the national football league plays in the thursday night football game.
the national football league plays in the thursday night football game.
who plays in the thursday night football game?
national football league
in addition to the regional games, the league also has packages of telecasts, mostly in prime time, that are carried nationwide. nbc broadcasts the primetime "sunday night football" package', which includes the thursday nfl kickoff game that starts the regular season and a primetime thanksgiving day game. espn carries all monday night football games. the nfl's own network, nfl network, broadcasts a series titled "thursday night football", which was originally exclusive to the network, but which in recent years has had several games simulcast on cbs (since 2014) and nbc (since 2016) (except the thanksgiving and kickoff games, which remain exclusive to nbc). for the 2017 season, the nfl network will broadcast 18 regular season games under its "thursday night football" brand, 16 thursday-evening contests (10 of which are simulcast on either nbc or cbs) as well as one of the nfl international series games on a sunday morning and one of the 2017 christmas afternoon games. in addition, 10 of the thursday night games will be streamed live on amazon prime. in 2017, the nfl games occupied the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for sunday night football, $550,709 for thursday night football (nbc), and $549,791 for thursday night football (cbs).
national football league
as a result of cbs taking over production responsibilities for the "thursday night football" broadcasts, its number one broadcast team of jim nantz and phil simms took over the broadcast booth. with nbc adding games in 2016, al michaels and cris collinsworth, the broadcast team of "nbc sunday night football", were required under league contract to do the same. nbc had initially hired former "monday night football" play-by-play man mike tirico for thursdays before the league nixed the idea of any separate broadcast teams for sunday and thursday nights. tirico would eventually call three "sunday night football" games, including the thanksgiving night game which is in the "snf" package, in order for nbc to allow michaels over a week's rest before the end of the season. tirico would also call the december 22, 2016 "tnf" game alongside collinsworth, as well as two nbc-produced "thursday night special" game broadcasts on december 18 and christmas day, respectively, both alongside former usfl and nfl quarterback doug flutie, who serves as the analyst for nbc's college football coverage as well. on may 31, 2017, it was announced that mike tirico would replace al michaels full-time for nbc's "thursday night football" games. for 2017, kurt warner would similarly fill in for collinsworth on two non-thursday games.
thursday night football