|
The National Football League regular season begins the weekend after Labor Day in early September and ends in December or early January. It consists of 256 games, where each team plays 16 games during a 17-week period. Since 2012, the NFL schedule generally has games in one of five time slots during the week. A game played on Thursday night, kicking off at 8:25 PM (ET). The majority of games are played on Sunday, with most kicking off at 1:00 PM (ET), some late afternoon games starting at 4:05 or 4:25 PM (ET) and one Sunday night game which starts at 8:30 PM (ET). A Monday night game then starts at 8:30 PM (ET). In addition to these regularly scheduled games, there are occasionally games at other times, such as on a Friday or Saturday afternoon, or the annual Thanksgiving Day games. During the final week of the regular season, all games are held on Sunday. In place since 2006, the current broadcasting contract establishes broadcast partners for each game. The Sunday afternoon games are broadcast either on CBS or FOX. CBS has the broadcast rights for teams in the American Football Conference while FOX has the rights for teams in the National Football Conference. In games where teams from both conferences play each other, the network with the broadcast rights for the "away" team will broadcast the game. In each local television market, three Sunday afternoon games are played. One of the two networks gets a doubleheader, while the other network has the right to broadcast a single game; the networks alternate weeks when each has the right to the doubleheader. Doubleheader games are broadcast at 1:00 (ET) and 4:25 PM (ET). The network with the single game will have an official kick-off time at either 1:00 PM (ET) or 4:05 PM (ET). In addition to the regular Sunday afternoon games, there are three prime time games each week. The Thursday night game is broadcast by the NFL Network (the first eight Thursday night games are also simulcast by CBS).〔http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24973940/thursday-night-football-returns-to-cbs-in-2015〕 The Sunday night game is broadcast by NBC, while the Monday night game is broadcast by ESPN. The NFL uses a strict scheduling algorithm to determine which teams play each other from year to year, based on the current division alignments and the final division standings from the previous season. The current formula has been in place since 2002, the last year that the NFL expanded its membership. Generally, each team plays the other three teams in its own division twice, all four teams from a single division in the AFC once, all four teams from a single division in the NFC once, and two additional intra-conference games. ==Game times== (詳細はET (see below), with the late afternoon (ET) games usually reserved either for matches hosted in the Pacific Time Zone or Mountain Time Zone, or for one or more marquee contests. The current NFL television contract awards the American broadcast of these games to FOX or CBS, with FOX showing games where the visiting team is from the NFC and CBS showing games where the visiting team is from the AFC. Each of these Sunday afternoon games is televised on a regional basis to a few or several areas around the country. On each Sunday of the regular season, either CBS or FOX air two games in a doubleheader package, while the other network may show only one game. Late games scheduled to air on the network showing only one game are scheduled to start at 4:00pm EST, while the second game of a doubleheader will kick off later at 4:25pm; this is to avoid conflicts with 1:00pm games that have run late.〔(NFL pushes late doubleheader games back to 4:25 p.m. ET )〕 The schedule allows for 4 other regular time slots, in which these games are broadcast nationally across the country: # One Sunday night game, which has been regularly scheduled since 1987, and has aired on NBC since 2006. # One Monday Night Football game, which has been regularly scheduled since 1970, and has been appearing on ESPN since 2006. Also since 2006, two games have been on the first Monday of the season. The practice of holding a Monday night game during the last week of the season ended after the 2002 season due to, among other reasons, low ratings, and a competitive imbalance involved for potential playoff teams who would have one less day of rest before the postseason. # On Thursday nights since 2006, one game has been played and aired on the NFL Network on the weeks including and after Thanksgiving Day. In addition, during the day on Thanksgiving, the NFL has played Thanksgiving Day games since 1920; by tradition the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions always host these afternoon games. Beginning with the 2012 season, the NFL has played games on Thursday nights for the whole season. # Should there be a need for it, an occasional Friday or Saturday night game, only in late December, due to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. December Saturday games (night and, before 2006, day as well) were a regular part of the schedule through 2011. Since the 2006 season, the NFL has used a "flexible scheduling" system for the last seven weeks of the regular season when there is a Sunday night game. In 2014, that was expanded to include weeks 5 - 17.〔http://www.nfl.com/flexible-schedules〕 Flex scheduling ensures quality matchups on Sunday nights and it allows for surprise teams to play in primetime. 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 regular season」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|