In a rarity, the Super Bowl TV rotation has been disrupted.
CBS and NBC have agreed to swap their next Super Bowl dates, the New York Post and Variety reported Wednesday. CBS will now air the 2021 game and NBC the 2022 game.
CBS will become the first network to air two Super Bowl games in three years since FOX aired the game in 1997 and 1999. The four year gap between Super Bowls on NBC will be the longest for any NFL rightsholder since ABC went five years between games from 1995 to 2000.
It should be noted that the 2022 Super Bowl is scheduled to take place during the Winter Olympics. Moving the game to Olympic broadcaster NBC eliminates the possibility of it facing unprecedented competition from another marquee sporting event.
The scheduling change means that NBC will get the first Super Bowl at the new NFL stadium in Los Angeles. NBC was originally scheduled to air the L.A. Super Bowl in 2021, but the NFL pushed the city’s hosting date back to 2022 due to delays building the stadium.
The next Super Bowl will air on FOX as scheduled.
CBS and NBC previously swapped Super Bowl dates in the 1990s, for much the same reason as now. CBS took on the Super Bowl in 1992, the year it had rights to the Winter Olympics, while NBC moved back to 1993. The move resulted in NBC airing the Super Bowl in back-to-back years, as the network already had rights to the 1994 game.
Interesting situation for the NFL but I think it was the right move the worst case scenario was having the Olympics on directly against the Super Bowl in primetime so the NFL was smart to work with the networks on this compromise and now NBC can have a pretty big day but the first Olympic Sunday is usually one of their highest rated if not their highest rated day of the Olympic run.
I think the Super Bowl pregame show will be reduced from 4 hours to possibly 2-3 hours as the Winter Olympics daytime coverage might air until either 3pm or 4pm eastern time. NBCSN might air the first hour or two of the pregame show and then take over the rest of the coverage the rest of the night.
I think NBC will negotiate to put the top priority sports to air right after the Super Bowl that night at 10pm or whenever the game ends which means the west coast will get the action during the whole primetime period starting at 7pm pacific time.
The other solution is to move the Super Bowl up a week to January 30th as some have suggested before. My guess is NBC and the league keeps the Super Bowl on February 6th just to see how this plays out for the Olympics that year that way they can get a clear idea on how it will work in 2026. It’s really weird how the IOC came up with that February 4th start date for the Olympics that year they usually always have the Olympics start the weekend after so I wonder why they went with the 4th that year?
This is a great move by NBC. I think the most fascinating thing about this will be how NBC will handle the 6 hour pre game show that is expected by the NFL, which has become one of the most boring sports programs ever. Would love to see NBC have Olympic coverage in the afternoon lead into the super bowl pregame show at 4pm et,, which would put a more reasonable 2 hour pre gane before the game. However I would bet that NBC will have Olympic coverage in the morning and start the Super Bowl coverage begin no later than 1pm et. And they would put the remaining Olympic coverage on nbcsports net in the afternoon.
Here’s an idea for the NFL,NBC,and CBS.
Super Bowl XLVI is played Sun. Jan.30 with no week off between conference championships and Super Bowl. The Pro Bowl goes back to the week after the Super Bowl on Feb. 6 with Super Bowl players eligible to play. The network rotation remains. This is just for the 2021 NFL season.
Knowing the NFL as we all do, I don’t see them getting out of the way of another sporting event.
So unlike the past Winter Olympics in 2018 when the Super Bowl came before the Olympics, these two events will overlap. So in other words, NBC will be giving up most of the first Sunday of Olympics coverage in order to show the Super Bowl and the pregame show. This is a very strange move. Especially considering Al Michaels is only getting older and will now have to wait an extra year before calling what is probably his last Super Bowl. Meanwhile, Tony Romo will now call two Super Bowls in between NBC even showing the game. I find this very odd all the way around.
I think for NBC having the Super Bowl + Winter Olympics at the same time is too great an opportunity (ratings-wise) to pass up. I’d assume they’d go for morning Olympics coverage leading into SB pregame, then Super Bowl/leadout/local news/Olympic late night show. Hard to imagine a bigger day for any sports division.
Alright, so….NBC is afraid to let Costas go ahead with his much criticized planned essay as to how dangerous football is so it wont tarnish its relationship with the NFL. But now the NFL panicks & moves the ’22 Super Bowl to NBC to prevent NBC from televising olympics directly against it while it’s on CBS?
I have a feeling this event could be a disaster to a lot of parties from spectators (preferably non football fans and Olympic lovers) to NBC it self and LA should be responsible for not having the stadium building phase ahead of schedule. I understand that weather held it back, but if they really wanted the stadium and city to host the Super Bowl sooner than later they would’ve took immediate action on making sure nothing would slow it down under any cost. They didn’t!
Now the NFL was put in a situation and had to move the game to Tampa and push LA to 2022. That probably erased any hope or thought of moving the SB to an earlier time to avoid any possible Live Olympic event. It led to CBS and NBC swapping SB years for better and worse of the outcome. NBC will appreciate the money, publicity and TV ratings, but the scheduling and assignments aspect will be rough because they have to figure out how to please all parties. All of this because of a stadium that was spent Billions of dollars on and not being built in a timely manner.
Could be Al Michaels final game and send off (at least with NBC). That’s what I really see in this move. He’s from LA and why not have him call the first real game at the new LA Stadium and their first Super Bowl as well.
I won’t be surprised if in the new deals, assuming ESPN keeps the MNF rights but gets a piece of the Super Bowl rotation pie, that Michaels return to where it begun for him in the NFL which is Monday Night Football.
Michaels seems like a guy that will want to leave on his own terms and not the networks. By 2022, NBC will need to have Tirico as their SNF voice. While the relationship is great (right now), Tirico honestly wants to be the voice of SNF following Michaels, and patience will eventually kick in a few years from now. On ESPN case, Michaels has leverage to takeover whoever the lead voice is in MNF (including Joe Tessitore), because they know Tess could fit right back into College Football while Michaels will bring an already familiar feel and name to the broadcast.
You gotta think, Michaels will be in his upper 70’s IF such an ESPN MNF opportunity should arise. If anything, he’d do local work like Musburger is doing now with the Raiders or Dick Enberg did calling Padres baseball games. Speaking of which, I’d like to see Michaels do baseball in a similar capacity before he turns off his mike. A travesty that he’s been off of baseball converge since ’89 save for a year & a half of the ill fated The Baseball Network in ’94-’95.
Seems fine with me.
As long as the Eagles are in it, it only need be played and aired on the east coast.