Hi, get everybody.
I'm Dan Hord and thanks for downloading The Bengals Booth Podcast. The next year is gonna be better than this year's edition, as I discussed this year's schedule with one of the people most responsible for putting it together, NFL VP of Broadcast Planning, Mike North. But first a pair of five minute conversations with one of this year's third round draft picks, Jermaine Burton and last year's first round draft pick, Miles Murphy.
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by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts. It's the greatest thing since a steam mop. We have a hardwood floor in our kitchen and it's always been a pain in the neck to keep clean until my recent purchase of the Pure Steam ten one steam mop. You pour in the water, it heats up in thirty seconds and you quickly swivel around the room to leave the floor sparkling clean.
It's almost like a zamboni, and it comes with a couple of reusable cloth pads, so after you clean the floor, you remove one of those disgusting looking pads and toss it in the washing machine. So how happy am I with the purchase of my steam mop. I'll put it this way, the old five second rule for kids has been expanded to at least seven seconds in our kitchen.
Now let's get to football.
Since the draft, I've been having fun with this year's class by asking them five questions specifically for each player. Among other things, we've learned that first round draft pick a Marius Mims hasn't surrendered a sack since he was a junior in high school, and that second round draft pick Chris Jenkins considers himself a nerd with a comic book collection. Now time to learn about the first of two players selected in Round three. Time for five questions
with rookie wide receiver Jermaine Burton. Question number one, you played for two of the greatest college football programs in the country, Georgia and Alabama. Tell me the best thing about playing for each of those schools.
You know, the competitiveness and the environment, hands down, you know, plan for those you know, particular programs. You know, it comes with a lot of you know, competition, you know, passionate players, and really just overall great.
Experience of the game of football from coaching wives as well.
So you know, that's probably the most main thing, is the competitiveness that I had to go through, all right.
Question two, is there an NFL wide receiver that you think you are most similar to?
You know, it isn't so many.
It's so many great receivers in the NFL that have like so many different kind of you know, uh abilities, And you know, I feel like I can you know, there's I feel like there's a lot of receivers that probably do the same thing.
So if I had to pinpoint one.
I probably not.
But I do feel like there are, you know, probably some great receivers that do some stuff a lot.
I think of you as a taller Steve Smith. Do you remember Steve Smith. He's played for the Panthers and the Ravens when I watched your highlights, that's the person that came to mind really of a player.
No facts that I love that, I love that. I love that comparison.
All right, Question number three for Jermaine Burke. And we learned on draft night that you've been working with former Bengals wide receiver TJ. Gushman Zada for several years and he has nothing but great things to say about you. What were some of the biggest things you learned from him, whether it was on the field or off the field.
You know that no matter what, it's a business, and you know you have to do your part, you know, and it's nobody else's fault that you aren't where you are supposed to be physically and mentally. So you know that's just the main thing. You know, keep the main thing, the main thing, and keep working and you know.
Have some fun with it though.
Of course, you know that TJ is a real uh you know, he's a he's a real funny dude, and uh but you know he can he can turn it on that switch and you know it's time to work. So you know, I'm pretty sure that's what he means by you know, you can hit that switch and relax a little bit and you know, be yourself, but at the same time, never never get too far away from yourself.
Dude.
Know he holds the franchise record for most catches in a season.
I did not know that.
N'red and twelve.
Geez, I'm gonna talk to him, so he gonna say.
But he was like, oh yeah, that was nothing.
On his way to a Pro Bowl. He was one hell of a player. Question number four for Jermaine Burton, who is your all time favorite athlete in any sport and why?
I probably said Kobe Bryant.
I would say Kobe because you know his passion and his aggression and you know the way he worked, and you know, I just feel like it's really unmatched.
And uh, I love his energy.
You know.
You know it's back when it was the USA, it was USA versus.
I forgot what it was. Wherever Paugasa is from, they went, he went against their country. And you know, Pakastan and the Kobe are really great friends, you know, almost best friends.
They played on the Lakers together, you know, real close.
And I was watching a documentary and Kobe said, first play, I'm running.
Through Paul his chest and like they were. Everybody was like, how are you doing?
That's your homeboy, like that's your like this and that, and he was like nah, like like you set the tone and you know, first play he actually did that. So with that kind of like set up. Uh, I
don't know, it just it's got different with me. And you know, I really respected that, and because you know the fact that Paul didn't even take it like oh just I mean it was like nah, he's Kobe is on like you know, so the real competition there and the competitiveness and the agression uh, with that Kobe had.
You know, as a California kid, how devastating was it when Kobe passed.
It's kind of crazy, honestly.
Uh, you know, just looking up to him and you know, always seeing things about him, and you know, it's just it hit me. S it hit It was so random and it was just so weird that I didn't know how to react for so long. But you know, I I don't know, it was just it was something that just didn't see.
It right with me.
It was weird, alright. Fifth and final question for Jermaine Burton. Tell us something about you that not many people know.
You know, I love space, into astrology, and I believe in.
Aliens a triple crown. So how into space? I mean, they're you know, there are obviously efforts to send people to send you know, regular Joe's into space. Is that something you dream of doing someday?
Yes, ultimately a bucket list, you know, cross off that I would love to you.
Know, eventually hopefully have the ability to. But yeah, that's that is something I would be dout for.
All right, Well, you believe in aliens. He kind of looked like one on the football field. It's great to have you in Cincinnati. Appreciate the time that's sluck going forward.
Thank you, boss man. I appreciate you.
For what it's worth.
I think Jermaine has looked extremely impressive in his first few practices, and since Jamar Chase and t Higgins have not taken part in this voluntary phase, Burton has been one of the leading.
Targets for Joe Burrow.
Speaking of looking impressive, I posted some video on Twitter recently of Miles Murphy hitting a sled that got a lot of attention because he looks like a monster. It provided a reminder for why the twenty two year old was a first round pick. And when I caught up with Miles recently, we started our conversation by reminiscing about his draft experience last year.
Maybe in the morning.
Fifty people at my drab party, so it was and it was all like close friends, family, extended family, neighbors. So I was really I was literally just enjoying their company. It was a it was a part of the whole night, So I was, I was, I was enjoying the company.
And then phone rang got around close.
To midnight, so it was it was.
It was a fun night because one hundred and fifty people make it more stressful for you.
At one point.
At one point, yeah, because I was like, this is a little bit longer than I expected. But phone, phone eventual, pune eventually rang, and I would say, but everybody was excited, called everybody on stage, So it was it was a fun night for sure.
We're visiting with Miles Murphy. Tell me about your off season. What have you done for fun? What have you done to get better?
Okay, right after this season, went back home to Atlanta, just to When I first went home to Atlanta for about a week or so, I did absolutely nothing. I just wanted to enjoy my family, but then again, it's hard for me to sit still.
So I admitted.
I immediately flew out to Arizona for all of February that's some training, and started working out, and then came back to Atlanta for March. Up until now, just really just working and putting on, putting on muscles, because about to say, I was just saying, like my routine every all season is buke up, put on muscle, and then once.
We get close to the season, lean out.
Because right now, right now I'm sitting at around like two seventy eight to eighty, but I always get down to about two seventy three to seventy two.
Right before the season, going into the draft, you're trying to win the Olympics essentially fastest time you can have win all these tests. Now that you've had an experience of playing a season in the NFL, does it change where you say, all right, strength is what I need or whatever quality there might be.
I will say there are two types of conditions. There's a combine condition and there's football condition. I was in great combined condition a year ago now, but not in good football condition for sure. So I feel like right now I'm in really good football condition.
By saying endurance is great, strength is there.
So I feel like my preparation for this upcoming season is much better than it was last year.
How did you feel about your game and the final game of the season versus the beginning of your rookie year?
How did you grow?
I was a lot more comfortable, to say the least, honestly, because I knew one what to expect. The big I feel like the biggest mental difference from college now is the playbook.
Is a little bit easier, but the on field.
In game adjustments when the crowd is extremely loud is a lot more difficult.
That's that's that's the biggest.
Game change in my opinion.
Towards the end of the season, I was not thinking, not thinking for a linebackers, but I was like predicting and like knowing what they.
Were already going to say, what the adjustment was.
So I was Ozma's definitely moving faster and just knowing wants to do, Norman to expect from from outside of the ball in the off line, and just like I always always start a playing when it came to the pass rushing, especially so to the second half of.
The season, Bengals added Sheldon Rankins to your musician group.
How much do you know about him? I know he played with Tray early on when he was at.
The Saints and was at the well at the Texans actually did very well there. It's also it's a little bit of this film. I love the way he passed rushes just from the inside, So I feel like he's gonna add more pressure to what we already have on the inside.
So I feel it'll be a good addition.
When you have a guy like that that's great and rushing from the inside, How much does it help you? Coming from the edge.
Helps a lot, by to say, even like even like with a big Reader last year, although all people say he's not not a pass rusher, sure he still gets double teamed and that takes a lot of pressure off of us. So really having just a really good interior force in there helps.
To edge guys because that's just more one on one, one on one opportunities.
Less slides to us, so it's less for us to worry about.
Honestly, how will you miss DJ Reader personally?
Really, just his vibe in the locker room about to say his uh, his vibles felt every every time he walked to the locker room. But uh, you know we I texted him as soon as I got the news that he was going to Detroit say congratulations, and he you know, he's just obvious, just a great guy.
You guys know.
Also, I'm about to say he his vibe was just felt always always had good energy, always cracking jokes. So I'm pretty sure that's how everyone will remember him.
Appreciate your time. Great to say.
Sure.
As I mentioned, Miles is still only twenty two years old. In fact, he's younger than eight of the ten players the Bengals drafted this year. The only two picks who are younger are first rounder a Marius Mems and sixth
rounder Cedric Johnson. The Bengals Booth podcast is brought to you by pay Corps, Proud to be the Bengals official HR software provider, by Alta Fiber future proof Fiber Internet designed to elevate your home, business, and community to a new level, and by Kettering Health the best care for the best fans. Kettering Health is the official healthcare provider.
Of the Bengals.
Mike North is the NFL's vice president of Broadcast Planning and one of the league's top executives in creating the schedule each year. He joined me this week for an in depth look at the Bengals schedule and included some possible hints for things we might expect in the near future. Mike, the NFL had some great options for the NFL Kickoff game this year, involving the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs. She chose a rematch of the AFC Championship game,
Baltimore facing Kansas City. But I was surprised that you followed that by having the Bengals Chiefs in Week two. You can make the case that those are Kansas City's top two home games of the year. Why did you decide to start the season with those two?
Yeah, let me take your second question first. We actually kind of backed in to kickoff. We actually had CINCYKSE kind of earmarked from the very beginning as a CBS four to twenty five Eastern Time doubleheader, obviously one of the biggest games in the AFC last season, probably was the biggest game in the AFC at least going in so a year ago at this time, Bengals Chiefs with the whole you know, Burrowhead and all that kind of stuff.
That was CBS's actually really their top ask of the scheduling team was cincykse tell the AFC story, you know, where the network of the AFC and the schedule makers decided, you know, it would be fun SINCYKC in Week seventeen.
Wouldn't that be great? All the way at the end of the season, Burrow and mahomes for the one seed in the AFC that didn't quite work out the way we had envisioned, so kind of thought it through this year and thinking about if we are going to do Cincy case on the CBS again, and it was a candidate for Sunday Night, for Monday Night, for Thursday night,
for Black Friday, for Kickoff. A lot of good homes for that game, obviously, But once we kind of came around to putting it up back on CBS in a double header window, felt like we probably should put that one in early since we ran it late last year and maybe by the time we got to it wasn't what we hoped for, So put that one in early. Then that takes Cincinnati out of the mix for Kickoff, and then you look at the rest of Kansas City's potential home opponents, and to your point, any one of
them would have worked. There was a lot of conversation about Houston and kind of run on the Detroit angle back. They were kind of new on the national scene a year ago, they were frisky at the end of the previous season and had earned that national exposure. So maybe a bit of a flyer, if you will, on Detroit as kickoff for last year, maybe Houston fit that bill
for this year. But when you see what we did down there at the bottom of the schedule with the Christmas round robin the Saturday to Wednesday, that's how we decided to use Houston. We decided to use Vegas for
Black Friday. We decided to use the Chargers both ends of the Chargers games in National Windows doubleheader and Sunday Night, So we kind of came back all the way around to Baltimore for kickoff, and that one ended up being really the book end of It's going to be a really fun first weekend of the season.
I love all these puzzle pieces. As you alluded to, the Game seven of the Week seventeen matchup between the Bengals and Chiefs last year didn't work out as intended. Because of Joe Burrow's wrist injury. How closely has the NFL been following his progress before determining how many high profile window games the Bengals get this year.
Yeah, I mean, look, we're trying to watch everybody, right, and you think about all the quarterbacks coming back from injury, and also some of the quarterbacks coming out of college, Like, what do any of us know? It's May. We'll see what happens by the time the season rolls around September. But watching closely really is the answer. And hopeful that all these quarterbacks, whether it's Aaron Rodgers or Joe Burrow or Justin Herbert or any of these guys coming back
from injury, hopefully they're healthy week one. From the best of our intel, we think they're gonna be ready to go at training camp, and I know the fans are looking forward to seeing them right and early in the season. So that's why you see them in national windows early like that.
So the Bengals open the season at home, the Cincinnati Reds are on the road. Historically, that lines up pretty consistently. If the Reds are home, the Bengals are on the road. If it's the opposite. The Bengals are at home. Is it that simple from the NFL's perspective, Yeah, I mean.
It's not as simple as saying, because the Reds are on the road, the Bengals must be home. But if the Reds are at home, we know that putting a Bengals home game there creates a little extra tension, a little extra trouble with the parking lots, with the police, with the municipal services, with the downtown traffic. So as best we can, we try to avoid having them both
play at the same time. But I know Downtown has handled multiple big events at times, and I'm pretty sure you played Bengals and Reds games at the same time, maybe one in the afternoon and one and night. So we know it can be done. But again, as we sit here in May and we start this process, our best schedule probably doesn't create those conflex unless we really need to.
Our guest is Mike North, the NFL's VP of broadcast Planning. I know the NFL does what it can to try to make things as equitable as possible, but here is a small gripe from a Bengals perspective. The Bengals play a road game in Baltimore in primetime on Thursday, November seventh. It's the third straight year they've played a road game in Baltimore in primetime. It's the second straight year they've played a road game on Thursday night in Baltimore. Yeah, do you try to avoid streaks like that?
You know, a streak of three years in a row. Obviously not something that's fatal to any finished schedule. I'll also tell you, like the travel right, a trip to Baltimore for a short week playing a division opponent that you know pretty well. I don't think that's one that we would say, hey, that's completely unfair, we shouldn't do that.
But after conversations such as these and hearing from enough Bengals fans and coaches and general managers, yeah, I imagine that's something we'll probably keep an eye on for next season. The challenge for us, as you know, is we play all those division games down there in the final week of the season, and it felt like for years it was Bengals Ravens in Week seventeen for probably five years in a row, it felt like, so trying to move that series that's as it's become, you know, so much
more impactful nationally. You know, can you get both of those games up into the middle of the season where fans can watch them, because you do run the risk wait until week eighteen of Hey, by the time we get there, as one or both teams clinched, has one or both teams been eliminated? So like the idea of playing both of those in the middle of the season
so fans can catch them both with playoff implications. You're probably not wrong, probably due for the next time those two teams play each other in primetime, that game should probably be in sidency.
All Right, there you go, fans, there's something to look forward to it.
Well, we heard too.
So the Bengals have a couple of interesting stretches in terms of how many games they play and how many days. Let's start in November, They've got a stretch where they play one game in twenty three days. Then in December they played three games and eleven days. Did the first part factor into the second part?
They do kind of stack on each other, if you know.
I haven't heard specifically from anybody at the Bengals, but I think that what week twelve by, I think that Week twelve by probably feels pretty good to the coaching staff because you know they're obviously thinking about playing deep into January, and you've also got the two short weeks as you mentioned, So that's two kind of mini buys, and what we're thinking about for the teams with multiple short weeks, it's spacing out those mini buys from the
full by and make sure there's three good rest periods for the team over the course of the season. Yeah, the three and eleven days is tough. Not the only team to be hit with that stretch. I think there's six teams, maybe seven, that are facing a similar kind of Monday, Sunday, Thursday or at the end there, like we mentioned on the Christmas round robin Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday.
That's just the nature of the beast right now is we've got more prime time games obviously everybody playing or at least more Thursday night games, if not everybody playing well, and that means some teams are playing multiples and so you do run into that stretch, and it's the kind of thing we'll keep an eye on from a player health and safety standpoint, from a players and coaches preparation standpoint, and really from a fans standpoint and adjusts moving forward if we need to.
So.
One of the first things that we all tend to look at when the schedule comes out, of the number of primetime games the Bengals play in five, they also have three late afternoon games on Sunday. From the NFL standpoint, are those games just as quote unquote prestigious?
Yeah, very much so, very much so. In fact, you could make a case maybe even slightly more so most weekends. The Sunday four thirty Eastern time window, that's the most watched window for the NFL most weekends. So you're talking about an average of twenty five, twenty six, twenty eight million watching at four point thirty in the afternoon on a Sunday. That tells you you know what the league thinks about these teams when they put them into those windows.
The prime time is special, no question about it. The fans obviously pay attention under the light, it's a little more buzz. The players love it because they know the other players in the league are watching. So primetime is still special. But we shouldn't dismiss the fact that those Sunday afternoon for twenty five Eastern time windows still the
NFL's most viewed windows still our biggest windows. So as you count up primes, you really should like you to Dan count those four to twenty five games as well. They're true national games most weekends.
The Bengals were a candidate for one international game this year. They were eligible at least to go to Germany to take on the Panthers. He went with the New York Giants instead. Were the Bengals a team that Carolina wanted to keep on its true home schedule.
You know, you'd have to ask the Panthers that they don't get that right. They were still adjusting whether or not we should be sending division games overseas. We've done it a couple of times. I think Indian Jacksonville played. I believe the Jets and Dolphins played. But most teams are not eager to take those division games out of their home stadiums. And it's interesting because sometimes the visiting team says, yes, it's an extra long trip. Like we said,
those division games are usually pretty close together. You know, nobody's volunteering for that, you know, eight hour flight for what could have been a one and a half hour flight. But to play a division on a neutral field instead of in their building. You know, there's definitely teams I
think would be up for that. So each team does get to have some influence over whether or not a division game can go abroad, and then they get one game each year that they can actually you know, throw their bodies over and say that one's got to stay here. So to your point, the Bengals were a candidate. We talk to the Bengals about, hey, if you do go, how do you want to handle that in terms of the week before the week after do you want the buy?
Knowing Germany always kind of falls in that mid November, most teams are eager to take their buy coming back from that trip. But you're starting to see, and I know the Bengals saw it. You know, these European trips are becoming a lot more routine. Fans you know, accept them as really just another game, and the players and the coaching staff do as well. More often than not, the teams go over kind of Friday Saturday right before, stay in their routine, come home, and then play a
home game. They don't even take their buys most of the time anymore. So really it's just another game at this point, And I think our teams have gotten into a really good routine. The Bengals weren't selected this year, but they'll surely be in the mix really kind of every year moving forward. I think we've said it like we're looking at seven, maybe eight international games a year. That's half the league that's going to be playing somewhere
other than domestically. It's going to fall repeatedly over and over again, you know, if not on the same teams, like all kind of bad luck. If you will, moves around a little bit and everybody will, everybody will pay their dues.
Let's specifically look at next year. The Bengals have the extra home game. They've not given up a home game to play internationally since twenty sixteen. It seems to me that it's probably a pretty strong likelihood that the Bengals will play an international game somewhere.
Is that safe to say? It's good deductive reasoning. I'm not sure we've locked in next year. Let's you know, still catching our breath from this year. But I've met several times with our international group and they have not just you know, a one or a two year look ahead, but they've really got you know, five, six, eight year look ahead, and they are talking about some wild places.
They're talking about Dubai, they're talking about Asia there, talking about different places in South America, more countries in Europe. You know, as we build out more and more games, Yeah, everybody's gonna you know, take one of their rotation by rotation, Like you said, once every I think it was once every eight years and now we're kind of down to once every four. So the more we play, the more teams we're gonna need to go over you know, maybe
multiple times. I don't know one hundred percent if the Bengals are on the list, but they're surely on the short list for twenty twenty five.
The city of Cincinnati has a strong German heritage. Would that factor in at all in determining whether Cincinnati should play there?
Sure? Sure, I think we're looking at, you know, not just the fans here in the States, but also the fans in those other markets. And you saw it a little bit with Kansas City last year when they had you know what, one hundred thousand fans walking to the stadium like that. If there is a fan base for the Bengals in Dubai or Germany or Brazil, we'll surely want to make sure that those fans get a chance to see the team, you know, their favorite teams. So yeah,
factors into everything. It's never as simple as because of this than that. As you can imagine two hundred excuse me, two hundred and seventy two piece jigsaw puzzle can't satisfy everybody. But yeah, those are the kind of things we take into account as we're looking, like we said, four six, eight years down the road.
A couple more questions from Mike North, the NFL's VP of broadcast planning. NFL games are coming to Netflix on Christmas Day. Are we reaching the saturation point with streaming platforms or is that going to continue to grow?
Yeah, it's a good question. I think the NFL is kind of, you know, thinking that we fish where the fish are, and you know, maybe not you and me, Dan, but our kids are certainly using those streaming platforms just like any other television station. You know, when we grew up and you were clicking through the channels, it was two, five, seven nine, And now when they flip through the channels,
it's Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV paramount. Plus they don't bat an eye at the streaming services and you're starting to see as we play more of these games on these services, the viewership is approaching, you know, broadcast television levels. You think about that Wildcard game last year on Peacock that got twenty three twenty four million viewers. That's comparable to what NBC did in that window of the previous season.
So as those platforms become viable outlets for our games, as those platforms are eager to get into business with the National Football League. That's probably the amazing thing about what happened with Christmas this year. It actually happened the
other way. We decided to play on Christmas. We decided these four games, and they were kind of on the schedule, or at least on a mock schedule for probably a few weeks before they then went out to the partners and Hans Schroeder and the business team actually went out and started trying to find a broadcast home for these games. So we'd kind of already chosen the games, chosen the four teams in the round robin. Then they went out to the partners and said, yep, we're gonna be able
to find a way to play on Wednesday. Are you interested? And thankfully everybody was, including somebody with whom we hadn't really been in business before, in Netflix, at least for live games. We've obviously got you know, some other stuff going on with them with quarterback and receivers, so they've kind of felt like they have an NFL fan base
kind of already built in. And when you think about the global implication the global rights deal here one partner, one sports league, one event, truly global rights, you start thinking about, you know, how can we reach an audience that we never could reach before. So that's something that streaming services bring, whether it's Amazon or Peacocker or Netflix, and I'm sure something will continue to look at. But the overwhelming majority of the games are going to remain
on over the air television. That's the you know, NFL's bread and butter. That's where we've been forever. That's where the vast majority of our fans find us. And as you know, even if you are on a streaming service for one of your games, the game is still available on free over the air television in the whole markets of the competing teams. I doubt that will ever go away.
I don't know how many millions of people subscribe to Netflix, but it seems.
Two hundred and sixty million world.
Will go to sixty million worldwide. I was going to say, it seems to me that most of the people I know have Netflix. Did you get less pushback Netflix than Peacock or some of the other streaming services?
You know for those who you know just want to kind of howl at the wind and say, how could you do this? Like the answers no. But practically speaking, you know, I always go back. I think about you know, what, was it late eighties when the NFL went to ESPN for the first time, so the first time they took games off of free over the air television put it on a pay service. We went to ESPN with a half package of Sunday night games at that time, and
I think ESPN was in fifteen million homes. So talk about a risk, Talk about a calculated gamble for the NFL. Then we went to Amazon for Thursday Night Football a couple of years ago, they were in like one hundred and fifty million homes. Now you think about Netflix globally two hundred and sixty million homes. Like we said, you fish, where the fish are, that's where the people are ingesting
their content. That's where the fans are interacting with the National Football League, and especially, like we said, kind of like that younger audience. You know, you and I are going to find the games if we get some help from our kids. But the kids are interacting with the games on those platforms, we've got to make sure the content is there for them there.
So you shared at the beginning of this conversation that last year Bengals Chiefs coming up back to back AFC Championship games was one of the most desired games from your TV partners. How about this year, What were the games that the TV network spot over this year?
Yeah, well, there's no fight, right. They all make us their list at the beginning of the process and they say here's the game we'd really love to see, and then it's up to the scheduling makers and the commissioner to really figure out how to dole out all those top games to everybody. So you know, nobody gets everything.
Everybody gets something. I would tell you since CKC is still at the top of that list, you know, not that we got robbed, but you know it wasn't quite what we hoped for for last season, so kind of run it back this year. Do that one nice and early Buffalo, cac Dallas sanfran They play each other, you know, no more than you know once every three years, more often than not. And those are obviously two of our
iconic brands. And certainly anytime you get a Super Bowl rematch, We've been fortunate enough with the expanded season and how you get those extra that seventeenth game and it's a one versus one. We wandered into a super Bowl rematch each of the last couple of years. So you think about that, Philly, Casey. Last year, we did it on a Monday night game, and I remember one of the ESPN executives texted us that day that afternoon telling us
it felt like a Super Bowl. So any kind of Super Bowl rematch Casey Sanford this year, we're going to do it in the afternoon on Fox, like we said, probably going to be the most watched game maybe the whole season outside of Thanksgiving and Christmas. So you put that big, kind of mussy TV game four thirty in the afternoon on Sunday. With any luck, you know, you
get the home team playing at one o'clock. Everybody watches like we've been doing for decades, you get the big game at four o'clock, and then if we guessed right, that Sunday night game kind of hour seven, eight to nine of NFL Football, and hopefully a good Thursday night game to start the week and a good Monday night game the end the week. That's a lot of mouths to feed every weekend of the year. But you know, thankfully, our fans have shown us that they'll find us wherever
we put the games. And you know, even if our storyline anticipation wasn't right here in May, it's the beauty of this league. Right If somebody's down, that just means somebody else's up. So if we guessed wrong on a primetime game, that's where flexible scheduling kicks in and maybe another Bengals game find its way into primetime if you guys are playing for stuff down stretch.
When the schedule came out, we all looked at it, specifically through a Bengals lens. From your perspective, what were some of the biggest challenges, some of the most interesting things that came about from this year's schedule.
Yeah, certainly Wednesday was a new one on me, But like I said, we kind of figured it out relatively early in the process, how to at least get those four teams playing that Sunday, Saturday Wednesday cadence. The real challenge we found was week seventeen in a vacuum. You're talking about two games on a Wednesday, still, a regular Amazon game on Thursday, three games on Saturday. NFL Network we always play those late season Saturdays in December, a
Sunday night and a Monday night. That's an awful lot of games that are not being played on Sunday afternoon. So I think one of the real challenges we're facing this year and really looking forward, is kind of slicing this pie thinner and thinner more games off to primetime, whether it's you know, Thursday nights or Black Friday or now Wednesdays, or nine thirty am London games or side by side Monday night games. And that's just an awful lot of places for games to go other than Sunday afternoon.
And when you and I grew up watching football Sunday afternoon, there was probably ten twelve games most Sunday afternoons. You either played in the afternoon on Sunday or you played
Sunday night. That was kind of it. A couple of Thanksgiving games Monday nights came about in the late seventies or early seventies, I should say, I think the real challenge for us this year and moving forward is, you know, thinning out the pool of games for Sunday afternoon for CBS and Fox and making sure you know, you can't just take all the best games, put them in primetime and not leave you know, quality and quantity behind for
Sunday afternoons. So managing our way around what the Sunday afternoons look like between CBS and Fox, that's been one of the real challenges for us.
Mike, I always enjoy these conversations. I know you get a lot of requests to do podcasts like this. Thanks so much for making time for us, and now look forward to doing it again next year.
Good to see you Dan anytime. Thanks for having me.
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