Wild Card Scheduling

[TodMaher]

So why are the AFC games both on Saturday and the NFC games both on Sunday this year?

[JWL]

It has to be similar to why all the Thanksgiving games had NFC teams in them the past couple years. FOX can show two AFC teams facing off and CBS can show two NFC teams now.

[John Grasso]

So why are the AFC games both on Saturday and the NFC games both on Sunday this year?

So one of the winning teams can't complain about their opponent getting one more day of rest?

[Rupert Patrick]

It has to be similar to why all the Thanksgiving games had NFC teams in them the past couple years. FOX can show two AFC teams facing off and CBS can show two NFC teams now.

The early game Saturday is the ESPN game, and the early Sunday game is NBC. I think how they generally schedule the WC games is the matchup they think will yield the best combination of ratings and matchup gets the prime time Saturday night slot, and the best game from the other conference gets the late game the following afternoon. If you go back thru the history of the Saturday night WC game, it almost always features either Pittsburgh, Green Bay, Dallas or New England, or the Colts when Manning was there. I think it is now set up that whichever network is broadcasting the Super Bowl that year also gets to air that Saturday night Wild Card game, so it's going to be a good one.

I don't know if Fox and CBS swaps the rotation of the Championship game every year, but this year it seems odd that the AFC game (with number one seed Denver) is the early game with the NFC Championship (with top seed Carolina) is the late game. Usually it seems they don't schedule those until after the Divisional round once they know who is hosting the Championship games, and in almost all cases, the eastern team hosts the early game and the western team the later game.

[ChrisBabcock]

I don't know if Fox and CBS swaps the rotation of the Championship game every year, but this year it seems odd that the AFC game (with number one seed Denver) is the early game with the NFC Championship (with top seed Carolina) is the late game. Usually it seems they don't schedule those until after the Divisional round once they know who is hosting the Championship games, and in almost all cases, the eastern team hosts the early game and the western team the later game.

A few years ago when they changed that championship game times from 1:00 and 4:30 to 3:00 and 6:30 (Eastern time), they started a rotation of each conference getting the later game every other year. (and vise versa) With the new time slots, no matter where a game is held the local time at kickoff wouldn't be too early or too late. (3:00 east = noon western time) In the old format there was the slight possibility of 2 west coast teams hosting, and one would have to kickoff at 10am local time.

[Reaser]

Ratings.

My friends and I like guessing scheduling type stuff, all of us had KC-HOU as the ESPN/ABC game - easily predictable. We all then had an NFC game for Saturday night so it was surprising to see PIT-CIN.

[MatthewToy]

Do more people really watch the Saturday games more than the Sunday games?

[Rupert Patrick]

Do more people really watch the Saturday games more than the Sunday games?

I don't know about the early Saturday game, but the 8PM Saturday game does very nice ratings.

[Rupert Patrick]

I decided to go back 10 years and look at the Saturday Night Wild Card game, which if memory serves is when they moved the WC game into prime time in 2006 (other WC games that season in parenthesis):

2006 - Cowboys-Seahawks (Chiefs-Colts, Jets-Pats, Giants-Eagles)
2007 - Jaguars-Steelers (Redskins-Seahawks, Giants-Bucs, Titans-Chargers)
2008 - Colts-Chargers (Falcons-Cardinals, Ravens-Dolphins, Eagles-Vikings)
2009 - Eagles-Cowboys (Jets-Bengals, Ravens-Patriots, Packers-Cardinals)
2010 - Jets-Colts (Saints-Seahawks, Ravens-Chiefs, Packers-Eagles) [I would have went with Packers-Eagles myself, but Jets-Colts was not a bad matchup either]
2011 - Lions-Saints (Bengals-Texans, Falcons-Giants, Steelers-Broncos) [Steelers-Broncos would have been the most interesting game with Tebow, but I guess CBS fought to air that game on Sunday instead of on NBC on Saturday]
2012 - Vikings-Packers (Bengals-Texans, Colts-Ravens, Seahawks-Redskins)
2013 - Saints-Eagles (Chiefs-Colts, Chargers-Bengals, 49ers-Packers) [49ers-Packers might have been the best matchup, but I guess Fox wanted that game on Sunday]
2014 - Ravens-Steelers (Cardinals-Panthers, Bengals-Colts, Lions-Cowboys)
2015 - Bengals-Steelers (Chiefs-Texans, Seahawks-Vikings, Packers-Redskins)

It is hard not to look at these games in the context of the four WC matchups for the given season and see that in most cases the Saturday night game is arguably the most attractive matchup of the four choices.

[superbowlfanatic]

Maddog Russo said on his SiriusXM Radio show today that the League wanted to give both the Vikings and Packers a full week between games, since they played Sunday night, and not disadvantage one team by making it travel to and or play on Saturday. Plus it worked out because ESPN always gets the worst game of the four since they are low man in the network totem pole.

Food for thought.