Not only has NBC lost its marquee Thanksgiving night NFL game, but the replacement window is in direct competition with games on CBS and FOX.
The NFL announced Wednesday that the Ravens-Steelers game originally scheduled for Thanksgiving night has been moved to Sunday at 1:15 PM ET due to COVID-19 concerns. The game is to remain on NBC. [Update: Ravens-Steelers has been postponed again and is now scheduled to take place Tuesday at 8:00 on NBC.]
If played as (re)scheduled, it will mark the first time in recent memory — if not ever — that three networks have carried NFL games at the same time. CBS has five 1:00 PM ET games this week and FOX three. (That will not be the case in all markets, as FOX is sending its 1:00 games to only 64% of the country.)
Postponements have resulted in several oddities in this year’s NFL schedule, including a Monday afternoon edition of Thursday Night Football and a Tuesday night game. This week’s move figures to have an adverse impact on the ratings; instead of having a primetime holiday audience to itself, NBC will further split an early game audience already divided between CBS and FOX.
NBC originally planned to have Mike Tirico call Ravens-Steelers on Thursday and Bears-Packers on Sunday. With the scheduling change, Tirico will remain on Bears-Packers while Al Michaels — who had originally been given the week off — will call Ravens-Steelers.
NBC had already planned on using different analysts and sideline reporters for the games, with Cris Collinsworth and Michele Tafoya on Ravens-Steelers and Tony Dungy and Kathryn Tappen on Bears-Packers.
As a result of the postponement, this year will mark the first time since 2005 that the NFL has not played a primetime game on Thanksgiving.
[News from NFL PR 11.25]
