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The television rights to broadcast National Football League (NFL) games are the most lucrative and expensive rights of any American sport. It was television that brought professional football into prominence in the modern era after World War II. Since then, NFL broadcasts have become among the most-watched programs on American television, and the financial fortunes of entire networks have rested on owning NFL broadcasting rights. This has raised questions about the impartiality of the networks' coverage of games and whether they can criticize the NFL without fear of losing the rights and their income. Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. Until the broadcast contract ended in 2013, the terrestrial television networks CBS ($3.73B), NBC ($3.6B) and Fox ($4.27B) — as well as cable television's ESPN ($8.8B) — paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion to broadcast NFL games. From 2014 to 2022, the same networks will pay $39.6 billion for the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies (CBS Corporation, Comcast, 21st Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company/Hearst Corporation, respectively) that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. However, the league imposes several strict television policies to ensure that stadiums are filled and sold out, to maximize telecast ratings. Under the current contracts, regionally shown games on Sunday afternoons are televised on CBS and Fox, which primarily carry games of AFC and NFC teams respectively (the conference of the road team determines the broadcaster of an interconference game). Nationally televised regular season games on Sunday and Monday nights are aired on NBC and ESPN, respectively, while CBS and NFL Network share Thursday night games during the regular season. During the postseason, ESPN airs one game, NBC airs two, while CBS and Fox air the rest of the AFC and NFC games, respectively. The Super Bowl rotates annually among CBS, Fox, and NBC. NFL preseason telecasts are more in line with the other major sports leagues' regular-season telecasts: preseason telecasts are more locally produced, usually by a local affiliate of one of the above terrestrial television networks. Some preseason games will air nationally, however. Under the NFL's anti-siphoning rules for cable games, these stations usually will air simulcasts of ESPN and/or NFL Network games in their local markets if the local team is playing. ==Overview of schedule== The NFL regular season usually begins in September, and ends in December or early January. Each team plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Traditionally, the majority of each week's games are played on Sunday afternoon. The Sunday afternoon games are televised regionally, where the particular game available on local television will depend on where the viewer is located, and begin at either approximately 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition, there are usually single nationally televised games each on Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night. These primetime games are broadcast across the country over one national over-the-air broadcast or cable network, where there are no regional restrictions, nor any other competing NFL contest. All playoff games, the Super Bowl, and the Pro Bowl are nationally televised on either Saturday or Sunday in January/early February, and either in the afternoon or in primetime. Scheduling during the NFL preseason is more lenient in that most games usually start based on the local time. Thus, games on the West Coast are usually played after 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern Time). However, the handful of primetime, nationally televised preseason games are still played at approximately 8 p.m. Eastern Time. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「National Football League on television」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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