. It’s a PSA on the importance of maximizing value. We should always look for creative ways to connect with people in our work and personal lives.
I sat down with the guys from The Mac Attack in Charlotte for a Q&A last week. Morning host Chris McClain told me something interesting about widening your reach as a host.
“You’ve got to have content out there all the time,” McClain said. “We grew up in an era where you’re doing a four-hour show. They call it your shift in radio. ‘Hey, how did your shift go?’ I’ve got to get out of that mindset. We’ve got to have stuff that is recycled throughout the day on social media. Anything extra you can do. We like doing a lot of videos that let people laugh at us a little bit. That’s the one thing we’ve got to keep getting better at. You can be in people’s lives and minds all the time. It doesn’t just have to be that four hours.”
Amen to that. Some hosts work really hard to deliver a good show. It blows my mind that a lot of that hard work can be completely wasted if a portion of the audience isn’t listening in real time. If you cooked a great meal, but many people couldn’t make it for dinner, how would they know if it was a good meal or not? They would have no idea.
That’s how it works in radio. If some of the audience can’t make it for the meal, you have to take the meal to them. Post stuff. Be where they are. Deliver your highlights to them. You can either throw away the uneaten meal you worked so hard on, or you can package it up and place it on the doorstep of your audience.
The gradual NFL schedule release also shows us the importance of staying in front of people. The league could unveil the entire schedule in one day and leave it at that. Instead, releasing it gradually keeps the league in the headlines. It’s content that leads to discussions and staying on people’s minds.
That’s how digital should work for radio hosts. Like Mac in Charlotte said, it’s important to get out of the radio shift mindset. We can’t operate in four-hour radio chunks anymore. We have access to our audience 24 hours a day through digital. It would be crazy not to take advantage of that. The NFL definitely doesn’t waste any opportunities to stay top of mind. Why should we?
Another thing the NFL does well; the league finds out what their audience likes and gives them more of it. The NFL is like, “Oh, you like this schedule release thing? Well, let’s give you more of it spaced out over multiple days. Oh, you enjoy the NFL Draft? Let’s spread that out over three days. Oh, you love Christmas Day football? Well, let’s give you a tripleheader this year.”
The Browns-Packers game on Christmas Day last year averaged 28.6 million viewers on FOX. Twenty freakin’ eight point six million freakin’ viewers. Good Lord. The Colts-Cardinals nightcap averaged 12.6 million viewers on NFL Network. That was the second-highest viewed game in network history. NBA commissioner Adam Silver just fainted.
The NBA has played games on Christmas Day since 1947. The NFL doesn’t care. The NFL pulled a gangster move in 2021 and is doubling down this year. I’m sorry, tripling down. Roger Goodell and the team owners are kingpins that went to their rival’s turf, started selling their own product and said deal with it. The takeaway for radio people is to find out what’s working with the audience, and hammer it even further. Sell more of what your audience is buying.
The NFL’s approach is a great lesson; don’t let anything go to waste. That’s a great philosophy in radio too. How can this segment be better? Where can we distribute the best parts of the show? How can I connect with my audience on social media? The NFL is constantly thinking that way. If the NFL hosted a radio show, it wouldn’t just crack the mic during the show and call it a day. It would be hustling to promote and stay top of mind. The most popular league in the country sees the importance of staying in front of its audience and maximizing value. It’s a pretty good idea for you to take the same approach.
Brian Noe is a columnist for BSM and an on-air host heard nationwide on FOX Sports Radio’s Countdown To Kickoff. Previous roles include stops in Portland, OR, Albany, NY and Fresno, CA. You can follow him on Twitter @TheNoeShow or email him at bnoe@premierenetworks.com.
