NBC Sports play by play voice Mike Tirico has some suggestions on how the NFL can avoid bad matchups for key windows late in the season. Tirico, the voice of Sunday Night Football on NBC Sports, suggested on the Dan Patrick Show for the league to stop locking in network broadcast windows late in the season. Instead, he argues, let the games — and their stakes — earn those slots closer to kickoff.
What We Know: The NFL releases its full schedule each May, assigning specific game times and network windows months before teams take a snap. However, that approach creates a predictable problem. The league’s best windows sometimes get stuck with its worst games. Especially late in the season. The NFL’s Sunday regional windows having long been the foundation of the league’s appeal. However, the league has begun to alter the approach. While decreasing the number of Sunday afternoon games, the NFL has been increasing the number of standalone windows. Excluding Thursday Night Football and Monday Night Football. There will be 23 standalone windows this coming year, up from 15 last year.
What They Said: NBC Sports Mike Tirico on how the NFL can help ensure television windows remain attractive late in the season: “There are weeks it gets thin. There are weeks towards the end it gets thin. To avoid it getting thin, what I would suggest is that the league does what the Premier League does. Here’s who you’re playing December 13. We’re not going to assign starting times with TV networks until like a month out. So, we’ll know that in those individual windows there are good games, because bad games in individual windows hurt the product.”
Mike Tirico explained how he would approach game windows specifically: “I would put the week 12-14-16 schedule, just like the last week of the season. Let’s wait. We don’t have to do it a week before, three or four weeks before. You’re the Sunday night, you’re the Monday night, Sunday afternoon, Saturday afternoon. That’s the way I think the individual windows can still maintain significance. Have a good four pack at 1pm, three pack at 4:30pm and go from there.”
What Remains Unclear: The NFL has not responded publicly to Tirico’s proposal. However, NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North recently told ESPN’s Peter Schrager that the added amount of added prime time, holiday, international, and added Saturday games doesn’t 100% water down the quality of the Sunday product on network broadcast TV. The key phrase is “doesn’t 100%.” Moreover, he put the responsibility on the teams themselves. To prove they warrant more consideration for a primetime like audience despite playing at 1:00pm.
“Obviously none of us know anything, right? These games will be played in five months, seven months. There’s always something at one o’clock that matters. There’s always a team that maybe didn’t get all the prime time games they hoped for,” says North via The Schrager Hour podcast. If they have a lot of Sunday one o’clock, keep winning. If your record reflects it, your footprint on Sunday grows from 10% to 20% to 40%. You can get up to 60-70% Sunday at one o’clock that’s comparable to a primetime game.”
The other key point is it remains to be seen whether the league’s broadcast partners would broadly support delaying full window designation more than the final week of the season. The May schedule release has become a major promotional event for the NFL. Consequently, any structural shift would require buy-in from multiple stakeholders.
What It Means: Tirico’s idea carries real weight precisely because he sits inside the system. He is not a critic lobbying from the outside. Rather, he’s the voice of the league’s top weekly NFL broadcast. Tirico has a firsthand view of what happens when a marquee window draws a bad game. Moreover, his push to protect individual windows — not just primetime — signals a broader concern about late-season product quality across all dayparts. The current model locks in partners early. Tirico’s suggestion locks in better football.
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John Mamola is Barrett Media’s sports editor and daily sports columnist. He brings over two decades of experience (Chicago, Tampa/St Petersburg) in the broadcast industry with expertise in brand management, sales, promotions, producing, imaging, hosting, talent coaching, talent development, web development, social media strategy and design, video production, creative writing, partnership building, communication/networking with a long track record of growth and success. He is a five-time recognized top 20 program director in a major market via Barrett Medi’s Top 20 series and has been honored internally multiple times as station/brand of the year (Tampa, FL) and employee of the month (Tampa, FL) by iHeartMedia. Connect with John by email at John@BarrettMedia.com.
