{"id":676388,"date":"2026-05-17T23:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/676388\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T23:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T23:20:08","slug":"nfl-broadcast-partners-had-no-hesitation-loading-lions-with-primetime-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/676388\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL: Broadcast partners had \u2018no hesitation\u2019 loading Lions with primetime games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finishing last in your division typically doesn\u2019t earn you a premium spot on the national TV schedule. The Detroit Lions<\/a> are an exception.<\/p>\n

Coming off a 9-8 season that ended with them watching the playoffs from home for the first time since 2022, the Lions still have eight national windows in 2026, including four primetime games. That apparent contradiction was put to NFL senior vice president of broadcasting Mike North<\/a> during a conference call on Friday, and North didn\u2019t spend much time wrestling with it.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLook, it\u2019s not often that a team playing the fourth-place schedule finds itself on that many television windows,\u201d North said, \u201cbut there was no hesitation by any of our broadcast partners this year to continue to lean into the Lions. They are, I don\u2019t know if you call them a \u2018Super Bowl favorite,\u2019 but I don\u2019t think any of us would bat an eye thinking they\u2019re going to be playoff relevant. Heck, everybody in that division, right? I think the whole division finished over .500 last year. No hesitation at all to find them national television windows.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the thing, the Lions are still one of the best ratings draws<\/a> in professional football, regardless of what happened in 2025. During the 2024 season \u2014 when the Lions went 15-2 and became the story of the NFL \u2014 Detroit averaged 22.6 million viewers per game across 10 national television windows, per Sportico<\/a>, edging the Cowboys, who had been the league\u2019s default ratings leader for years, by about 175,000 viewers.<\/p>\n

The 2026 schedule reflects where the league still sees them. Detroit opens the new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park<\/a> against the Bills on Prime Video\u2019s Thursday Night Football in Week 2, then hosts the Packers<\/a> for Fox\u2019s 4:25 p.m. Game of the Week in Week 7 and travels to Munich for the 9:30 a.m. international window against the Patriots in Week 10. From there, CBS gets them in Week 12 for a Thanksgiving Day matinee against the Bears<\/a> which doubles as Ben Johnson\u2019s second trip back to Detroit as an opposing head coach. NBC gets the Lions at Carolina for Sunday Night Football in Week 4 and at Minnesota<\/a> in Week 15. ESPN gets them at home against the Giants on Monday Night Football in Week 16, and Fox closes things out with Chicago<\/a> at Soldier Field in Week 17.<\/p>\n

The Week 15, 16, and 17 windows are all subject to flex scheduling if the Lions fall out of contention, which is the league\u2019s standard protection on late-season primetime games. Whether Detroit earns all of them is on the team, but the league\u2019s broadcast partners have already made clear they want them there.<\/p>\n

The post NFL: Broadcast partners had \u2018no hesitation\u2019 loading Lions with primetime games<\/a> appeared first on Awful Announcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finishing last in your division typically doesn\u2019t earn you a premium spot on the national TV schedule. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[1442,49,48,6681,3163,240954,2598,248636,514,12105,82,65],"class_list":["post-676388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-bears","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago","tag-detroit-lions","tag-mike-north","tag-minnesota","tag-national-tv-schedule","tag-nfl","tag-packers","tag-sports","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}