NFL rights holder Amazon Prime could benefit from a controversial game schedule reform in the future! The NFL’s team owners have narrowly agreed that rescheduling from Sunday to Thursday will be possible. The internet giant holds the rights to Thursday games.

The NFL’s owners have agreed to a controversial change: The scheduling of Thursday Night Games can be changed next season with at least 28 days’ notice and only from Weeks 13 to 17.

What is at stake? The reform stipulates that a game may be moved twice from Sunday to Thursday. In addition, a team may only be affected once by a possible postponement. Each team has a maximum of two games on Thursday during the season.

The rights holder to the Thursday Night Games in particular could benefit from the innovation. Amazon Prime (since 2022) can hope for more attractive matches in the season’s final spurt.

This is because the new schedule is intended to prevent games from being broadcast in prime time on Thursdays that are no longer relevant in the battle for the playoffs.

NFL schedule reform controversial among owners

The regulation is initially to apply only to the 2023 season. However, if no shifts are made in 2023, the rule would be carried into the 2024 season.

The innovation is not viewed positively by all NFL owners. The league needed 24 votes to introduce flexible scheduling for Thursday Night Football games. Those exact 24 votes came together as well.

NFL owners change their minds on game schedule reform

The owners of the New York Giants, New York Jets, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Las Vegas Raiders, Detroit Lions, Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers had voted against it.

The owners of the New Orleans Saints and Washington Commanders were also originally against this innovation, but changed their minds and then voted in favour of it after all. The owners of the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos had initially abstained, but then also voted in favour.

If only one of these four owners had not voted in favour of this innovation, the project would have failed.

NFL owners engage in heated debate

In the run-up to the vote, there was apparently heated debate.

Mark Davis, the owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, reportedly took a jab at the Los Angeles Chargers in the process, according to NFL insider Dov Kleinmann:

“If you have a Raiders-Chargers game in Las Vegas scheduled for a Thursday and all the fans travelling from Los Angeles – meaning the Raiders fans and all three Chargers fans – buy their tickets and book their hotels, how the hell do they plan? Then all of a sudden they say, “I’m sorry, the game is now on Sunday after all? How the hell do they do that?”

The starting point is clear: from an economic and media perspective, the new rule offers great opportunities. For fans planning to go to the stadium, it could cause huge problems. If you find out 28 days in advance that you have to fly across the US on a Thursday instead of the weekend.