For years and years, CBS and FOX have divided the majority of their non-primetime games based on which conference was the away team with the AFC being televised on CBS and the NFC on FOX but starting next year, that process will change significantly.
Appearing on the Ari Meirov NFL Show, NFL schedule-makers Mike North and Charlotte Carey revealed that there will be no restrictions on which networks will get to air which games. Starting in 2023, all NFL games will be “free agents” and not be tied to any network based on whether they are an NFC or NFC team.
“Every game is a jump ball,” North said.
That isn’t to say that CBS and Fox won’t still get the majority of AFC and NFC games respectively. Rather, more games will be exchanged across the various networks along with ESPN, NBC (and presumably Amazon) than ever before.
Now this might not sit well with a lot of traditional NFL fans who are use to the AFC playing on CBS and the NFC playing on FOX but the NFL is all about the bottom line and having the two networks get into a bidding war for every single game will probably lead to more financial gain for the league.
