The Cleveland Browns recently had their game against the Bills moved to Detroit due to more than 70 inches of snow falling in Buffalo. 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland hosts Ken Carman and Anthony Lima discussed whether that game being moved and allowing fans to attend with discounted tickets was a test balloon for future NFL scheduling changes.
“I am worried that the NFL is basically gonna have an open slate in terms of a schedule for the last four weeks of the season,” Lima said. “I’m worried the league will say “We’re worried making sure these games meet this threshold of if the game is a big game and a lot of eyeballs are on it’.
“And because they just demonstrated that they can not only move the time of a game, but they’ve moved the dates of games because of COVID. They’ve never done what they just did: Move a game and have 55,000 people attend the game. What that makes me nervous about is it gives the NFL the thought of ‘How can we maximize our television ratings late in the year and make sure we don’t have dog games in the late stages and bring the most value to our partners.'”
Lima then said he envisioned a scenario where the station had events planned in Cincinnati before a Sunday game at 1:00 PM but at the last minute was told the game had been moved to Monday Night Football. Carman asked if two weeks was enough time to prepare in advance.
“I’m just telling you, I can see this coming for the NFL,” Lima concluded.
