Flex Scheduling

The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games in the United States are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any sport in the world. Television brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, National Football League broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income.

Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. Since 1998, regionally shown regular season games on Sunday afternoons have been televised on CBS and Fox, which primarily carry games of AFC and NFC teams respectively (the conference of the away team generally determines the broadcaster of an inter-conference game). Nationally televised regular season games on Sunday and Monday nights have aired on NBC and ESPN, respectively, since 2006. ABC has also aired selected ESPN-produced regular season games since 2020. In addition, a "flexible scheduling" policy allows the league to reschedule select Sunday afternoon and Sunday night games to different time slots and/or reassign them to different networks regardless of conference in the second half of the season. Since the 2023 season, select Monday night and Thursday Night games are now also subject to flexible scheduling. During the postseason, ESPN/ABC airs two or three games, NBC airs two–four games, while CBS and Fox air the rest of the AFC and NFC games, respectively. The Super Bowl is currently rotated annually among CBS, Fox, NBC, and ABC/ESPN.

With games airing on CBS, NBC, Fox, and ESPN/ABC, the NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies (Paramount Global, NBCUniversal, Fox Corporation, and The Walt Disney Company (majority ownership, with Hearst Communications owning the remaining ownership of ESPN Inc.) that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. These four broadcasters paid a combined total of US$110 billion to air games from 2023 to 2033. They previously paid a combined total of $39.6 billion to air games between 2014 and 2022.

NFL preseason telecasts are more in line with the other major sports leagues' regular-season telecasts: preseason telecasts are more locally produced, usually by a local affiliate of one of the above terrestrial television networks. Some preseason games will air nationally, however. Under the NFL's anti-siphoning rules for cable games, these stations usually will air simulcasts of ESPN and/or NFL Network games in their local markets if the local team is playing.

Overview of schedule

The NFL regular season begins in the second weekend in September (the weekend after Labor Day in the United States) and ends in mid-January. Each team plays 17 games during an 18-week period. Typically, the majority of each week's games are played on Sunday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon games are televised regionally, where the particular game available on local television will depend on where the viewer is located, and begin at either 1:00 p.m., 4:05 p.m., or 4:25 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition, there are usually single nationally televised games each on Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night (most weeks). These primetime games are broadcast across the country over one national over-the-air broadcast, cable network (or one broadcast and one cable network for MNF Split DH), or streaming service, where there are no regional restrictions, nor any other competing NFL contest.

All playoff games, the Super Bowl and the Pro Bowl are held on either Saturday, Sunday or Monday in January and February, and either in the afternoon or in primetime. These are also treated like primetime regular season games, televised across the country over a national network or streaming service with no regional restrictions or any other competing NFL game.

Scheduling during the NFL preseason is more lenient in that most games usually start based on local time. Thus, games on the West Coast are usually played after 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time (10:00 p.m. Eastern Time). However, the handful of primetime, nationally televised preseason games are still played at approximately 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Current broadcasting contracts

The television rights to the NFL are the most expensive rights of not only any American sport, but any American entertainment property. With the fragmentation of audiences due to the increased specialization of broadcast and cable television networks, sports remain one of the few entertainment properties that not only can guarantee a large and diversified audience, but one that will watch live broadcasts.

The Super Bowl often ranks among the most watched shows of the year. Four of Nielsen Media Research's top 10 programs of all time are Super Bowls. Networks have purchased a share of the broadcasting rights to the NFL as a means of raising the entire network's profile.

The NFL distributes television revenue (as well as all revenue from League sponsorship and licensing deals, and 34% of all gate receipts) to all teams equally, regardless of performance. each team receives $255 million annually from the league's television contracts, up 150% from $99.9 million in 2010. Under the current television contracts, which began during the 2022 season, regular season games are broadcast on seven networks: Prime Video, CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC and the NFL Network. As of July 2023 national media revenue made up around 67% of the league's total football-related revenue according to Forbes.

Since the 2012 NFL season, the major networks have invested more in audio description due to FCC guidelines ramping up the requirements of opening up the second audio program audio channel to access audio description, which is also used by some networks to provide Spanish language audio of their primetime programming. Therefore, all of the NFL's broadcasting partners have added Spanish language audio commentary of games, either through a separate channel or over the SAP channel.

ESPN simulcasts ''Monday Night Football'' with Spanish-language commentary and graphics over ESPN Deportes and has since the move of ''MNF'' to ESPN in 2006, though its ABC simulcasts of games do carry the ESPN Deportes commentary over SAP on ABC. In 2017 and 2018, the Spanish-language coverage was also simulcast on ESPN2 during the first two months of the season. In the 2020-21 playoffs and every playoffs since, ESPN Deportes also aired an AFC Divisional Playoff game and the AFC Championship Game.

NBC's sister Spanish-language cable network mun2 (which rebranded as Universo in 2015) began to simulcast select Sunday Night Football games in the 2014 season as part of the new television contract, while its Spanish-language counterpart Telemundo Deportes provides the branding for NBC's SAP Spanish commentary.

Fox's Spanish-language sports network Fox Deportes began broadcasting select Fox games, including the playoffs and Super Bowl XLVIII in Spanish during the 2013 season. Super Bowl LI for Fox featured Spanish audio exclusive to Fox Deportes, without a SAP component over-the-air.

CBS, which lacked any Spanish language outlets prior to the 2019 remerger ( Trés is legally part of the family, but is a cable channel), still uses solely SAP for its Spanish simulcasts. It relied on ESPN Deportes to simulcast Super Bowl 50, LIII and LV in Spanish, though it still carried Spanish SAP audio on the CBS broadcast of the game.

NFL finished new contract negotiations for its media rights deals for $110 billion over 11 years on March 18, 2021. In the new contracts, ABC will be eligible to air the Super Bowl for the first time since Super Bowl XL in 2006. Starting 2022, Amazon will be the new home for ''Thursday Night Football''. Amazon is now the first and only streaming service to own full rights over a package of NFL games.

The new 2021 contract also includes the agreement for ESPN+ to stream one exclusive national game each year starting with the 2022 NFL season. Starting in 2023 NFL Season, ESPN/ABC will broadcast a wild-card game and a divisional playoff game, flexible scheduling will also be added to ''Monday Night Football'' for Week 12 and beyond.

These current deals have an opt-out clause after the 2029 season, with the exception for ESPN/ABC's contract, whose opt-out clause is after the 2030 season.

Sunday regional games

AFC and NFC packages

Since 1970, the regional Sunday games (1 p.m. "early" and 4:05/4:25 p.m. "late" games Eastern time) have been split into AFC and NFC "packages." Each package is held by a single network: CBS has held the AFC package since 1998, and Fox has held the NFC package since 1994. These packages include Sunday afternoon games during each week of the regular season, a single game for each network on Thanksgiving, wild card playoff games, divisional playoff games, and the respective conference championship game for each network.

In 1970, when the NFL and AFL merged, and home blackouts were put into place for AFC games (some AFL teams had lifted these during its run; as an example, most New York Jets' home games in 1968 and 1969 were telecast on WNBC-TV New York); this assured that all Sunday afternoon road games would be seen on the same network.

Classification as A, B, or C games

The Sunday games are classified as "A", "B", or "C" games. "A" games are usually the primary game for each network (1:00 ET for Eastern and Central time zone or 4:05 ET for Mountain and Pacific time zone games in a single-game week), and if the network has a doubleheader, is typically the 4:25 ET game. "B" games are typically the primary 1:00 ET game when the network has a doubleheader, or the secondary game if the network has a single game. "C" games are only shown in the playing teams' markets, and in some cases, markets where the game may be of interest to a local audience (due to playoff implications, rivalries, or a locally popular player/coach).

Market size and team success plays a huge factor in determining the level of games. For example, Green Bay has a city population of 105,000, one of the smallest for a city with a sports team. But the Packers usually have the "A" or "B" game because of their long history and almost unparalleled success. (The team is actually two markets for the NFL policy; Milwaukee is the other primary market for the team. The team before played selected games in Milwaukee, including an NFL Championship Game held in the infield of the Milwaukee Mile.) The Dallas Cowboys (due to that team's national popularity regardless of on-the-field play) and a team or player that has had recent success (such as the New England Patriots during that team's success when Bill Belichick was the Head Coach, then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers following Tom Brady's departure from New England in 2020) or more recently the Kansas City Chiefs during that team's success under Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and head coach Andy Reid since 2021) have typically been shown in the national doubleheader timeslot for ratings purposes, despite affiliate requests to show a team that may have more appeal locally; these games are typically decided by the NFL and CBS or Fox, depending on who has the doubleheader that week.

Interconference games

For interconference games, the visiting team generally determines which network is assigned for the game: an AFC team at NFC team game is typically assigned to CBS, and an NFC at AFC game is generally given to Fox. This allows both Fox and CBS affiliates in a team's primary market to carry games from the team during the season.

After a Broncos-Vikings game was moved to Fox in 2011 because of Fox having a lack of games as a result of an NFL flexible scheduling policy ('' see below''), the NFL permanently instituted a "cross-flex" policy in 2014, allowing Fox games to be moved to CBS and CBS games moved to Fox.

On occasion, both of a team's home interconference games are played in prime time, depriving the opposite conference's network of any games involving the team. This happened in to the Los Angeles Rams, to the Indianapolis Colts, to the Houston Oilers, to both the Buffalo Bills and San Diego Chargers, and to the Miami Dolphins, to the New England Patriots, to the Baltimore Ravens, to the Atlanta Falcons, to the Arizona Cardinals, to the New Orleans Saints and to the Houston Texans, Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs. In the 1997 Dolphins' case, their home game against the Chicago Bears had been initially slated for Fox, but was moved to Monday night due to Game 7 of the World Series that was played on Sunday night. In the 2015 Cardinals' case, their home game against the Cincinnati Bengals had been initially slated for CBS, but was moved to Sunday night on NBC via flexible scheduling which marks the first time since 1997 that a team's home interconference game was moved to primetime after their other interconference game was already scheduled for primetime.

The Arizona Cardinals, Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints and New York Giants, all NFC teams, also had both their home interconference games in prime time, but aired at least once on CBS regardless: the Cardinals appeared on ''Thursday Night Football'' in Week 5 at the San Francisco 49ers, the Lions appeared in their traditional Thanksgiving Day game against the Chicago Bears, the Saints had their games against the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers crossflexed from Fox, and the Giants had their games against the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys crossflexed from Fox.

The Seattle Seahawks did not appear on NBC in their inaugural season of , nor did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in , despite neither playing a single prime time game. In 1976, Seattle played in the NFC West and played their sole interconference game at Tampa Bay (thus on CBS), whereas, in 1977, the teams swapped conferences, so Tampa Bay played in the NFC Central and played their sole interconference game at Seattle (thus on CBS). Seattle would later return to the NFC West in 2002.

In addition to the above, a few teams prior to the 2002 realignment had their sole home interconference game played in prime time. From 1978–2001, this happened in to the Detroit Lions, Buffalo Bills and Houston Oilers, to the Miami Dolphins and Dallas Cowboys, to the Minnesota Vikings and to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Additionally, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the only NFL team to complete a perfect season, did not appear on CBS; their lone interconference home game vs. the St. Louis Cardinals was broadcast on ''Monday Night Football'', and Super Bowl VII was broadcast by NBC.

In addition, the team's home stadium would not make an appearance on either CBS or Fox due to interconference home games being crossflexed, this happened in to the Oakland Raiders, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, to both the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, to the San Francisco 49ers, to the Tennessee Titans, to the Los Angeles Chargers and to the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills. Both interconference and intraconference games may be cross-flexed to protect both networks.

Doubleheaders and single games

Three games (with some contractual exceptions, see below) are broadcast in any one market each Sunday morning/afternoon, with one network being allocated a "doubleheader" each week:
*A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) "early" game and a 4:25 p.m. ET (1:25 p.m. PT) "late" game

While the other network broadcasts ''either'':
*A 1:00 p.m. ET (10:00 a.m. PT) game, or
*A 4:05 p.m. ET (1:05 p.m. PT) game

Start times

Since 1998, early games have the precise, official start time of 1:01 p.m. ET, which allows for one network commercial and the NFL broadcast copyright teaser animation. However, game times are generally advertised simply as 1 p.m. starts. In addition, the league revised the late games to start at 4:05 p.m. ET if it was the only game televised by the network that week and to begin at 4:15 p.m. ET (moved to 4:25 p.m. ET in ) if it was part of a doubleheader. The additional 20 (10 prior to 2012) minutes for doubleheaders allowed the early games extra time to be shown to completion, and avoid continuing past the late game's scheduled kickoff. For single games, the start of 5 minutes past the hour allows the network time for a short introduction (as three hours had passed since the pre-game show has aired) and one commercial break before kickoff. In those cases, there is no need to avoid early-game overlap as there is no early game shown. In addition, it allows those games to end earlier. This is especially important for CBS, which wants to air ''60 Minutes'' at 7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT, or as close to that time as possible, in Eastern and Central time markets which receive only a single late game.

Time zone rules

Sunday afternoon games in the Mountain and Pacific time zones are always scheduled for 2:05 or 2:25 p.m. Mountain Time and 1:05 or 1:25 p.m. Pacific Time. No games before 12:00 p.m. MT (2 p.m. ET) are ever scheduled, partly to avoid conflict with religious services in those cities; Denver had three noon MT kickoffs at Mile High Stadium late in the 1972 season, but the experiment was never repeated.

Doubleheader allotments

Beginning with the introduction of the 17-game season, Fox and CBS each have eight doubleheader weeks during the season between weeks 2 and 17 with both networks having the doubleheader for weeks 1 and 18 (in 2024 those weeks have changed to weeks 15 and 18). These are not necessarily alternating weeks; one network may have two or rarely three or four consecutive doubleheaders; this only occurs when one network has doubleheader weeks 2 and 3 after both networks had the doubleheader in week 1, in weeks 16 and 17, and then both networks have doubleheaders week 18 or in the 2024 case a single network having it in weeks 15–18 (with both networks having it in weeks 15 and 18); has happened to Fox 2019 and CBS in 2018.

Fox requests to carry a doubleheader on a Sunday it airs a Championship Series or a World Series game if a Sunday game is being played (typically Game 2, 5 or 7 for the World Series and Game 1 for the championship series) and uses the featured 4:25 game as a lead-in for the baseball playoffs (though in 1996, 2001, 2005, 2014, 2019 and 2020 and all years since 2022 (due to no Sunday World Series game due to the expansion of the MLB Postseason) Fox did not have a doubleheader on the day it broadcast of the World Series). Since 2022, Fox instead requests that Game 1 of its respective league championship series would air in this post NFL slot.

During weeks 1 and 18, both networks are given doubleheaders; this has been the case since 2021 for week 1 and 2006 for the final week of the regular season. From 1990 through 2005, one network received nine doubleheaders during the 17-week season, and the other network received eight (except 1993, when CBS and NBC each received nine in an 18-week regular season).

Doubleheader allotments were often assigned with restrictions because of other network commitments. This happened during Finals Sunday of the U.S. Open tennis championships (September) (CBS, week 1 1976, '82, '85–'87, '89–'90, '99 and again 2001–2014; week 2 1979–81, '83–'84, '88, '91–93, '98, '00), or Major League Baseball playoffs in October (NBC, typically during League Championship Series from 1976 to 1989, and again in 1996 and 1997, World Series 1978 to 1984, when Sunday games were afternoon games, CBS, League Championship Series, 1990 to 1993 and Fox, League Division Series 2001 and League Championship Series from 2002 to 2006 and again in 2012). During these weeks, the restricted conference's teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones could not play at home during the weekend in question, unless they either hosted an interconference game or were scheduled in prime time (regardless of opponent). The rule was effectively eliminated by the new cross-flex rule in 2014, meaning the NFL could apply the new rule and assign games that would be on the restricted network to the other network. In 1991 (Charleston, South Carolina market) and 1995 (Rochester, New York market), NBC did not allow their games to be played in the early slot (1:00 p.m. ET) in order to cover the final day of matches in golf's Ryder Cup (no restrictions in 1993 because the matches would end before 5:30 p.m. local time, or 12:30 p.m. ET).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the league had to accommodate similar broadcasting conflicts when two men's major golf championships were postponed to the fall. The league gave Fox one late game in Week 2, Washington Football Team at Arizona Cardinals, to allow viewers to see the conclusion of the U.S. Open on Fox Sports 1 September 20. Rights to the golf tournament were later transferred to NBC, whose single primetime window for football rendered the point moot. Similarly with the final round of The Masters rescheduled for November 15, CBS was not given any early games in Week 10.

NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone

NFL Sunday Ticket is a subscription-based package that allows out of market regional games to be watched in full. Due to contractual reasons, national and in-market games are unavailable on the service. Sunday Ticket is also typically subject to the same blackout rules as local broadcasts. Starting with the 2023 NFL regular season, YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels, will offer NFL Sunday Ticket. It will be exclusive to YouTube in the US and available on streaming devices, mobile apps, smart TVs, as well as most web browsers.
Satellite broadcast company DirecTV previously offered Sunday Ticket from the inception of the product in 1994 until the end of the 2022 regular season.

In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket is available via the streaming service DAZN and traditional cable and satellite providers.

A similar service is generally available on NFL GamePass (distributed by DAZN since 2023) outside of the US, China and Canada. Blackout and other restrictions vary on an individual country basis due to network exclusivities.

NFL RedZone is a premium network featuring whip-around coverage of regular season Sunday afternoon games in progress. The channel prides itself on showing "every touchdown from every game" using simulcasts from the relevant CBS and FOX feeds. It is available on many cable, streaming, and satellite providers in the United States, as well as several international services.

Sunday local market policies

Regular season Sunday afternoon games aired on CBS and Fox are distributed to affiliates by means of regional coverage. Each individual game is only broadcast to selected media markets. The NFL imposes several television and blackout policies to maximize ratings and optimize stadium attendances.

Primary markets

Several factors determine which games are carried in each market. Each of the 32 NFL teams is assigned a "primary market" which is the metropolitan area where the club is located. Most teams also have a selected number of secondary markets. Secondary markets - which are almost exclusively non-NFL cities and towns - can be of any size, and are typically defined by an area where any part of the market falls within 75 miles of an NFL stadium. Small markets that have no clubs tend to strongly associate with geographically nearby or particularly relevant teams, but may fall outside of a 100-mile radius, are not necessarily an officially designated secondary markets by the NFL. Generally, games are aired in the primary and secondary markets as follows:
* All away games are aired in the primary and secondary markets. This is a gesture to old policies based on the ability for fans to attend games. Away games were looked upon as too difficult to travel to and attend.
* All sold-out home games are aired in the primary market. Through the 2014 season but not since, games that did not sell out at least 72 hours prior to kickoff were subject to local blackout in the primary and all secondary markets. ('' see below'')

Restrictions on other games when local team is playing

The NFL rules have traditionally prohibited other NFL games from being shown on local television stations while a local team is playing a sold out, locally televised home game. Under these rules, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL single game, the doubleheader station can only air one of its games. When this happens, there are only two games shown in the market. However, when the home team is being shown on the network with the NFL doubleheader, all three games can still air in the same market.

The rule was designed to encourage ticket-holders to show up at the stadium instead of watching another game on television. However, each network was guaranteed to have at least one game broadcast in every market, so some exceptions are granted to this rule, typically when one of the two Sunday game networks has a 1:00 p.m. or 4:30 p.m. live non-NFL event, such as golf, tennis, baseball, or drag racing.

Since 2014, this rule has not applied in the last week of the season when both CBS and Fox have the doubleheader, so all markets receive four games that week. In 2019, this rule was loosened as a one-year test, allowing each market to air three games in some weeks regardless if the local team is playing at home. By 2022, teams were required to allow the doubleheader network to counter-program against their singleheader network home games at least twice per season; as of 2025, teams must allow four such competing telecasts, meaning that only five teams had enough 2025 home games scheduled in single-game network windows to impose any such blackouts.

Prior to the 2000 season, doubleheader rules were much more restrictive. Pre-2000, only one game from each network could be aired in a market where a home game was played, even if the home game was on the doubleheader network. Therefore, markets with two teams (such as New York) rarely got more than two games, since odds were that one of the two teams would be at home on any given Sunday. Consequently, the Jets or Giants were often scheduled on Saturday in the final two weeks of the season to free up Sunday for the other New York team.

Mid-game switches

During the afternoon games, CBS and Fox may switch a market's game to a more competitive one mid-game, particularly when a game becomes one-sided. For this to occur, one team must be ahead by at least 18 points in the second half.

Due to the controversial 1968 "Heidi Game" incident on NBC, a primary media market must show its local team's game in its entirety and secondary markets usually follow suit for away games. Also, for home games secondary markets or any others where one team's popularity stands out may request a constant feed of that game, and in that case will not be switched.

If the local team is scheduled for the late game of a doubleheader, it has importance over any early game. If 4:25 p.m. arrives, and the early game has not concluded, the primary affiliate (home and road games) and secondary affiliates (road games only) are required to cut off the early game and switch to the start of the local team's game. Additional affiliates, including secondary affiliates for home games, may also request to pull out of an early game for a nearby team's late start. This is common in Texas, where many affiliates which are not considered secondary markets by the NFL still switch out of early games in order to get to the start of a 4:25 p.m. Dallas Cowboys game.

When a local team plays the early game of a doubleheader, that game holds importance over any late game. If the local team's early game runs beyond 4:25 p.m., the primary and secondary markets stay with it until completion. In those cases, the late game is simply joined in-progress.

Shared media markets

For this reason, if two teams share a primary media market, their games are never scheduled on the same network on the same day (unless they play each other). Otherwise, the networks could theoretically have to cut away from one team's game to show the other. Since , two pairs of teams are affected by this rule, and are subject to additional rules described below:
* The New York Giants and New York Jets
* The Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers

Chargers and Rams

The Los Angeles Chargers and Los Angeles Rams gained shared-market status after the Rams returned to Los Angeles (from St. Louis) in 2016, followed by the Chargers (from San Diego) in 2017. After playing in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, they began sharing SoFi Stadium in 2020.

* Every season, the Chargers and the Rams play at least 22 combined games which cannot be scheduled in the Sunday early time slot because they and most of their respective AFC West and NFC West rivals are in the Pacific and Mountain time zones: nine home games for one team and eight home games for the other; the Chargers' away games at Denver and Las Vegas; and the Rams' away games at Arizona, San Francisco, and Seattle.
* During seasons in which the AFC West and NFC West play each other, this count increases to 24 or 25 total games. In addition to the games listed above, the Chargers will have two interconference away games in the Mountain or Pacific Time Zones and the Rams will have one or two such games (depending on whether their game against Kansas City, located in the Central Time Zone, is away). However, one of these games is a head-to-head matchup between the two teams.
* During seasons in which the 17th game features an AFC West team at an NFC West team, this count increases to 23 games unless the Chargers and Rams play head-to-head in this game.
* The Rams' two interconference home games (with a visiting AFC team) are televised by CBS, and the Chargers' interconference home games (with a visiting NFC team) are on Fox, unless they are scheduled in prime time or are cross-flexed. This also limits the broadcast opportunities for the other team's game.
* When the Chargers and the Rams played in separate stadiums from 2017 to 2019, there were several times that both teams played late games on Sunday (including Week 2 of 2017 when both were at home), each of different networks. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Los Angeles area at the same time. Although both teams now share SoFi Stadium, they can still play late games at the same time on Sunday, only that one of them can be at home. On weeks both teams play home games, the other game is played either on Thursday or Monday night.

For the 2017 season, the NFL arranged four weeks in which one network would carry both the Rams and Chargers in separate time slots while the other had the rights to a doubleheader, thus giving the Los Angeles market four games in those weeks. Fox split its coverage between its two Los Angeles stations, KTTV and MyNetworkTV affiliate KCOP-TV. Likewise, CBS split between KCBS-TV and sister station KCAL-TV. These instances required cross-flexing of one NFC game (the Rams hosted the Seattle Seahawks in Week 5 on CBS) and one AFC game (the Chargers hosted the Buffalo Bills on Fox in Week 11).

Giants and Jets

The New York Giants and New York Jets began sharing the New York City market after the Jets began play in 1960. Both teams played at Giants Stadium from 1984 to 2009 and MetLife Stadium since 2010.

Originally, the league almost never scheduled the Giants and the Jets to play their games at the same time. The league first allowed exceptions during the season due to unusual scheduling logistics. These exceptions marked the first times since the season that the Giants and Jets played games simultaneously. In the 2017 season, the teams were scheduled for the same time slot five times.

* The aforementioned Chargers and Rams' late time slot requirement does not exist for the Giants and Jets. Since all NFC East and AFC East teams are either in the Eastern or Central time zones, most of their games can be played in either the early 1:00 p.m. or the late 4:05 p.m./4:25 p.m. time slots.
* However, it is still impossible for both New York teams to play home games on the same day, because they share MetLife Stadium. Therefore, the other same conflicts still exists.
**As an example aversion, in , the Jets hosted the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams. The former game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Minnesota Vikings on ''Monday Night Football'', while the latter game was scheduled during the same week in which the Giants played the Cincinnati Bengals on ''Monday Night Football''. Conversely, the Giants' other interconference home game, vs. the Baltimore Ravens, was scheduled during the same week in which the Jets played on ''Monday Night Football''.

Week 14 of the 2021 season initially had one instance where Fox held the rights to both the Jets and Giants games despite CBS having the doubleheader (the Jets host New Orleans at 1:00 p.m., while the Giants play at the Los Angeles Chargers for a 4:05 p.m. contest). In such an instance, Fox would likely have split coverage between its New York properties, WNYW and WWOR-TV. However, the NFL later crossflexed the Saints-Jets game to CBS.

Primary/secondary market conflicts

Although in close proximity, the Washington Commanders and Baltimore Ravens are served by separate media markets, and so they can play at the same time and even on the same network. If both teams play at the same time on opposite networks with at least one at home, both games have aired in each market on a few occasions. Because Washington D.C. is an official secondary market for the Ravens but Baltimore is not an official secondary market for the Commanders, most cases involve a Ravens away game being aired in Washington opposite a Commanders home game.

In 2016, the same rule applied in Los Angeles, as Los Angeles was a primary market for the Rams and a secondary market for the Chargers (as the team was still playing in San Diego). However, no Chargers away games were scheduled opposite Rams home games.

Rams and Raiders in Los Angeles (1982–94)

When the Rams and Raiders shared the Los Angeles market from 1982 to 1994, the NFL was more lenient on its shared media markets policies, frequently scheduling home games for both teams at the same time. For example, during Week 17 of the 1994 season, their last respective home games in Los Angeles, both the Washington Redskins at Rams game and the Kansas City Chiefs at Raiders game were played at 1 p.m. PT. Likewise, the late Sunday afternoon games during Week 11 of the 1993 season included both the Kansas City Chiefs at the Raiders and the Atlanta Falcons at the Rams. Both the Rams and Raiders usually had trouble selling out their respective stadiums during their time in Los Angeles, thus their home games were frequently blacked out anyway.

49ers and Raiders in the San Francisco Bay Area (1960–1981 and 1995–2019)

When the 49ers and Raiders shared the Bay Area market from 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019, originally the teams were typically not scheduled at the same time. To alleviate conflicts, both teams were scheduled for at least one prime time game, regardless of their records during the previous season.

In , with the Broncos–49ers game being played in London, England during Week 8 of that season, the game occurred in the early time slot, something that would have been prohibited had the game been played in San Francisco. This allowed the Raiders to host the Seahawks on that day, marking the first time the 49ers played on CBS and the Raiders played on Fox on the same day, though the Raiders game was blacked out locally.

Starting in 2012, there were a number of times that the Raiders and 49ers both played late games on Sunday, often during Week 17. Whenever this happened, the must-show rule trumped the exclusivity rule, resulting in both games being shown in the Bay Area at the same time.

After the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, the schedule continues to be made so that the 49ers and Raiders are never scheduled to play at the same time on the same network so that all Raiders games can continue to air in the Bay Area market. With the Bay Area no longer being a shared market, it is now possible for one team to play the early game followed by the other team playing the late game on the doubleheader network.

Bonus coverage

When a media market's regionally televised game ends before the others, the network (CBS or Fox) may switch to "bonus coverage" of the ending of another game. However, the league imposes two restrictions that are designed to maximize the ratings of the late games on the doubleheader network, which tend to record the most NFL viewers during the day, often beating the audience for Sunday night games (these rules were changed in 2019, along with the singleheader rule, in an effort to keep viewers watching for longer periods of time.).

First, bonus coverage offered after any early time slot games cannot be shown past the start of the late time slot (either 4:20 ET for the doubleheader network or 4:25 ET for the single game network). This prevents people from continuing to watch the bonus coverage instead of seeing the beginning of the late doubleheader network's game (which is usually either their local team or the network's featured game). Networks may show highlights of the game and usually will at the earliest opportunity. The network broadcasting the single game will sometimes show each play as soon as it ends as part of its post-game show. A station originally getting the game featured during bonus coverage will stay with it unless it is leaving to show a local team. In the local markets of the second doubleheader game, networks sometimes split screen the local game to show critical portions of the first doubleheader game (with FOX airing it under "Double Coverage" on-air).

Second, bonus coverage cannot be shown after a late game on the single-game network because it will run in opposition to the ending of the late doubleheader network's game (the late doubleheader network is allowed to air bonus coverage since it's aired in every market) and ''Football Night in America''. However, the single-game network usually schedules most of its top games in the early 1:00 ET time slot (except for west coast teams' home games, and possibly either a Giants or Jets game), and most weeks only one late single game are scheduled so this does not tend to be a major issue.

If the doubleheader network's games all finish before 7:30 ET, it is supposed to conclude the post-game show within 10 minutes to protect ''FNIA''. If any games finish after 7:30, the post-game program can run until 8 ET. However, this restriction seems to apply to game footage only; on several occasions Fox has run its post-game offering to 8:00, despite all games ending before 7:30, by airing only panel discussions and interviews in the latter portion of the show. On the other hand, CBS rarely airs any post-game show after its doubleheaders or 4:05 single-games. This is because ''60 Minutes'' is one of its signature shows, and CBS makes every effort to start it as close to 7 or 7:30 — its traditional airtime — as possible.

National games

National broadcasts of marquee matches occur on Thursday, Sunday and Monday nights. NBC has broadcast rights to the opening night kickoff game and to the Sunday night games. These are televised under a special " flexible schedule" that allows Sunday afternoon games to be moved to prime-time beginning with Week 5 of the season.

''Sunday Night Football''

NBC has broadcast the marquee "game of the week" nationally since 2006. Before 2006, the "game of the week" was considered to be ''Monday Night Football'' on ABC. However, ESPN previously aired games on Sunday nights from 1987 to 2005, and TNT aired games from 1990 to 1997.

Thursday night games

Since 2012, a Thursday night game went into effect during every week of the season with the exception of the final week. Each game is aired on the NFL Network (prior to 2021) or Amazon Prime Video (2022 and on), with the exceptions of the Week 1 NFL Kickoff and Thanksgiving Day games, which are aired on NBC. The season-kickoff game for the 2012 season was moved up a day — to a Wednesday, in order to avoid conflict with President Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. Since the NFL tries to avoid scheduling Thursday night games during the season which would require the visiting team to travel more than one time zone (excluding the Week 1 Kickoff), the five teams in the Pacific Time Zone — the Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks — would have more limited scheduling options in years that the AFC West and NFC West divisions don't face each other in interconference play. There have been some notable exceptions: the Kansas City Chiefs, who are based in the Central Time Zone, have played both the Chargers and Raiders on Thursdays; the Rams, who were based in St. Louis until , played against the 49ers in . Since ''TNF'' started in 2012, the Dallas Cowboys of the Central Time Zone have occasionally hosted clubs from the Pacific Time Zone on Thanksgiving Day: Dallas hosted the Oakland Raiders in , the Los Angeles Chargers in , and hosted the Las Vegas Raiders in . The Detroit Lions, of the Eastern Time Zone, have not hosted a Mountain or Pacific Time Zone team during this time. Each year since 2014, the Thursday Night game the week after Thanksgiving has featured two teams that played on Thanksgiving, effectively giving both teams a full week of practice rather than the short week that most teams have for a Thursday Night game.

In 2014, CBS had simulcast Thursday night games between Weeks 2–8 and televised one of two Saturday games in Week 16, and each Thursday night game was an intra-division game, except for the Packers–Seahawks Week 1 NBC kickoff and the Cowboys–Bears game in Week 14. The two Saturday games in Week 16 — Eagles– Redskins and Chargers–49ers — aired beginning at 4:30 p.m. ET. The 4:30 p.m. ET game was televised by the NFL Network, while the other began shortly after 8:00 p.m. ET, and aired on CBS.

''Monday Night Football''

Between 1970 and 1977, and again since 2003, there has been no Monday night game during the last week of the season. From 1978 until 2002, a season-ending Monday night game was scheduled. The 2003 revision permits the NFL to have all eight teams involved in the Wild Card playoffs to have equal time in preparation, instead of the possibility of one or two teams having a shorter preparation for their playoff game if they were picked to play on Saturday, instead of Sunday. This scenario, in which a team finishing its season on Monday night had a playoff game the following Saturday, never occurred.

Between and , ESPN has opened the season with a ''Monday Night Football'' doubleheader, with a 7:00 p.m. game and a 10:30 p.m. both shown in their entirety nationwide. ESPN2 or ESPNEWS (only in 2012 because ESPN2 was airing an MLB game) started the second game if the game on ESPN was not over by the time the second game had started. However, in Week 1 of the 2018 season, the conclusion of the first game of the doubleheader, Jets–Lions, moved to ESPN2 in order to show the beginning of the Rams

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