More than 40 years after video killed the radio star, Sunday morning football may be killing traditional pregame shows.
Last week, the Eagles-Jaguars game in London ate up the ratings for the Fox and CBS noon ET pregame shows, as recently noted by Sean Keely of Terrible announcement.
This week, the Texans-Jaguars game in London went until 12:48 pm ET, leaving just 12 minutes before the end of the Fox and CBS pregame shows.
It’s the third straight Sunday with a 9:30 a.m. game with New Birth. And three more 9:30 a.m. ET games are coming up: Week 7 (Steelers-Saints), Week 9 (Bengals-Falcons) and Week 10 (Patriots-Lions).
Moving forward, the upcoming Collective Bargaining Agreement will expand the annual slate of international games to 16. This will certainly increase the number of games played in Europe, which will increase the number of games starting at 9:30 a.m. ET. Which will increase the number of times Fox and CBS pregame shows are undermined by live game action.
Throw in the fact that there’s non-stop NFL news and analysis, and it could spark a conversation about whether it makes sense to revisit the current model, with pregame shows moving to the hour before kickoff at 9:30 a.m. ET.