The NFL Network has been sacked on third down, and now has to punt away its best rating ever.
Patriots/Giants on Saturday night could feature the first team to go undefeated for an entire season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The Patriots have been a ratings bonanza nearly every time they have played this season; this season alone, the team was involved in the three highest rated NFL regular season games in the past eleven years.
The NFL Network was almost guaranteed its highest ever rating on Saturday night, but will instead now fight with two broadcast networks — CBS and NBC — for viewers. While all three channels showing Patriots/Giants will be airing the NFL Network feed, this has to be considered a major defeat for the four-year-old network.
This could serve as a free preview opportunity of sorts; small samples of the NFL Network have aired on broadcast television recently, from the NFL Total Access crew working halftime of USC/Notre Dame in October to weekly NFL Network shows on ION and MyNetworkTV. This will easily be the largest audience to ever watch an NFL Network produced football game — only the vast majority of viewers will not be watching the game on NFL Network.
While the NFL Network is the big loser in this, CBS and NBC come away with a mixed victory. Both networks will gain highly rated programming this Saturday night; however, they will have to compete with each other for viewers. Had the simulcast aired on CBS or NBC alone, the rating could have risen as high as 20+. With the telecast split between the two networks, each one will be hard pressed to draw a 10.
This is not the first time CBS and NBC have shared an NFL telecast. Super Bowl I aired on both networks, with CBS drawing a 22.6/43 and NBC drawing an 18.5/36.
