The National Football League is in the midst of its owners meetings, a place where many key decisions pertaining to the future of the league are made. One of the key items of business was to vote for flex scheduling with Thursday Night Football, and it is now being reported that the motion has passed 24-8.
The move will give Thursday Night Football the ability to flex games between Weeks 13 through 17, joining NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football as national broadcast entities with that privilege.
Amazon Prime Video is entering its second year broadcasting NFL games exclusively on its OTT streaming platform. The proposal had been presented at the owners’ meeting in March, but it fell two votes short of being passed.
While the proposal has been met with disdain by players and some media critics, few doubted that it would pass. As has been pointed out before, flex scheduling is largely about keeping media partners happy after they sign checks worth billions in order to broadcast NFL games.
Andrew Marchand of the New York Post pointed out last month that flex scheduling doesn’t necessarily guarantee more marquee matchups on Thursday nights. Amazon is fifth in the pecking order for selecting the game it wants each week.
