The 2012-13 NFL season will begin one day earlier thanks to the Democratic National Convention.
The NFL Kickoff Game will take place on Wednesday, September 5 instead of Thursday, September 6, the NFL announced Tuesday. The move will allow the Kickoff Game to avoid taking place on the same night as President Barack Obama‘s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.
In 2008, the NFL Kickoff Game took place on the same night as Senator John McCain‘s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, but moved up from 8:30 PM ET to 7 PM ET to accommodate NBC News coverage of the event.
The result was the second-lowest rated and second-least viewed NFL Kickoff Game of all time (dates back to 2002), as only 13.5 million viewers watched the Giants take on Washington — less than half of the audience for the last two Kickoff Games (over 27 million in both 2010 and 2011).
Clearly, the league perceived Wednesday at 8:30 PM as being a far better option than Thursday at 7 PM.
(Tuesday’s news from NFL press release via Fang’s Bites)
