NFL suspends commercials for one night. . . game on a holiday weekend airing on Peacock. Saturday’s Buffalo Bills-Los Angeles Chargers game will feature a 40 percent reduction in advertisements, with zero commercials in the last 15 minutes. Ideally, this will come with a timer, because I can’t imagine audiences will be too eager to watch Josh Allen vs. Easton Stick or Will Grier.
Far be it from me to complain about the NFL’s backdoor attempt at fan service, but it’s literally the least they can do. Sunday Night Football producer Rob Hyland, who will direct the coverage, is thrilled to be able to “tell the story of the game and have the time to do it.”
I hate to burst your bubble, Rob, but you still won’t have enough time to make this an NFL Films production. NBC’s Booth #1 – your favorite and mine – Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth and Mellissa Stark will be on the call, and none of them are exactly John Facenda.
For the fourth quarter without advertising, there will be a place at the top for advertisers and regular stoppages in play. However, instead of commercials, NBC will submit them to the studio team for live analysis, in addition to providing Tirico and Collinsworth with an additional opportunity to get rid of the nonsense they couldn’t explain during time constraints normal.
Who knows? Perhaps if Collinsworth gave us the opportunity to walk us through his fractured thought process, it would make sense. Or . . . we’ll just get a second helping of him telling us why Justin Herbert can learn a lot from Easton Stick.
To be honest, I might prefer the Burger King jingle to anything Tony Dungy, Chris Simms, and Jason Garrett have to say. It perplexes me that Garrett remains in our lives. He’s one of the few people that Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants fans can live with hating. Simms was supported by nepotism throughout his career, and Dungy still gets his political views from Twitter.
It would be one thing if I thought the NFL was testing this format for future broadcasts, but it’s a ploy to draw attention to the first game broadcast exclusively on Peacock. Spoiler: Until Peacock subscriptions become as common as Amazon Prime subscriptions, it won’t matter if NBC sends personal undercarriage ticklers to carry its viewers through game breaks.
Seriously, how pessimistic are the NFL and NBC about this show’s ratings when they’re trying to convince us that fans are more valuable than business partners? Altruism and capitalism are not qualities that can overlap.
