The Kansas Metropolis Chiefs and two-time MVP Patrick Mahomes have develop into the NFL’s hottest attraction for tv audiences.
If the announcement of the 2024 schedule — which sees the Chiefs taking part in each day of the week besides Tuesday — was not proof sufficient, NFL broadcast planning vp Mike North made the purpose clear throughout a media name on Thursday morning.
“They’re Cowboys-level belongings proper now,” he mentioned of the Chiefs. “Figuring out that everyone’s going get a sure variety of them, having the ability to pull two Kansas Metropolis video games out of the combination, put them in a TBD-black field sort of holding spot for the Saturday-Wednesday spherical robin on the finish, we needed to be sure that we nonetheless felt like we may ship high quality Kansas Metropolis stock to NBC.”
Because the NFL got here to phrases with Netflix — which needed Kansas Metropolis as a part of its debut bundle on Christmas Day — schedule-makers needed to remember to appease its acquainted companions. North mentioned that to do this, for instance, NBC was given three Chiefs video games. These included the season-opener (additionally an AFC Championship rematch) and two “Sunday Evening Soccer” video games.
The league gave ESPN the Chiefs for 2 “Monday Evening Soccer” video games.
“They get a few them; they get a division winner in Tampa Bay coming,” North mentioned of the ESPN bundle. “[ESPN] goes twice to Arrowhead, which is such an unimaginable expertise and venue for our video games. Amazon’s getting one — and so they actually have been hoping to see that deployed on Black Friday as they attempt to proceed to construct that out.
“FOX [gets] Kansas Metropolis-San Francisco. FOX solely getting one Kansas Metropolis — getting possibly the most effective Kansas Metropolis, arguably, sort of scratches at it for them. That also leaves behind eight Kansas Metropolis [games] for CBS, for [Jim] Nantz and [Tony] Romo.”
The Chiefs are actually in such excessive demand that the league can solely do the most effective it could to fulfill its broadcast companions. North appeared happy with this yr’s end result, acknowledging there was no option to make it good.
“Was everyone over the moon? Possibly not. Possibly FOX was,” he mentioned. “It’s a slim needle to string, and it was one of many issues we actually attacked early within the course of, to verify if we have been gonna embrace Kansas Metropolis within the Christmas spherical robin, that there was going to be sufficient high quality and depth for all the opposite companions for the remainder of the season.”
The Chiefs… Cowboys-level belongings. America’s staff, certainly.
