NFL exec expects to schedule Wednesday games ‘selectively’ in future seasons

Not long ago, the idea of playing an NFL game on a Wednesday seemed completely foreign. Now, Wednesday has become an increasingly important day of the week on the NFL calendar.

The upcoming season will feature two Wednesday contests: A Super Bowl rematch between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots on NBC opening night, and a new “Thanksgiving Eve” game between the Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams on Netflix the day before Thanksgiving. Just a couple years ago, the NFL made some unprecedented scheduling tweaks to ensure it could air two games on Christmas Day, which fell on a Wednesday, when only a year prior the league suggested it wouldn’t utilize the holiday if it fell on Wednesday.

The willingness to schedule games on days of the week that it had not previously considered viable is part and parcel with the league’s ambition to add more standalone window national games. But don’t expect the league to roll out a weekly “Wednesday Night Football” package anytime soon.

When asked about the NFL’s utilization of Wednesday during a conference call this week, the league’s top media executive Hans Schroeder indicated Wednesday will still be used sparingly.

“I don’t know if we’re looking at Wednesday night football as a night for regularly scheduled NFL game,” Schroeder said. “I do think if you look at the growth of Thanksgiving specifically, and that holiday, and how core football, and food, and family, and bringing all that together, that the growth of Thanksgiving over the last handful of years has just been tremendous.”

He continued:

“We’ll continue to look if there’s better ways and there’s other opportunities to serve our fans that still work on the competitive side, and work with our clubs and work with our teams, you know, we’ll look at that, but I don’t think we’re looking at Wednesday night football. I think we looked at the opportunity to make Thanksgiving Eve a really special one. Similar to what we did a few years ago when Christmas was on a Wednesday, we thought there was a unique way to serve it on that, but those are more of the exceptions than the rules. And we’ll continue to look at those selectively.”

So while there’s not a weekly Wednesday package in the works, the NFL will continue to pick its spots where Wednesday games make sense. After all, the more standalone games the league can carve out, the more opportunities it has to secure eight-figure audiences, and the more media companies will be willing to pay for broadcast rights.

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